Page 81 of Chased

“See?” Henri said to Favereau. To Madison he said, “You’re deluded, sweetheart. You don’t understand who’s on your side.”

Madison snarled, “You are not, and have never been, on my side.”

Henri shook his head sadly.

Favereau glanced at his watch, and then gestured to the other suit, the one with the video camera. Before Madison realized what was going on, Favereau grabbed her by the arms and held her, while video guy put a band of painfully tight elastic with a metal button on it around the top of her calf, just below the knee.

A tracker. When they were done, Favereau said calmly, “The tracker is for your safety, is in case you veer off the course and we need to find you. It will compress when you Change and adhere to your fur, so do not be concerned that it can be lost. Mr. Levesque will not have access to the signal. He must Hunt you in animal form and catch you in order for the Hunt to be valid.”

How nice. More fairness. “I feel so reassured,” Madison said.

But then she stopped paying attention to him, because now she’d gotten a good look outside for the first time. She recognized the shape of the land, the landmarks.

She’d been through here with Sanchez. She knew where she was. And now she had hope.

Favereau was saying, “When you are released, you have ninety seconds to run, and then Henri and the others will begin pursuit.”

That got her attention. “Others?”

Henri’s face had gone stony. “Why, yes,” Favereau said. “Your family’s contract was with House Levesque. We have here another unmated son, and a cousin. If any of them reach you before Henri, you will be his mate.”

So now it was three on one.

Exactly seven minutes after the warning, they got Madison to her feet and walked her up the gently sloping mountainside. Vixen wanted to fight, or to run right now. But Madison was busy cataloguing landmarks and compass directions in her mind.

She only had ninety seconds; she only had one shot.

She was still hoping that her friends would find her, but Sanchez had been right. The most important thing was her. She had to fight for herself, and she had to be smart.

Ready, Vixen? she said.

Are you sure we can’t stop to bite their noses?

We’ll do better than that. We’ll make them look like complete idiots. And with any luck, we might get to shoot a few.

Well in that case… I’m in.

They got to the top of the slope, and the referee gave her the injection. And then she and Vixen got ready to run.

Chapter 33

As soon as they went lapin, Madison took off. She ignored the Renards’ idiotic orange flags, and their shouts when she veered off course. She was heading straight for the trees at the bottom of the downslope.

When she hit the edge of the woods, she jigged to the right to duck through a big thicket of brambles, on her way to the stream that Sanchez had shown her.

The foxes were too big to go through the brambles, and it would take them a little time to cast around and pick up her scent again.

Every second counted.

She continued downhill towards the stream. In the distance, she heard foxes yipping. They were on her trail. It was a long fifteen seconds until she hit the water and began following it west, watching for the tributary that went north. Hopefully she’d gain some time there, while they wasted precious minutes figuring out which way she went.

She could hear the foxes getting closer, yipping and barking like idiots. Didn’t they realize they were telling her exactly where they were? Maybe they meant to do that—maybe they were doing it to scare her. Because they were slowly catching up—she was fast, but they were faster.

She turned north at the tributary, trying to keep up hope. She didn’t need to outrun them forever. Just long enough to get to the cave.

She had to hold onto that vision. Her at the cave, where Henri Levesque was going to get the surprise of his miserable life. If he’d thought it sucked being kicked in the balls under the football field bleachers back in high school, when he tried to put his hands down her pants, well, that would be nothing compared to how he felt when she put a bullet in him.

It was hard running through water for so long, and it slowed her down, but she felt safe in the stream, with its banks rising up beside her and underbrush screening her from view.