Abandoned Treasure

Nathan Storm’s POV

St. Regis Travel Center off I-90, Western Montana

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

I could hear the kids cheering in the kitchen behind me as I pulled our 37’ Tiffin Allegro motor home into the fuel pumps at the travel center. I shut down the Cummins diesel and set the brakes. “Who wants a huckleberry shake?”

“I DO!” It was a chorus of female voices as they unbuckled from the chairs and lined up at the door. We’d purchased the RV shortly after hacking the Cartel, using it to move around the country until we found our property in western Washington. Our family could sleep comfortably with a king bed in the back and fold-out beds in the living area. We had a lot of fun visiting National Parks in this rig. We could travel 500 miles from our last location, then disappear into the backcountry where we could shift for night runs.

It had been a good three-hour drive after getting on the road just after eight. We hit the freeway in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, then headed east on Interstate 90. We didn’t have to get fuel, and the motorhome had a bathroom, but stopping here was a family tradition. “Order me a burger with everything and a shake,” I told Jade as she followed the kids off. “I’m going to top off the tanks while we have time.”

“Hurry up, or some might be gone,” she teased. Isra led the group into the gift shop while I started fueling. “There are some cool paintings and statues for the house,” she sent a minute later.

“We’ll be here again on the way back,” I quickly answered. Our ranch was an estate sale and included the furniture and décor, so she was looking to put her touches on it. Since our ranch had a huge main house, pool house, guest home, lake cabin, and a caretaker’s home? There was a LOT of decorating to do. I was holding off on decorating the other places until we hired the help we needed to keep the place up. I’d put the ‘help wanted’ ads on the Oracle message board a few weeks ago. We were still sorting through the responses while maintaining secrecy.

I finished fueling and parking across the street as Jade informed me the food was at the table. I had just made the sidewalk when the door crashed open and a young teen girl ran out. “HEY! GET BACK HERE!”

I looked up and scented her nature and the fear. Werewolf.

I grabbed her, and she struggled in my arms before my scent hit her. “Calm down,” I said. “I’ll take care of this.” I shielded her thin body from the guy chasing her. “What is the problem here?”

“She’s a thief,” the older assistant manager replied angrily. “She’s got handfuls of stuff in her pocket!” He pulled out his cellphone. “I’m calling the sheriff.”

“Stealing? Jenny, dear, why didn’t you wait for me inside like I told you? I’m very disappointed in you.”

“I knew you wouldn’t buy what I wanted, Daddy,” she replied, quickly catching on to the line.

“Show me what you got.” She pulled a handful of beef jerky and three candy bars out of her pocket and handed it to me. I took a hundred-dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to the manager. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll make sure she learns the lesson when we get home. That should cover the cost of what she took. Keep the change.”

He looked down at his phone and turned it off. “In my day, a kid wouldn’t sit down for a week after getting caught. These days? They don’t even arrest them anymore.”

“Thank you. Come on, Jenny. Everyone is waiting for us in the diner.” I walked ‘Jenny’ back inside, my arm holding her bicep to keep her from getting away. I could feel bone with how thin she was.

“Let me go. I’ll hitch a ride, and you’ll never see me again.”

I told Jade what happened over the link as we walked through the store. “You’re going to have lunch with my family first,” I told her as we approached the table. The girl scented the werecat adults and the mixed scents of the children and froze. “It’s all right. They are family.”

“But, you’re…”

“DADDY!” Bao looked at me with her tongue out. “It’s purple!”

“I see that,” I said as I grabbed an extra chair. “This is, sorry, I never got your name.”

“Hannah. Hannah Giles.”

I knew that name. “Gabe and Lois’ daughter?”

“Yes.” Gabe was one of the Bitterroot warriors that the Council executed for his part in the Arrowhead raid. He used to fuck Carol, then make a point of seeking me out so I’d smell them. That only ended when Gabe found his mate in 2005. He was an asshole, but Hannah wasn’t even born when I escaped that Pack. I couldn’t hold her parents against her.

