Page 4 of Chased

She unloaded the last things out of her sweater pockets and tucked them inside, deliberately not looking at all her art supplies on the other side of the room. It was going to hurt to let them go, but they were replaceable. She had to travel light.

She pushed the suitcase aside and reached back into the hole, into the niche that held her contraband cell-enabled tablet. Her regular cell phone—and her laptop and tablet—were on the family account, and her texts, messages and emails were monitored.

That was standard procedure in Renard families. If you didn’t watch those pesky women every minute, who knew when they might start trying to think for themselves?

The men controlled all the money for the same reason. Madison had a debit and credit card, but the accounts belonged to the family, and every charge over a certain amount had to be approved. They could also be cut off at any time.

Of course, some lapin females had figured out ways around this. Secret cash hoards using change from cash purchases or returns, and online bank accounts where they put money from things like cashing in gift cards or joining those services where they gave you cash back on all your online purchases.

Some of them even earned money from online gambling, but that was risky. Madison didn’t do it—she couldn’t take the chance of losing it all.

She had some money in her secret account, enough to get on the road with, but it wasn’t anything close to enough money to support herself on for any length of time.

That was one of the reasons she had the tablet. She used it for sending messages to her lapin friends from school who were now considered ‘inappropriate’ companions, but even more important, she was using it to look for a job.

She’d found out about a shifter woman with an employment agency who sometimes helped other women who wanted to get out of a bad situation, and needed a job to do it. The problem was, Madison had no work experience. Women from the Renard Houses didn’t work. They were trained to manage a large estate with a full staff, plan tasteful entertainments, how to host and behave at social events, and how to please their mates.

Genevieve, the owner of the employment agency, had done her best with Madison’s skimpy resume, but all her applications had come back ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ She had only one out now, and that was a real long shot.

It was an administrative assistant job at a shifter-owned private security company in New York State, at their base in the Adirondack wilderness. When she told Madison about the job, Genevieve had written:

I know you wanted to disappear into the human world, but even though this is a shifter company, I thought it might work for you. It’s a small place, far from everywhere, and it’s a closed community—the sensitive nature of some of their contracts means they don’t let outsiders on the base. So you’d be protected.

You wouldn’t be involved in the security business. They’re looking for someone to help with the residential side—housing, maintenance, food service, and so forth. They’re offering on-site housing at no cost, which is a big bonus with your situation. There’s only one problem—it’s a wolf pack, so they want predator shifters only. You’d have to tell them you’re a fox. If you want it, I’d back you up on that.

She’d applied out of desperation, even thought she hated lying. She wouldn’t get it anyway. Translating her knowledge of how to plan a dinner party for twenty or how much pate de foie gras to order for a banquet into food service experience had been an epic fail.

Even so, her heart surged a little when she saw the email from [email protected]. Somehow, even after this afternoon, she’d managed to cling to the hope that Fate or magic or something would come to her rescue.

Her eyes fell on the opening words, scanning for the ‘Thanks but no thanks’ part. It read: Thank you for your application. We are pleased to offer you the position of Administrative Assistant at Outlaw Ridge Security. Attached is our standard contract—please review it and reply to this offer at your earliest convenience.

Madison couldn’t breathe for a second. Holy shit. The wolves wanted her.

Hope spread through her like sunshine. Against all odds, Fate had intervened after all. Either that, or the wolves were almost as desperate as she was.

It didn’t matter. A chance had been handed to her on an electronic silver platter.

Fingers shaking, she clicked to open the contract PDF, scrolled to the end, and signed. Then, before she could chicken out, she hit Reply, attached the contract, and started typing.

I am pleased to accept your offer of employment…

The last piece of her escape plan had fallen into place.

After she hit Send, she sent messages to some of her old friends, tucked the tablet and charger into her suitcase, and snapped the locks shut. After making sure there was no one around, she made her way through the dark woods to a place near the estate boundary wall, and hid the suitcase in the middle of a tangled patch of thorny blackberry bushes, where she and her friends had picked berries when they were kids.

An easy place for them to find.

The next night, after an excruciating dinner with her aunt and uncle, Madison told them she was going into town to meet some girlfriends for a movie. Then she took one of the family cars from the garage and did exactly that, parking the car in a dark corner of the parking lot and leaving her keys in it.

During the movie, one of her other friends retrieved her suitcase, brought it to the movie theater and stealthily stowed it in the back of her car, and replaced her license plate with one from a junked car of the same make and model.

After the movie ended Madison said goodbye to the people she was with, accepted their congratulations on her upcoming mating, drove away—and just kept going.

When she got to the highest point on the road out of Shady Valley, she pulled over and got out of the car, looking back at the place where she’d lived all her life. The lighted buildings made it look warm and inviting, distracting attention from the darkness lurking in the shadows.

Then she turned her back, got into the driver’s seat, and headed for the nearest state line.

Outlaw Ridge might not be any better than Shady Valley. This type of security company was a paramilitary organization, so that probably meant lots of procedures and protocol.