Trajectory

“The airbag knocked your arm out of the socket and your arm hit you in the head and knocked you out,” The EMT said almost gleefully.

“I have to get to Chloe. What time is it?” he said again.

“It’s almost two. You were knocked out for a while. You’re going to the hospital.”

“I can’t go to the hospital. I have to get to Chloe.” Her shift would be starting soon, but she was always early. Chloe was already there with him and there was no way to warn her. “I need a phone.”

He jumped up and took off running toward his truck with the EMT yelling after him. “You need to go to the hospital.” Brent couldn’t go to the hospital, but his head was swimming. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He just had to get the rest of the way to the bar and make sure Chloe was okay. He hoped he wasn’t too late. He backed his truck away from the tree without too much struggle. It had dug down into the soil, so he had to rev it a couple of times to break free. The airbag was deflated, but the powder from it shooting out was all over the car. It flew around him as he drove toward the Barcade, knowing the police was probably unhappy he was driving recklessly with what was probably a concussion, since he’d been out. He needed to fight through it, though. Chloe was depending on him.

Despite thinking he was going to pass out a couple of times, he finally made it to the bar. He saw Deidra waiting on a table and the two old men. There were two families in the Barcade, but he didn’t see Ash or Chloe.

“Where’s Chloe?” he managed to ask Deidra.

“You look like hell,” she said.

“Chloe, where’s Chloe?”

“Ash said she called in sick and then he took off. I was already here drinking, so I just started working for her.”

“Let me see your phone,” he yelled at her.

“Dude, chill here.”

He called her and got no answer. The phone was ringing, he could hear the tone she had put for him. It was an inside joke from high school. She’d been there. He followed the sound to the back of the bar and saw her purse in its usual spot. She hadn’t called in sick. He was too late. Now what the hell was he going to do?

“Think, think,” he said to himself as he ran back out to the truck, trying not to see the dented bumper in front of it and the smashed out headlight.

Where would Ash take her? He went back to her house to see if he could find any clues. He stopped himself because she’d been taken from work, so that didn’t really make any sense. Okay, he would go to the police. Maybe they would help. He turned the truck in that direction, not holding his breath that they’d actually do anything for him.

Chloe woke up and put a hand to her head. It hurt. What the hell had happened to her? She couldn’t move her legs, and looking down she realized they were tied together. She was in Ash’s car. Now she remembered he’d knocked her out. He was humming as he drove and hitting his leg along to his own beat.

It had been before her shift when she went into his office to confront him. She’d put the lighter down on his desk and her hands on her hips. “Why were you at my house last night, and why don’t I remember anything?”

“My Zippo. Chloe, thank you so much. It was stolen from me and I didn’t know what happened to it. Maybe you took it last night if you don’t remember anything, you party girl,” he’d joked. “Were you hitting the sauce on the job last night?” He’d laughed.

“No, Ash, I wasn’t. I know you know what’s going on. I want to know what’s going on and why you were at my house last night.”

“Well, Chloe.” His expression had turned dark. “It’s like this.” He’d stood from behind his desk, walked up to her, and hit her as hard as he could, knocking her to the floor. Now she was in the passenger side of his car and the only thing she could think to do was shift. She did without thinking, shrank down into the bird, and flew at him, going for his eyes with her beak.

“Chill out, little bird.” He swatted at her. “You aren’t just going to hurt me if you wreck this car. Isn’t that right, Zazie love?”

She stopped flying at his head and flew to the back of the car where the hatchback was. Sure enough, Zazie was tied up back there and looked up at her. “Hi, sweetheart, I’m sorry. He knows where my kid is.”

Chloe tilted her head, not sure what that meant, but flew back up to the front and shifted back, glad she always shifted in her clothes. The first few times Layla had shifted she ended up naked in front of someone, embarrassing herself. It was a strange time to think of that. “Why the hell do you have her tied up in your trunk?”

“Same as you, she knows who I am now. I’m terribly sorry about knocking you out, Chloe. I panicked.”

“So your name is not Ash Manning?”

“Well, it is now and has been since I was eighteen. I quietly made my way in Woodland Creek, first working for a bar, then buying one.”

“It’s not Ash Manning, though, I always thought that was such a strange name.”

“Let me tell you a little story of a boy named Draven Thomas, son of two very different parents. One, his father a wolf shifter who hated daily that his only son, a very impressionable fourteen-year-old wasn’t a shifter. Two, his mother a very powerful wizard who hated the fact that her same son wasn’t coming into his magic. Now this boy, he loved his parents very much and tried to make them happy doing all their dark deeds. Trust me, with Mother there were plenty of dark deeds to be done. Finally, he’d gotten his mother’s attention when he turned fifteen and his magic started to show, but for some reason she needed another son. That’s when Samuel came into my life.”

“Oh my God,” Zazie said from the back of the car. “You’re Sarmia’s boy.”

“Yes, and you know what happened to Sarmia?” Ash yelled, almost running off the road. “When your darling boy was old enough to sleep with his foster mother, he did, and my father killed her in his wolf form and ate her heart.”