Page 31 of Caretaker

Chapter Eleven

I clenched my fists, fighting off tears of frustration. “She can’t be dead.”

“This doesn’t mean she’s dead.” Shane turned his flashlight on the blood and hair, then played the light over the ground around the tree. “We’ll find her, Trinity.”

I moved away from the tree and tried to latch onto her scent trail, but the blood on the tree was too strong. “I’ll have to get away from this tree,” I said. “It’s all I can smell.” I’d get better over time. I was new at tracking humans, and with practice, I had no doubt I’d improve. But that didn’t help me right then.

I turned my flash on and took a picture of the clump of hair and blood. “I’ll send this and the location to the captain.”

But just before I hit send, I hesitated.

In the end, I slid my phone back into my pocket, text unsent. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, but Angus was my priority. I didn’t want to hand law enforcement any information that might lead them to Madalyn. Not yet.

“Let’s go,” I said wearily. “I need to pick up her trail and find out where she went from here.”

But he shook his head. “We need water. We passed a market on our way in.”

“You go. It isn’t far. I’ll follow her trail.” I drew Silverlight. “You can catch up.”

“Trinity—”

“No.” My voice, sharp and angry, seemed out of place in the quiet woods. I lowered it, but I was no less adamant. “No, Shane.”

Still, he stood, undecided.

“Go,” I said, quietly. “I’m a bloodhunter. I’m going to own that shit.” I tried for a smile, but I was too damn serious to smile.

It might have seemed like a small thing, but it was not.

“If you need me,” I added, “call me.”

While he stood watching me, emotions warring in his eyes, I turned and jogged away. And at that moment, I grew up a little.

I had to have confidence in myself. If I didn’t, no one else ever would.

And I wasn’t afraid.

I caught the trailing ends of Mrs. Bennett’s scent and grabbed hold, and then there was nothing but the job.

I flew over the ground, riding the ribbon of her scent like a magic carpet, almost certain I’d find her at the end of it. Something had changed when Shane helped me get a grip on the overwhelming power. I had control of it, and I was calm.

Silverlight flared to life as I ran. Vampires were close. Likely not many, and likely too ill to be a threat, but the sword sensed them, and she was ready.

Fifteen minutes later, the scent began to weaken—five minutes after that, I lost it completely. I backtracked, picked up the thread once more, then followed it down the hill, a few miles from where we’d started, and lost it at the highway.

After she’d been taken from her home, she’d been taken to those woods, and she’d been injured there. Why had her abductors brought her there, to those woods?

I lifted my nose to the wind and finally caught a delicate hint of her scent, wafting down the highway. I couldn’t follow on foot—that would have taken forever.

I turned to jog down the side of the highway, pulling my cell from my pocket as I ran. “Meet me at the gas station,” I told Shane when he answered. “We’ll have to go back for the truck.”

He was waiting for me when I reached the station, his legs crossed at the ankle, leaning against the front of the store, his shotgun slung over his shoulder. He held two bottles of water and as I neared him, he tossed me one of them.

“I lost her on the highway,” I told him, after chugging down half the cool water. “I think she was injured and then was carried down out of the woods and put into a car. Her scent is here…” I gestured broadly. “In the city. I can still smell traces of her. I just have to find her.”

The little minimart had a few customers, and there were four cars in the lot. Two were at the pumps filling up, and as we stood there, another one pulled in. People glanced at us and then away, leaving us to our business.

“Why would they have taken her to the woods?” Shane pulled a protein bar from his pocket and when I shook my head, he ripped open the wrapper and began to eat the protein himself.