“Hannah is joining us for lunch. Hannah, this is Isra, my wife, Jade, and daughters Khoi, Bao, and Chao.”

She waved at everyone as she sat nervously. I waved the waitress over to get her order before I started eating.

“The poor girl! She’s been missing meals,” Jade sent. “Where are you heading, Hannah?”

“East,” she said plainly. “Too many wolves in these woods.”

“Where is your family?” She was too young to travel alone. Too young to shift, too, but her scent said otherwise.

“Dead,” she said softly. No one in the busy restaurant would hear us if we kept our voices down. “Mom and I had been moving around since I was a baby. She shacked up with a rogue wolf in a trailer about fifty miles west of Kalispell. He came home drunk one night in May, and he was a mean drunk. Mom told me to stay in my room and lock the door. They got into a big fight, and he yelled he should just kill her and take me as his mate instead. I heard him stomping towards my door. Mom shifted and attacked, but he had a gun. I heard the shot, a thud, then a whine. My wolf pushed forward, and I shifted for the first time. When he kicked open the door, I was waiting behind it. I jumped on his back and tore his fucking throat out.”

“What did you do then?”

“Mom was dead. It took me hours to figure out how to change back. I put my stuff in a backpack, including the fifty-two dollars I found in Todd’s wallet. Then, I torched the place.”

“How did you get away?”

“I ran through the night, then shifted and dressed near a town. I’m too young to hitchhike or find work, and if the cops catch me? They’d put me in foster care. I’ve lived on rabbits, mice, and whatever I can steal ever since.”

No wonder she was so busy swiping French fries off Isra’s plate. “How old are you, Hannah?” I didn’t remember her Mom being pregnant when I escaped. She couldn’t be more than fourteen.

“I’ll be fourteen in October.”

Jade couldn’t believe it. “Why didn’t you go to a Pack for help?”

“The Council executed my father for the Arrowhead attack, and Mom helped capture some pack slaves. She took off before the Council got around to her, but she was under a death sentence. Mom was terrified of getting caught. Any time we scented a Pack Wolf, we’d leave town.”

“I haven’t trusted one in years,” I agreed. “You’re safe with us.”

Her huckleberry shake, cheeseburger, and onion rings showed up then. She wolfed down the burger so fast that Mom warned her to slow down so she wouldn’t get sick. “There’s plenty more in the fridge,” she promised.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“We’ve been helping unpacked shifters for years,” Jade replied. “It’s too dangerous being young, female, and alone on the road.” We’d already decided to offer her sanctuary, temporary or not. “If you decide not to stay with us, we can find people to protect and care for you. With the changes since our kind was outed, the Packs are an option again. The Free Shifter Board and the Werewolf Council won’t let harm come to a juvenile. Alpha Rori Nygaard has always been that way, and many good Bitterroot wolves flocked to her. They were the first people to join her Pack.”

“You’re going to Arrowhead?” I nodded. “I’ve heard rumors about them. I even saw a video about their pool! Have you been there?”

“Not yet. Like you, I’ve been avoiding Pack wolves.”

“Then why go now?”

“I have a daughter there.” I couldn’t finish the story as the waitress picked that time to come over with the check. Jade and Isra took the girls to clean up. “Do you have anything else?”

“My bag is behind a bush in the back,” she replied.

“Let’s go,” I replied. We grabbed it and walked across the road. Hannah froze when I opened the RV door with the remote. “We’re traveling in style,” I said with a grin. The family piled in and headed for their favorite spots while I prepared to depart. Hannah stayed by the entrance and watched. “You must have questions,” I said.

“Tons.”

I gestured towards the Captain’s Chair on the passenger side. “I’ve got nothing else to do for three hundred miles. Take a load off and see the country.”

