She nodded and turned her head to look at him. “Yeah. Just tired. Driving long distances is hard. I don’t know how people do this. Like truckers? Total props to them. I couldn’t take it.”
Ippy yawned loudly, smacked his lips together and brushed his dark brown curls off his face. His hair looked even more messy than it usually did because he’d slept on it. Having shorter hair would have been easier for him to keep nice, but he rarely let anyone cut it. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a haircut, but it’d been at least a few years.
She lifted her head from the wheel and paused the navigation on her phone. She’d charged it the night before, but it was still getting low.
What do you think they’re doing in class today?
Ippy asked her as she put a few things in her pockets and got ready to get out.
Hannah shrugged. “Being bored. Reading books you and I have already read. Finding the root of something. Dunno, but definitely not having as much fun as we are. Right?” She forced a smile and hoped he’d return it, but he didn’t even look at her as she opened her door.
Right.
Hannah tried not to think about Ippy’s increasingly dark mood as she got out of the car. He’d decided to come along, she hadn't made him. But she was glad he had. She shut the car door and came around to his side. He was slow at getting out and she really wanted to get inside and get something to eat. “C’mon Ippy, I’m hungry,” she said as he opened the door only a little bit. Even his wolf looked gloomy, like a big black cloud around his head. She figured that was probably pretty fitting for him at the moment.
A few minutes later, though, he’d gotten out of the car and they were going inside the diner, which was a lot smaller and darker than she could have imagined. Oh well, they were only going to be there for lunch. A sign told them to seat themselves, so she found a booth against the window where the bright sunlight could stream in on them.
“Do you want to wait for your parents before you order?” a waitress asked them moments later.
Ippy blanched and Hannah fumbled for a reasonable lie. “Uh…no. That’s fine. They told us to go ahead and get what we wanted. Do you have milkshakes?”
The waitress looked a bit skeptical, but nodded as she pulled out a pad of paper. “Yep. Sure do. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. Which would you like?”
“Vanilla,” she answered instantly before the waitress turned her attention to Ippy.
“And for you?” she asked him.
Hannah frowned. They’d never been out to eat together before. “He can’t speak.” The waitress flushed and looked uncomfortable. Ippy gave her a look and she shrugged at him, unsure of how to answer the woman’s question without telling her that. He had paper and his phone, he could write out his answers like he did in class. Biting back a sigh she looked at the specials for the day, wondering what to get him. No one had a menu and the waitress hadn’t brought any over, so maybe this was somewhere that didn’t have one, as weird as that was to her.
She leaned over the table toward him, ignoring the waitress who hadn’t spoken or moved since she’d let out Ippy’s secret. Well, one of them anyway. “Hey. Want to split some fried stuff with me?”
His bright blue eyes met hers briefly and he gave her the slightest of nods. That was good enough for her. She gave the waitress her best, most reassuring smile and hoped the fact that they’d run away to go rescue a boy that had tattered fur wasn’t obvious. “Do you have chicken tenders? With fries?”
The waitress nodded. “And if you’re doing a fried lunch we also have clam strips, zucchini and mushrooms.”
Hannah’s stomach chose that moment to growl and she put her hand over it. Granola bars really hadn’t cut it as far as food went. “Sure. All of that. And a chocolate shake for him.”
“Sure you can eat all that?” she asked.
Hannah nodded and wondered if the waitress would be asking her that if she was thirty instead of fifteen. Probably not, which really irritated her. She might not have been an adult, yet, but she could figure out what she wanted to eat, for crying out loud. The waitress walked away and Hannah turned back to Ippy, glad she was gone so that she could stop giving them looks.
She’s talking about me. I don’t like when people talk about me. I’m not a freak,
Ippy said, not looking up from the table.
Hannah turned and, upon seeing the waitress talking to a woman behind the register, glared at her. She couldn’t hear what the women were saying, but Ippy certainly could with his super werewolf hearing, and she didn’t like when people made her best friend unhappy, especially when they called him a freak. It wasn’t a word he ever used, so she knew it had to come from one of them. She got up before Ippy could tell her not to and walked over to them. They were quiet the instant she approached, but she recognized the look of someone caught gossiping from the girls in her class.
