Deceived By the Others by Jess Haines

off.
    Putting on my wet clothes was almost as bad as rinsing off in the water. I shivered on the stone bench for a while, but the cold from that seeped into my butt, too, and soon drove me to get up and pace. My socks and shoes were dry. Thank goodness for small favors. I braved the bench long enough to put them on, then stomped back toward the cabins. I needed a hot shower, coffee, and dry clothes. Maybe to get the fireplace going, too. Chaz may have been worried about danger, but I was more concerned with getting a Band-Aid for my leg and warming up.
    As I was trudging along the path, carefully avoiding some poison oak I hadn’t noticed on the way earlier, something seemed different. It took a few minutes for me to put my finger on what was wrong.
    The woods were unnaturally quiet again. Unnerved, I sped up my pace.
    My heart jumped into my throat when I heard the bushes rustle behind me. Someone was there.
    I broke into a run. The rustling at my back turned into a dull snapping of wet twigs, the quiet patter of feet rapidly catching up behind me on the path.
    I didn’t look back.
    Breath catching, I rushed down the trail, praying that whoever it was would lose interest, would head off on a different part of the path. For one brief second, I held on to the hope that it was that stupid reporter trailing me. If not him, then maybe it was someone out for a mid-afternoon jog, someone who wasn’t really after me. Stupid but, hey, a girl can dream. I tried to gauge how close my pursuer was by the even footfalls and snapping of twigs. With all the bends and twists to the trail, not to mention grasping branches that I was continually stepping over or dodging around, I didn’t want to risk looking behind me.
    A heavy hand fell on my shoulder, closing on my upper arm and hauling me off balance. I caught a glimpse of leather and light gleaming on silver studs before I spun to my knees, hair whipping into my face, momentarily blinding me.
    “Don’t make a fucking sound,” came a harsh whisper as someone clamped his hand over my mouth and dragged me to my feet.
    I squirmed as much as I could to break free. My left arm felt like it had just about been torn out of the socket, and the right was pinned to my side by whoever had grabbed me. I growled around the hand over my mouth, eyes narrowing when I saw one of Seth’s idiot friends in the trees, gesturing at the guy holding me.
    One thing to be said for the boy who’d grabbed me: he might have been stupid, but he was fast and strong. Even without his Were strength, he had the build of a guy who’d spent too much time at the gym, muscles straining against his T-shirt and tight jeans. I couldn’t budge his grip on me, and we were moving into the underbrush faster and more quietly than I would’ve believed possible. Seth crept out of the shade from somewhere to our left, taking the lead. The other two idiots followed, dragging me along in spite of my efforts to dig my heels in.
    We were quickly surrounded by thick underbrush and low-hanging boughs. Some of the evergreens scratched my arms since the guy pulling me with him wasn’t being too careful about following any kind of a path, only about keeping me from crying out or getting away.
    We passed the bench and the waterfall, one of the boys making a crack that brought all the blood rushing to my face. They’d seen—or could smell—enough to know what Chaz and I had been doing. Seth growled something that made the others quiet their jeers and laughter, and we soon came to another clearing deeper in the woods. The fourth member of Seth’s little group of misfits, a lanky teenager with a Day-Glo blue Mohawk and some fuzzy scruff that might have been an attempt at a goatee, was waiting for us with rope and duct tape. My heart sank at that. They’d planned this. Waiting for a moment when I’d be alone so they could snatch me up. Despite what Chaz had said, these guys must have been the ones who had burned up and destroyed our