Jade and I alternated driving the RV, switching every four hours until after sundown. We stopped only for gas and dinner. Hannah spent the day learning from whoever was in the driver’s seat. She had a lot to catch up on; her mom hadn’t been part of the Oracle network and was unaware of what the Council and Board were doing lately. When it was bedtime, we put Hannah and the kids in the bedroom. I napped on the easy chair in the living room at three in the morning, changing drivers at a truck stop near Fargo.

Isra woke me at six-thirty before going to wake the children. “We’re passing through Two Harbors now,” she said. “Fifteen minutes to Arrowhead.”

Everyone was dressed and ready before we turned into the Arrowhead Pack driveway. Jade stopped the big RV at the gatehouse; a heavy steel bar and giant boulders prevented anything short of a tank from going further. She opened the door as an armed guard approached while I checked out their defenses from the passenger seat. Another guard was inside the house on the other side, and he had an AR-15 in a one-point sling in front of him. I spotted four defensive positions facing the entrance, all elevated firing positions with riflemen hiding behind armor plating. The road had a sharp curve, slowing down any suicide bomber attacks. “Jesus, how many attacks have they had?”

“Three,” the guard said as he came up the steps. He froze momentarily as the scents hit him, then looked around. “Your names and business at Arrowhead?”

Jade turned the driver’s chair around so she could point out everyone. “Jade Storm, my husband Nathan, my mom, and daughters Khoi, Bao, and Chao. Hannah Giles is an orphaned wolf under our protection. We are here to donate blood marrow to Mykayla under Alpha Rori’s offer of protection.”

The guard took another sniff, then shook his head. “More hybrids? Do they shift into kittens and pups like Maya does?”

I looked at him with my mouth open. “Yes. They are Clouded Leopard/Wolf hybrids.”

I could tell he was linking, and then the gate arm rose out of the way. “Welcome to the Arrowhead Pack. I’m Warrior Tom Smith, and I’ll be your escort until you get settled. Drive ahead and keep to the left. I’ll show you where to park.”

Jade drove past the beautiful lakeshore homes, finally parking in the back next to the pool. “Girls, stay together and be on your best behavior,” Jade warned as they lined up by the door. I was last out, following the girls as they looked wide-eyed through the windows at the pool. I could see a few people swimming laps while more were chatting in the hot tub.

We got to the center section, and Tom opened the door for us. “Most of the Pack is at breakfast now,” he said. “Breakfast is from 6 to 8, lunch is from 11 to 1, and dinner goes from 5 to 7. In good weather, lunch and dinners are at the beach pavilion in the summer. The snack bar in the pool is open 24/7.”

We walked across to the one open dining wing. Conversations stopped as we walked in, and people started sniffing openly to figure us out. Tom walked us past the crowd to the head table. I recognized Alphas Chase and Rori from the trial footage. “Alphas, may I present Nathan and Jade Storm, her mother Isra, and their daughters Khoi, Bao, and Chao. This is Hannah Giles, an orphan under their protection. Nathan, Ladies, this is Alphas Chase and Rori Nygaard, Pack Senior Betas James and Lana Carver, and Betas Roadkill and Possum.”

The adults shook hands and took in the scents of each other while the children looked around in awe. The place was so big, there were so many wolves, and the breakfast buffet had everything. Rori looked at Hannah with some excitement in her eyes. “Hannah, thank you so much for volunteering to be a donor. How are you related to Mykayla?”

“She’s not,” I replied. “I’m Mykayla’s father.”

You could have heard a minnow fart in the lake at that. The silence was finally broken by a plate hitting the floor behind me. Turning around, I took in a young girl wearing a mask. Her hair was gone, and her cheeks were hollow. Her brown eyes were dull with fatigue. Our eyes met, my wolf reached out, and the family bond snapped into place. “Daddy?”

I ran to her, picking her up and breathing in her scent. “I’m here, baby,” I said as the tears fell. “I thought you were dead.”