Behind me, Gollum, driving his new SUV, trailed at a moderate speed. He braked and accelerated smoothly. When did he learn to drive!

“There, there, there,” E.T. pointed excitedly to a widening of the shoulder on our left.

I stomped on the brake and clutch so abruptly Gollum’s vehicle came within inches of rear-ending me. Thankfully, he has amazing reactions. All that Aikido and other martial arts training. We squeezed both cars into the miniscule gravel area.

“This way,” E.T. called over her shoulder as she flung open the door and scooted across the road without looking for traffic.

My heart nearly stopped as a car coming downhill way too fast skidded and screeched to avoid hitting her. The middle-aged woman driving leaned out her window and yelled obscenities. But she didn’t slow down much or stop to make sure E.T. was okay.

I ran after my daughter just as recklessly. Gollum and the two boys jogged along hard on my heels.

“They came through here just minutes ago,” Oak said, glancing at a swath of wreckage to the underbrush.

“Scrap?”

Under log bridge. Left uphill away from the creek. He sounded breathless and anxious.

I spotted the huge Douglas fir that had uprooted and fallen across the ravine, its top branches bent and broken against the opposite hillside. We all ducked and squeezed beneath it then stopped.

If anyone had gone this way within the last century, I couldn’t spot it.

Fir did. He loped upward, pulling himself along by grabbing branches, ferns, and protruding roots that formed steps across the path. Oak paralleled him, using his greater strength to kick footholds into the steep incline.

E.T. climbed as nimbly as her brothers, inserting her wiry body between branches and trunks.

Gollum and I looked to each other in puzzlement, shrugged, and followed more slowly.

We crested the slope. Nothing around us but underbrush, fallen trees, and impenetrable blackberry thickets.

The boys had disappeared. E.T. looked as confused as Gollum and I.

“Scrap, now where?”

I don’t know, he wailed landing heavily on my head. I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired. Couldn’t go sharp if I had to. He curled up and started snoring.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I shouldn’t have asked so much of you, transforming, fighting, barely tasting blood, then chasing the bad guys without a break or food.” I reached up and petted him.

A lump formed in my throat. Tears of frustration and despair pricked my eyes. I checked the link between me and Phonetia. A faint tendril of life glowed in my heart. Unharmed, but frightened.

“I hear something. This way.” Gollum blinked rapidly behind his glasses as he held back crossing fir branches. Sure enough, another narrow pathway opened before us.

Shouts ahead drew us onward. Gollum led, breaking the way through and beneath the overgrown bush.

“Bushwhacking in Africa,” he explained briefly. He didn’t have his backpack filled with essential tools. But he had experience. I trusted him to get me to my daughter.

The link between Phonetia and me suddenly flared.

I surged forward, passing Gollum.

“Put the gun down, little boy, before you hurt yourself,” Blondie sneered.

“Let my sister go or I’ll shoot,” Fir announced firmly, not a bit of a quaver in his voice.

Hope flared within me, fueled by Phonetia as much as the conversation.

“Fir, they wear Father’s protection. The gun won’t kill them,” Oak explained calmly. Anxiety tinged his voice.

“Maybe I can’t kill him. But I can hurt him.”

We burst through the last thicket of alder saplings just as Fir lowered his aim from Blondie’s chest to his groin.

Phonetia threw herself sideways and down. She rolled until she fetched up at Gollum’s feet. He pulled her upright as he produced a pocketknife and began sawing away at the multiple layers of duct tape around her wrists. More strips covered her mouth.

He seemed absorbed with his task, but I saw his eyes flicker, keeping the boys and the marijuana farmers under close observation. “At the first opportunity you and your sister need to run. Get back to the cars and lock yourselves in,” he whispered.

I nodded firmly, seconding his order. My connection to the girls surged with agreement. They were both scared enough not to fight me.

A quick scan of the miniature clearing and Blondie was the only demon tat I could see. I closed my eyes for half a second, concentrating on the tiny sounds of the forest.

Where had the others gone?

Waiting with elf daddy at the home base, Scrap murmured, half awake.

“Give me the gun, Fir,” Blondie ordered, holding out his hand.

The weapon exploded. Blondie flew backward from the impact. I cringed.

“Run!” Oak commanded.

Gollum grabbed both girls and headed back the way we’d come. Downhill. He only needed to keep going downhill and he’d hit the road sooner or later.

I stayed put. My feet took a defensive stance.

Oak and Fir closed ranks between me and Blondie. Cedar crouched over the fallen man, oblivious to the poison oak that brushed at his legs and hands.

I looked for blood. None. The bullet hadn’t penetrated. I wondered if the demon tattoo protected Blondie from the toxic oils of the plant too.

“Take care of my sisters,” Oak said to me. “Get out now, before Father comes to investigate.”

“Come with me.”

“We have to stay here to blur your path.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“No, he won’t. He’ll hurt us. But he won’t kill his sons.”

“He values you more than his daughters,” I sighed.

“Girls are only good for sex and bearing children,” Cedar said. He came up from his crouch and leaped at me, hands folding into tight fists.

Oak caught him, then cast him aside as if he weighed no more than thistle down.

“Run, Miss Tess. Run quickly. You haven’t much time to get free of the forest before Father finds you.”

I ran. I’d never run from a fight before, but I ran from this one.

For the sake of my daughters, I ran, skidded, and slid downhill. I had to stop thinking like a Warrior and start acting like a mother.

Lady Lucia had warned me about this. She’d told me never to get involved, never let my emotions get between me and my job.

I had to. I had to protect my daughters.