Chapter Twenty-Five

"Jacky, open your damn eyes," Niko snarled.

Ow.

"Yeah, ow," Niko snapped, both with his voice and his fingers near my ear.

My head and body hurt, but that wasn't my eyes. I opened them to see Niko and Davor looking down at me, trees over them, reaching to the sky.

"How long have I been out this time?" I asked, groaning as I pushed up, both of them giving me very little space to do so.

"Only a few minutes," Davor answered. "A lot happened in those few minutes, though."

"Of course…" I rubbed my forehead. "I need people to stop giving me head trauma. I can't handle this many concussions."

"As a werecat, you're not as susceptible to long-term issues from it as humans are, but yeah, you need to slow down," Niko said as he put a hand on my back, and with his help, I got to my feet. I wasn't dizzy, and my vision was clear. Everything felt fine except for the generalized pain. Looking around, I didn't recognize the trees, though, and that did make my pulse jump.

"Where are we?"

"When we saw you go down, we grabbed you and retreated," Niko explained. "We only took a break to see if we could get you awake, actually. We need to keep moving."

"Did you see who hit me?" I asked, remembering more and more of how I went down and got knocked out.

"Oh, yeah, but before I could get him, the werecat got in my way. Davor had to take a shot at him, and he backed off, giving him enough time to run for you and grab you. I followed once I could get the damn werecat off me, and we ran."

"There's a witch here," I said simply, knowing it for certain. "Couldn't smell his damn magic, but I know that guy was a witch. Something was… so off until then. Plus, he hit me hard, and that really makes me think he used some magic to make sure it was enough."

"We'll talk about it once we confirm we're not being followed," Niko said quickly.

Niko started moving, and Davor grabbed my arm to make me follow with him.

"Can we walk and talk? I think the witch was kind of a big deal, and we need to discuss it."

"There's more than one," Davor said softly.

That made me ill to think about.

"How… What…" I couldn't think of the right question. I had a dozen, but I couldn't string a single sentence together.

"Another set the house on fire, and while I was running for you, I saw the one who attacked you running to another…" Davor growled softly.

"You understand what this means, right?" I asked, panic rising in me. I grabbed Davor's shirt tightly, forcing him to look at me, not that he fought at all. "Right?"

"Only theories," Davor said, his expression slowly changing as he looked me in the eye.

"They're controlling that werecat!" I damn near screamed at my brother.

Niko turned around and clapped a hand over my mouth, using his other arm to yank my free one behind me.

"You need to take a deep breath and calm down, Jacky. We don't know that."

I shook hard, trying to throw off his grip. I did know. I knew all too well. It had to be. There was no other explanation.

"It's the most plausible explanation," Davor said, reaching out to touch my shoulder with one hand while the other gently pushed Niko. "She's more than likely right about this. It was a thought I had, but… I've never seen the magic. She's saved a werewolf pack from it."

Niko released me, but I was staring at Davor, grateful for his belief in me and what I had seen before.

"And we couldn't smell the magic," I pointed out. "That family in Dallas… they were the ones who figured out how to do that while they schemed against the pack, and they sold that secret. They had admitted as much. We still haven't figured it out. It only makes sense they sold it to…" I trailed off, looking at Davor, the panic still in me, but with someone else in the same line of thought as me, I was comforted.

"Like-minded individuals," Davor finished for me, nodding. "With the strange behavior…"

"We don't have time right now to put this together," Niko snarled, stepping a bit between us. "We need to move. We need to find shelter of any sort and think of something when we're certain they haven't followed us. We were taken off guard and we've lost all of our equipment thanks to them getting the jump on us. We have my claws and Davor's gun. That's it." He glanced my way at the end, and I knew what he left unsaid.

"I—"

"Later," he snapped.

I looked at Davor, who shook his head. We followed Niko, moving quickly as it became apparent that I wasn't so injured that I couldn't keep a good pace. I was sore, but I wasn't certain they were as well, and they weren't slowed down.

As we moved, it became apparent that we weren't being followed, at least not closely. With that, we ended up stopping after only a few hours, with an hour of it knee-to-waist deep in a cold stream. Because Niko refused to talk, I had a lot of time to think and plan what I wanted to make sure we discussed the moment we stopped.

"That should make our trail hard to follow for long enough to talk and figure out our next move." Niko sat down on a log near the stream, not looking at Davor or me.

"Why didn't the witch kill me outright?" I asked as I sat down next to him but looking in the opposite direction.

"My first theory is simple. Make sure the werecat did the final kill so they could kill us all, and there would be little evidence of their own presence," Davor answered, sitting beside me and not Niko, which I couldn't help but notice.

It probably doesn't mean anything.

"Aside from the house fire, which they absolutely would have taken their time making sure that no one could link to someone else. They'll stage it to look like we caused it or the fighting," Niko said with an agitated grumble. He was clearly holding back the topic he had avoided earlier even though he was pissed by it.

