The truck was turning out of the driveway to the house. There was nowhere else this man could’ve gone.
Pauline hesitated—and then hurled herself forward as quickly as she could, flying like mad to get to the house. She just wanted to see—
The house was fine. Quiet. A quick circuit of it sho
wed that the two younger kids were asleep in bed, and Drew was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his hands.
What had that man been doing there?
Well, Pauline was aiming to find out. She wheeled around and flew as fast as she could back towards town. Fortunately, she didn’t have to follow the roads, so—guessing that the truck was going back to town and not further off into the woods—she cut over the forest in the hopes of catching up.
The shortcut worked. Scanning the roads from high up in the air, she caught sight of the old truck up ahead, just about to hit a winding, bumpy patch that went over a hill. Pauline didn’t have to care about the hill, the bumps, or the winding, so at last she was able to catch up.
She stayed even with the truck from then on, as high up as she could manage, so he didn’t catch sight of her pacing him and get suspicious. It was always best to assume, in this town, that everyone knew about shifters and that any suspicious behavior in an animal would be marked and responded to as though it were a human.
Eventually, on the other side of town, the truck pulled into a driveway. Pauline frowned. Whose house was that?
She spiraled down and landed in a tree outside one of the windows. It was open, and she could hear male voices from the inside. A second later, the door opened, and another voice joined the crowd.
“Well?” demanded a harsh voice. Pauline recognized it, and it chilled her. That was Ryan, the leader of a wolf pack a town or two over. Stella’s ex-boyfriend Todd had been part of the pack before his arrest, and from what Pauline knew, they were up to no good.
Were they trying to expand out here? Hadn’t the way Todd had been humiliated, defeated, and locked up taught them a lesson?
But maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it had only made them mad.
“He’ll do it,” said another voice. The man who had just come in? Pauline thought so. The background conversation was otherwise still going on.
“Good,” said the harsh voice, sounding satisfied. “And you made it clear what would happen to him if he punked out?”
“Sure did,” said the newcomer. “He’s not going to be straying one step out of line. Not if he cares about what happens to those two little babies he’s taking care of.”
They all laughed.
Pauline’s wings felt frozen. Her feet were locked in place, clutching the branch she stood on.
What had Drew gotten into?
It had to be something criminal. The threats made that clear. Maybe drugs. Or something even more illegal.
He was trying to find a way to provide for his siblings, she knew. And maybe this was the only way he could see.
Why hadn’t she acted earlier? Drew always insisted he was fine, taking after his mother, but she could have insisted. She could have made him let her do—something. Give him money. She didn’t have much of anything left over from her parents’ medical expenses, but she could’ve gotten a loan or something, enough to cover the cost of whatever this was going to get him.
Right?
Maybe.
If only she’d taken action sooner.
Shaking herself, she forced her wings to work. The air felt freezing around her as she took off.
What was she going to do?
***
The question echoed through her mind all night, invading her dreams and interrupting her sleep.
In the morning, though, she had an answer. It wasn’t a very good answer, but it was all she had.