I drew a breath to scream, but before a sound came out of my throat a hand was slapped over my mouth. At the same time someone grabbed my arms and bent them behind my back. I jerked, trying to fight free, but they held me tight.
“What did you do with those photos?” a man asked.
In my first burst of panic everything was a blur. Unable to move, breathing hard through my nose, I slowly focused my senses on the man in front of me.
He looked—not quite right. The proportions of his body were off somehow, like a photo that had been stretched vertically. But the weirdness was more scary than amusing. His eyes were hot and hard, sort of like a stray dog I’d seen once.
“Where are the photos?” he repeated.
The hand withdrew from my mouth.
I screamed, or tried to. The hand slapped across my mouth again before any sound emerged. Someone whacked me hard on the back of the head.
Two men, there were two men holding me. With the one in front of me talking, that made three. I’d never escape three of them.
But I had to escape. I didn’t know what they wanted, but it wasn’t good.
The man glared at me. “Don’t try that again. Where are they?”
This time when the hand slid off my mouth, I whispered, “I don’t know.”
It was the man in front who hit me this time. I reeled back against the men holding me.
My jaw hurt. Against my most fervent desire not to show any emotion, the tears sprang to my eyes. I regretted ever deciding to go swimming instead of studying calculus. I wanted nothing more than to be safely tucked into a study carrel in the library working on derivatives. Anywhere would be better than here.
But then they’d be attacking Becky.
Becky! They wanted her, not me. And if we were still here in—I furiously estimated the time—another twenty minutes, she’d walk in the door and be captured too.
“I put them in my safe deposit box,” I lied. That’s where Mama and Daddy put all their important papers.
“Where’s that?”
“At the bank.”
“Which one?” he asked suspiciously.
“Premiere Northern Credit Union.” I named the first bank that popped into my head. I didn’t even have an account there. But it had a branch across the street from the college that I passed by every day.
“We can’t take her inside the bank,” said one of the men holding me.
My heart sank. I’d been counting on being able to scream for help there.
“We’ll take her with us,” the one who’d been questioning me decided. “Get some clothes on her.”
They nearly dragged me into Becky’s room. I’d never be able to put on any of her clothes. She was miles taller and thinner. I managed to motion to the spare room. “In there.”
They didn’t question me, just pushed me inside with the order to get dressed. I slid my shorts on over my wet swimsuit and pulled on my tee and shoved my feet in my sandals.
They marched me out the door and down the stairs and along the walkway to the parking lot, where a black SUV sat in the fire lane with its motor running.
No one saw us. All the people living in that complex, and not a single soul was outside.
I balked. If I got in the SUV, who knows what would happen to me. I kicked the shin of one of the men holding me, which got me nothing but a twisted arm and yanked hair. They threw me in the backseat, where I was sandwiched between two of them.
Then the SUV took off, with me frozen with fear inside it.
I came to with a human man kneeling beside me, his face full of suspicious concern.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
When I lunged to my feet, he instantly drew back. Ignoring him, I whipped my gaze around. No one visible outside but me and the man, who was staring at me with a look of alarm. My bear was yammering at me.
“Did you see anyone else?” I barked, shoving my bear to the background. He could come out when I told him to, and not before.
The man sidled away from me. “No.”
The girl. I’d been watching her through the screen of shrubbery between two buildings when I was attacked. I raced around the corner of the hedge and up the stairs.
The apartment door opened without my having to pick the lock.
They’d been there. Wolf scent tinged with some chemical flavor overlay the girl’s sweet scent.
I checked all the rooms even though I knew she was already gone. Her panties lay forlorn on the bed. I slipped them in my pocket.
I followed the wolf scent out to the parking lot. Gone.
And the girl with them.