“First of all, its rude to talk about people, even when they’re not your customers. And also my best friend is special, not whatever names you were calling him. He’s a great guy and deserves an apology,” Hannah said, crossing her arms over her chest. Sure, the woman was at least twice her age, and she was just a teenage girl. But she was the daughter of the third in a pack of werewolves and her best friend deserved better what this woman had done. She didn’t stand for anyone making fun of him, even when they were in her own pack, so there was no reason she was going to ignore these women doing the same to him.
“I didn’t—”
“We were—”
Hannah ignored their excuses, apologies, or whatever else they were going to be doing as she turned and stormed back to her table with Ippy. As much as she wanted to just get up and leave, say screw it to that waitress and this tiny little diner, she was hungry, and hadn’t seen another sign for food in a long time. So she sat down and pursed her lips, wishing she could do more to protect him from people like that. “It’s all better,” she said soothingly to him.
I don’t like her.
She snorted and smiled at him as he lifted his gaze from the table. “Yeah. I don’t either.”
A man came to their table a few minutes later. Hannah looked up at him, wondering if they were maybe going to get thrown out for her snapping at the women. She wouldn’t apologize, absolutely not. But she would feel bad about being the reason they didn’t get food.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Tom, the manager here.”
She tensed up, waiting to hear whatever it was that he thought he was entitled to saying. If it was anything other than an apology though she knew she was going to be pretty pissed off at him.
But the first words out of his mouth surprised her. “The hostess told me what happened. And I am so very sorry. That is absolutely not how we treat customers. Tell me what I can do for you to make this up to you.”
Hannah bit her bottom lip and looked across the table at Ippy. He looked just as uncertain as she felt. “Um…Our food? We’d like to eat it.” Okay well that came out lamely, but she couldn’t very well fix it now.
“Of course. Your meal is on me. Absolutely. Anything else?”
She shook her head, not wanting to push into getting more, even if she had no idea what she would actually want. She had one task, aside from making sure Ippy was safe of course, and she doubted this manager could do that for her.
He smiled at them both and stepped away. About ten minutes later their food was delivered along with their milkshakes by a different waitress, and she and Ippy quietly ate in silence, sharing their food and their milkshakes just like they did at home.
“You two are a little far from home aren’t you?”
Hannah looked up at the man that had spoken. He was older and wore a worn out jean jacket. His face had crinkles around it, especially around his eyes. Kind of like a worn out, raggedy Santa. Only missing the beard.
“How do you know we aren’t from here?” she asked him suspiciously as she narrowed her gaze at him. He wasn’t looking at her—instead he had his attention on Ippy and she didn’t like that one bit. “Hey, I said how did you—”
He turned back to her with a smile, but it wasn’t comforting at all and she found her stomach getting twisted into a tight knot as he stared down at her.
He’s scary,
Ippy told her. Hannah gave him a nod. She thought so, too.
The man rapped his knuckles against the table. “Well, you kids have fun out here.”
Hannah watched him go back to the booth he was sharing with another man. When he looked at her, though, she quickly turned around. “We should hurry,” she whispered to Ippy. She didn’t want to be in the diner any longer.
They were on the road again within half an hour with country music coming in through the speakers. “Sheesh, that guy was creepy,” she said, leaning down to turn up the stereo.
Ippy made a face.
He made me feel weird.
Hannah shook her head. “Me, too. Glad we’re out of there. But the milkshakes were good. Right?” Ippy nodded and Hannah forced herself to relax a bit as she sang along to one of her favorite songs. They entered the town that the ISP had said the message came from, and she slowed down, taking in the sights of the apparently sleepy little town. She’d seen a few like this along the east coast, but back then she’d only wanted to spend time with her dads. Now she was on a rescue mission. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, anxiety making her restless as she pulled over on what appeared to be Main Street.