"Just ask, Niko," I said with a sigh, knowing I was part of his frustration. We had none of our gear. We were caught off guard. This was a disaster, and part of it was my fault. I knew he wanted to talk about it.

"What the fuck happened? Why didn't you raise the alarm? I got up for something else and found you about to get killed!" he ended with a frustrated yell.

"I think it was magic," I admitted softly. "I tried. Once I got past the initial shock, I opened my mouth, and… nothing would come out. I don't know what happened, but it felt so wrong. In fact, there was a part of my watch that felt… unfocused. I couldn't…" I lowered my head. "I know it sounds… like I'm trying to cover for myself, but I swear if I was distracted, I would admit it. I…" Guilt ate at me even though I was certain that I hadn't gotten that distracted without some external influence.

"Why did you get up?" Davor asked casually, the most collected of the three of us.

"I wanted to talk to Jacky about something, and it felt right to wake up early because I can handle that better than her and it would have given us privacy to discuss it," he answered without any hesitation. "Not that we need to keep secrets from you, but it felt right to speak to her alone."

"Of course. I don't think you have any secrets I would need to know anymore. What was it?" Davor's curiosity felt out of left field, but I made no effort to get us back on topic. I wanted to know what Niko was thinking when he got up, and it took the spotlight off my failing.

"How she snapped at me at the BSA," Niko muttered. "Feels childish to think about now."

"It feels childish, but I understand. I'll explain." I turned on the log to be able to look at him. "I was thinking about how those humans were dead. There was that werecat out here that was going to need to die, and it was all such a tragedy. It felt disrespectful to the dead, wasting time to mess with the BSA," I answered, sighing. "It's not because I wanted to protect the feelings of the BSA agents we were dealing with."

"Ah." Niko nodded. "I try not to think of these things in that light."

"I couldn't help it."

"It's fine," Niko bumped my shoulder with his. "Really. We all deal with it. I said I try not to think of these things in that light. I'm not always successful. This is…" Niko trailed off, but Davor quickly picked up.

"Our worst nightmare," he said in a whisper. "The Last Change is our worst nightmare."

"It's better for me not to ever dwell on that, so I try not to. I try to detach. Getting caught up in the feelings can be a distraction." Niko didn't look at me, still staring in the direction we had come from. "I don't want to die… but you were right to say something to me. I hadn't realized I was crossing the line of disrespect. The dead deserve that, at the very least. They lost everything else. The least I can do is be respectful and handle things quickly and efficiently."

"Thanks," I said, bumping his shoulder with mine. He bumped back, then stood.

"We can't stay here for very long. We need to double back and try to get the jump on them next time. They couldn't have been using that cabin as a base, but I bet they're close to it."

"I agree, but we don't know their numbers," Davor pointed out.

"And we don't have any of our things," I added. "We have a dart gun and your silver claws, and that's pretty much it, right?"

"Yeah, and I don't have much ammunition on me," Davor said with a huff. "I got a tracker into the werecat, but no computer…"

"Well, we'll get back to the cabin and see if we can scrounge anything," Niko said, shrugging. "We'll go in with stealth to maybe kill whoever is lingering by it, maybe get a jump on any traps they might have set…" Niko looked at Davor. "You know lots about traps, brother."

"I do," Davor confirmed with a humorless chuckle. "They'll have one set for us. Without a doubt. If they aren't willing to chase us, but they have our gear, they'll expect us to go back. If some of them did leave, we'll be able to find that trail and follow them. We're clearly investigating more than we previously considered, and now we have no way to contact anyone else."

"Which means this is on us," I said, nodding. "I can Change, but someone will need to keep my clothes with them."

"I'll carry them and stash them before we pick any fights, so they aren't destroyed," Niko said, stepping away a little further.

"Thanks." I stepped away, putting my back to them. Quickly, I looked over my shoulder to see they also turned their backs to me. It was just to be polite, and while it was unnecessary, I was grateful. I got through it quickly, seeing Niko folding my clothing by the time I was on four paws and finished with my Change.

"How do you feel?" Davor asked me, coming closer.

I flexed my claws into the earth, stretching as I knew I would be moving and fighting like this.

"Good," I answered simply, knowing they would both hear it. My telepathy was really simple and easy to use. Neither seemed disturbed nor thrown off by it, prepared for my mental intrusion in their heads. I knew it could bother other moon cursed. A werecat wasn't supposed to be able to do it.

"We'll have to track back near our initial trail here," Niko started explaining. "That means we can potentially run into issues with those who attacked us. We need to be prepared for anything, but if we see a small group or just the werecat, we need to take advantage of it and take them out. The werecat as well. I understand you both really believe in the theory that it's under the control of the witches, but whether we break that control purposely or accidentally, we are still faced with a werecat in the Last Change."

"Certainly," Davor agreed, and I nodded my head, not needing to say anything to that.

We started moving as a unit, the energy of our group as changed as my form. We had gotten to this point, running from a fight that had caught us off guard.

Now, we were looking for that fight.