* * * * *
It was 7:55 a.m., and Flora had worked until two a.m. the night before. She yawned as she handed over three bags of Starweed and a bag of croissants to Madison. Sam immediately began rooting around in the bag of croissants. Sarah hadn’t come; apparently she wasn’t a morning person.
“Don’t touch them all with your grubby fingers,” Madison said with annoyance. “Pick one!” He crossed his eyes at her and pulled two out, and handed her one. “Finger cooties,” she complained, but took a bite anyway.
“You still didn’t think I would show up?” Flora suggested to Sam.
He shrugged. “Maybe,” he conceded, tearing a piece off a croissant. “Like fifty-fifty.”
“Whoa. We’re really making some progress in the trust department,” Flora said cheerfully. “When it gets to sixty-forty, I’m going to throw a party.”
“We’ve got enough Starweed now,” Madison said to Flora. “And things are getting really bad here. For some reason Ruben’s got his men out searching buildings and businesses. I don’t know what they’re looking for, and I don’t want to find out. Me and my friends have been holed up in a basement since the last time we saw you. We’re going to head out today.”
“If you wait until tomorrow morning, I’ll come with you,” Flora said. “My cousin is a guide who travels around the territory. She just came from Cottonwood. I can ask her to come with us when I see her tonight, or at least tell us the safest way to get there. But either way, I’ll meet you here at ten.”
“If you don’t show up, we’ll go without you,” Sam warned her.
“Oh ye of little faith,” Flora said. “I will be here.”
“By the way, I heard that one of the Hudsons’ employees came over to our side,” Madison said. “A girl named Jennifer.”
Flora felt a pang of guilt over that. She wished that there had been some way that she and Jennifer could have come to terms. If Jennifer was with Ruben now, she doubted the Hudsons would ever let her come back.
As she headed back towards the Hudsons’ territory, she found herself wondering why Krystle had been cagey about what she’d been doing in Cottonwood. Why hadn’t she been drinking any alcohol? Why was she acting all weird around Jose?
Was there something she wasn’t telling Flora?
Flora was a few blocks from the Lion’s Den when Finn came storming up.
“Were you near the bears’ territory?” he demanded. “Have you been fraternizing with the bears?”
Hurt and annoyance flared up inside her. She was trying so hard to be understanding, and she still felt as if Finn had erected the Great Wall of China between them. Every night, she slept alone in Finn’s bed, and he came in after she’d fallen asleep and left before she woke up. He wasn’t acting like a guy who was in a relationship, so what right did he have to ask where she was or what she was doing?
“What if I was?” she snapped.
“You already know that Ruben’s looking to start a fight with us!” Finn said furiously. “You are not to go there again. I absolutely forbid it!” His face went furry, and his words came out in a low, angry growl. “In fact, every time you want to leave the club, you need someone to go with you.”
She remembered the years of being forced to stay on the Wilkinsons’ farm. Always having people watching over her. How claustrophobic and trapped she’d felt.
“You cannot tell me where to go,” she said indignantly. “In fact, I’m going for a walk right now. By myself. You are not invited.”
He blocked her path challengingly. “You are not walking through this area without a bodyguard.”
Flora tossed her purse in the air and let the change flow over her, shifting and sinking to all fours. In one graceful motion, she caught the purse in her jaws before it hit the ground, and set off at a dead run. She was aware of Finn behind her, but she didn’t care. She was capable of running damn fast when she was angry.
She raced through the Hudsons’ territory towards the outskirts of the city, and then into the surrounding woods. Finn was behind her the whole way, but he never caught up.
She made it several miles at top speed before she finally got tired and slowed to a walk. Finn walked behind her, padding along on his giant paws.
They came to the mossy banks of a river, and she stopped and shifted into human form, kneeling by the crystal waters. She began scooping up water with her hands and drinking it.
Finn shifted too and walked towards her, but stopped about twenty feet away.
“Is this too close?” he called out to her.
“Yes!” she yelled back.
He took one step back. “How ’bout now?”