What’s the plan?
Hannah frowned and looked around for some form of inspiration. “Dunno. I mean, I know the message came from somewhere in this town. And it’s not that big. But I’d sort of hoped to be able to walk into town and see…something? Maybe? I guess.” She sighed and turned off the car, wanting to think for a moment.
There’s that creepy guy again.
She turned to see the direction he was looking and saw him, too. The men were together, pulling up to a convenience store. “Get down,” she whispered though she knew they couldn’t hear her as she slumped into the seat. Ippy came down with her and she watched them as they walked around the store.
What are we doing?
“Spying.”
She hid until they came out of the store and got into their car. Only then did she pop up, start the car back up again and slowly pull out into traffic a few lengths behind them.
What are you doing now?
Ippy hissed angrily into her mind.
Hannah waved him off as she hunched over the steering wheel, intent on making sure they didn’t spot her behind a big truck that moved between their cars.
We aren’t following them.
Hannah nodded. “We are.”
Why are we following the creepy man?
She rolled her eyes and her mouth tightened. “Because I have a hunch.”
He crossed his arms over his chest as if he was sulking, but said nothing more as she followed the car onto a side street. The trees were bigger and grew closer together the further they moved out of the town.
I don’t like this,
Ippy said as the car in front of them turned onto another small street.
“What part?”
He glared at her.
The part where you chase after a strange man.
Hannah leaned back in the seat. “Yeah. You’re right. It was a stupid idea anyway. Hang on, I’m going to get us turned around. Maybe we can ask someone if they’ve seen the selkie.”
She saw Ippy nod out of the corner of her eye, but completely missed the car that hit them from the side. She heard the awful crunch of metal and thought about how mad his parents were going to be at her before the pain registered and she felt it lace up her side. “Ippy…” she coughed out, hating that she could taste blood in her mouth. “You okay?”
Movement caught her attention from the side where they’d been hit and she turned to see the creepy man and his friend walking toward them. She reached for Ippy, wanting to make sure he was okay, but couldn’t get to him before one of the men opened his door and pulled an unconscious Ippy out of his seat.
“Let him go!” she screamed as she struggled out of the seatbelt that was trapping her.
They ignored her and she kept screaming as they took Ippy and put him in the back of their car. Which, she now realized, was the one currently imbedded into the side of the one she had been driving. Another man joined them, this one much younger than the other two, and when she met his black eyes her breath caught. Hannah could hardly begin to believe it, but she was staring at her selkie. He was nearly a man now, and nearly as big as the largest wolf in her class. In her shock she forgot to fight as hands grabbed her and roughly pulled her from the car. It was only when another man came into her line of sight, blocking the selkie from her view, that she snapped out of it and started fighting him. But he was too strong and screaming only lasted until he stuffed a rag in her mouth. She was bound moments later and tossed into the trunk of the car they’d been in next to an unconscious Ippy.
She tried to struggle as the car started moving, but the stiff nylon rope wrapped around her was much too tight for any sort of movement. So she waited, furious and hurt, until she could come up with a way to get her and Ippy out of this. And to find out why the selkie was helping the men who had grabbed them.
* * * *
Ippy started to regain consciousness as she felt the car roll to a stop some time later. She had no way of knowing how long it had been, but it didn’t feel like more than ten minutes at the most, so the men must have lived pretty close to the town.
She lay uncomfortably still, unable to do much else as the car stopped and the trunk was opened a few seconds later. One of the men grabbed Ippy and she watched helplessly as he was taken away from her. It was her turn next as the selkie came and seemingly picked her up with little effort. She was slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, knocking the air from her lungs as she kicked against his chest as much as she could with her legs being bound together at the ankles, which admittedly wasn’t very much. From her position at his back she couldn’t see where they were or where they were taking her. She only knew that they were walking on grass until she heard a door open and suddenly she was flipped over and tossed onto a bed in a dark room. Her hands were lifted above her head and she was tied to a wooden headboard.