Page 53 of Cats Never Fly

Itwas probably strange to feel happy about that disappointment, but it was nice to feel something other than my escalating anxiety.Because, seriously, what wasIdoing here?WhyhadIinsisted on coming?Andwhat theHEdouble hockey sticks couldIdo if something happened?

Notmuch, that’s what.

Thiswas not the behavior of someone who valued their nine.ButIwondered ifIwas starting to valueOgdenmore.Andwasn’t that confusing?HowcouldIhave existed one way my entire life and have it all upended in such a short amount of time?

Hewas so… relaxed.Ifhe could face his abductors with such calm,Icould too, right?

Ha!Whata bunch of lies.

ExceptIwanted to be there forOgden.Protecthim as bestIcould.Somehow.Ididn’t want to let him down.Andthat meant channeling big cat energy.Fakeit until you make it, right?

Saysthe guy who is freaking out over holding someone’s hand.

BecauseIdidn’t know what to think aboutOgdenholding my hand the entire trip, either.Ididn’t hold hands with people.Itwas… weird.Notunpleasant, but not overly comfortable either.Althoughthe discomfort had more to do with me worrying about my palms sweating or ifIwas squeezing too tightly or ifI’dwreck the moment ifIlet go—just for a second—soIcould change the angle of my hand.

Dillonwas in the passenger seat, giving directions toVan, and coordinating with the local police department.Iwas in the back seat withOgden, trying to pretendIwasn’t losing my mind.Wedidn’t go into the town.Instead, we turned down a gravel road just before the town boundary.Anothercouple of police vehicles turned down the road to follow us.Basedon whatDillonwas saying, those were the locals.

“We’realmost there,”Dillonsaid, watching a screen on the laptop he was holding.

Werethey serious about trying to track the tracker right now without having any other discussion or planning oranything?Werethey actually planning to—gulp—raid the place?Today?Rightnow?Shouldn’twe wait for,Idon’t know, aSWATteam or something?Themere thought of it had my cat wanting to take over and hide under the seat.

“Closeenough to be in my backyard,”Ogdenmuttered. “Theholding facility must be close too.”

Iscanned the landscape for a building that looked evil.Wait, could buildings look evil?Regardless, nothingIsaw screamed “the bad guys live here.”

“Slowdown,”Dillonsaid. “There.”

Hepointed to an old shack on the edge of a farmer’sfield.Thesmall wooden structure looked ready to collapse under the next big wind.

“Damn,”Ogdensaid. “That’snot whereIwas held.Ishould have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

“Let’ssee what we find,”Vansaid.Hepulled theSUVto the side of the road.HeandDillonboth hopped out. “Stayhere.”

IexpectedOgdento argue, but he didn’t.Wewatched in silence asVan,Dillon, and the local police officers stormed the building.

Theycame out empty-handed a minute later.

Ogdenslipped his hand out of mine and jumped out of the vehicle beforeIcould stop him.Iraced after him, ready to pull him away if necessary.Iclenched my hand, wishing it still held his.Asmuch asI’dworried about it, it’d been nice to have that physical connection.

“What?Whatdid you find?”Ogdendemanded.

Bothhellhounds’ eyes blazed with fire.Dillon’snostrils flared. “It’sa machine.Lookslike it uploads information to the cloud.”

“Adead-end?”Smokeand sparks spluttered out ofOgden’smouth and nose.Helooked surprised at what he’d done, then he looked relieved.Iwondered what that was about.

“Itisn’t the smoking gun we were hoping for, but we know more than we did,”Vansaid. “AspenBayis collecting evidence.Hopefullywe’ll get some fingerprints.Theequipment still has serial numbers, so we might get a lead there too.We’llpack up everything and send it to theSC.Theyhave a hacker who might get more information from it,IPaddresses and what not.”

Ogdenscowled at the shack, as if he could scare it into coughing up more clues.

“Hey,Van?” a local officer called out as he approached.

Myfirst impulse was to look away and pretendIdidn’t see them.IfIdidn’t look at them, maybe they wouldn’t look at me.Iknew it was stupid, but my mind did random stuff like that sometimes.Beingsurrounded by so many police officers made the back of my neck itch.NotthatI’dever done anything to get on the wrong side of the law—well, except for keeping the whistle,Iguess.Ishouldn’t have done that.Oh, and then there was the inflatable tube man incident.Ishouldn’t have done that either.

HolyMagic, maybeIreally was a criminal.

Mamawould be so disappointed in me.

Iswallowed.Hard.Maybeeveryone would be so focused on the tracker and such that they wouldn’t notice me.Acat could only hope.