Justice
Chapter Twelve
The three of us wanted to give Bonnie space and quiet, and we also needed to talk. That led us outside, but before we could get a word in edgewise, our bears were pushing to get out. They wanted to check the land, make sure it was safe, make sure she was protected.
“Are you feeling it too?” I asked.
Archer pulled his shirt off. “You mean the need to get in our fur and run the perimeter, mark the perimeter, and then do it again?”
Dallas was already taking off his pants. “Yeah, I guess we’re all feeling that.”
We took our fur.
My bear took over completely, pushing me back, making sure every inch of our border was scented, marked, and clear, which gave me too much time to think.
Think about how much our lives had changed with one female walking into our store.
I didn’t know what her story was or why she was here, but I swore to the goddess we were going to do right by her.
Our beasts insisted on doing the run three times.
Afterward, we shifted far enough away from the house that we could talk and not be heard.
She didn’t need to be disturbed by us. Her day was stressful enough.
Bonnie needed sleep, pampering, and a steady life.
If she was allowed it, we would gladly give it to her.
Dallas was the first to speak. “Something’s not right. Nothing about Bonnie adds up the way it should.”
“I know.” Archer grabbed the back of his neck. “She’s way too skinny, and she jumps at everything. She’s scared. I don’t know of what, but I want to find out what it is and decimate it.”
“I wonder if she got mixed up with unsavory people, or maybe her family was…” I didn’t have a word for it.
“She doesn’t have a phone. She doesn’t have a bank account.
She won’t give us an address. She won’t give us a last name.
People enjoying legal everyday lives don’t do that.
But she’s not a criminal. My gut tells me she’s innocent in whatever it is that has pushed her to be here. ”
Dallas paced back and forth, his bear still on edge despite our three border runs. I wouldn’t be surprised to find him doing another in the morning.
“She seems to trust us, though,” Archer said. “At least enough that she’s here.”
“Does that mean trust or that our place is just better than where she was?” Dallas asked.
Sometimes, Dallas’ words were a little too blunt. I wasn’t ready to hear that. My bear was doubly agitated, knowing how hard her life must’ve been.
“I’ll figure it out. I promise,” I said.
Dallas looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You’re not going to betray her in any way. I know that.” He grabbed my shoulder. “But I feel like I need to say it, because if I don’t, I’m somehow letting her down. Does that make sense?”
“I get that, and trust me, I didn’t take offense to it. I won’t betray her”—my beast would never allow it— “but I am going to look into things in a way that she won’t know.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “That’s not what I meant. In a way that it won’t come back to her.”
“This has you flustered,” Archer said.
How could it not?
Each of us had very different skill sets, and mine made me a whiz at computers.
I could see patterns.
I could find anomalies.
I could dig where most people couldn’t.
We walked back to our clothes and went inside, each of us heading to our own space, each handling this situation very differently.
I didn’t go to sleep; I couldn’t. Instead, I pulled up my laptop and began searching.
I started with the normal searches—missing person reports for “Bonnie,” local records. All of them were dead ends. Every single thing, including looking into miniatures, thinking that maybe she had been seen at a show or something. Her work was too good to think it was all hidden away.
I kept on digging and digging.
Hours later, I was no closer than when the night had started. But people don’t just not exist. She wasn’t teleported into our town, and she had a bicycle. Bicycles weren’t for super long distances, especially not one as old hers was.
I checked census records and pack registries. I looked for midwives to see if any indications on their websites might connect back to when she was born. Nothing. It was like she was invisible.
I was someone who could find anyone with just a clue or two. With her—nothing. I leaned back, the sun getting ready to rise.
I refused to give up. I replayed the day, dissecting every detail, and I kept coming back to that bike.
It was rusty, old, and falling apart. But it also wasn’t like anything I’d seen before.
I went outside and took a picture of it, including the label that had once had serial numbers scratched on it.
I began cross-referencing everything about the bike, and that was when I found it, my first real lead.
The bike was a limited run. It wasn’t mass-produced; it was custom and old.
But that wasn’t enough. I needed to find what region it was sold in, where it was distributed, if it had any ties to packs.
Anything that could get me closer to where that bike went after it was made.
It was a very real possibility she’d picked it up at a junk store, but I didn’t think so.
Tapping, tapping, tapping away, I looked at birth reports, lineage records, rumors, and parts of the web people didn’t know existed—archives, anything and everything.
And then I found it. A pack known for alpha-heavy bloodlines.
Multiple mentions of Omega Scarcity and problems when omegas were born.
They were the ones who commissioned the bikes, which meant they had most if not all of them at one point.
My jaw tightened. Natural selection doesn’t create alpha-heavy bloodlines, no matter what pack histories might say. Omega scarcities were created. Which meant she wasn’t hidden away for no reason.
I kept digging further and further. Stillbirth after stillbirth, being recorded with a midwife, present and death records for babies and toddlers. Never an alpha child.
The fact that they tested and noted the designation in utero and at birth ran chills through me. That is never done for a good reason…ever.
More tapping, more tapping, as I started to piece together the most disturbing possibility of where she came from. If things had happened the way the clues were heading, her being here was a miracle.