The kids found the Morgans by the lake. They weren’t fishing any more. Whatever

  had set Ruff off had seemed to have warned them. Stella didn’t quite follow the link.

  “There’s someone on the trail, Dad,” said Mark. “We think Ruff went to see who they

  were.”

  “Could be other campers like us,” said Mister Morgan. He looked down the trail.

  “Where’s Lin?”

  “She went into the woods while we were coming back,” said Stella. “She’s a few

  minutes behind us.”

  “Waiting,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  “I’ll go down to get her while you take the kids back to camp,” said Mister Morgan.

  “Ruff can get back to camp on his own when he is satisfied.”

  “I’ll go,” said Mrs. Morgan. “Faster.”

  “All right,” said Mister Morgan. “Maybe we can salvage the rest of the trip after

  we’re sure that we’re dealing with regular campers.”

  Mrs. Morgan nodded and then vanished in the trees. Stella marked a presence but

  couldn’t see her at all.

  “Get the fish bucket, Mark,” said Mister Morgan. He made sure his fishing line was

  wound up and secured. “Bond, get the other fishing poles in case we want to fish

  tomorrow. Stella, police up any trash. Then we’ll walk back to camp.”

  The kids hurried to get things done. Stella noted there was a couple of candy bar

  wrappers but nothing else for her to grab.

  “How did your mother vanish like that, Mark?,” Stella asked.

  “Training,” said Mark. “She does it constantly. Everything she does is part of her

  training. Even folding laundry is used to train reflexes.”

  Stella caught an image of Mark having to fold laundry while defending against a

  stick. It made things twice as hard as it had to be.

  “Why?,” asked Stella.

  “Because she wants us to be ready to take over for her when she’s gone,” said Mark.

  “There’s been a line of Finches fighting since ever. And she wants us to be ready to

  step up and take our place if we want to do that. If we don’t, we still have to deal with

  stuff that the Hazard Scouts carry with them. It’s like two sets of weights for two

  different things. We don’t have to be either, but we have to be ready for people who

  think we are. And Lin and I didn’t get Dad’s animal power.”

  “It’s the same for me and my dad,” said Bond. “He’s a detective that’s trained all his

  life to be a detective from a long line of detectives that have all trained all their lives

  to be detectives. And he’s a Hazard Scout too. Sometimes when we visit Japan, I

  know the adopted cousins look down on me because I don’t train as hard as they do

  in all the techniques we can use.”

  “I don’t have that,” said Stella. She understood how the others looked at things from

  the feelings she picked up.

  “There might be some excitement before we get to camp,” said Mister Morgan. He

  shepherded the kids along with gestures of his arms. “Mark, I want you to get Stella

  and Bond back to the van. Your mother, or I, will come to get you.”

  “I can do it, Dad,” said Mark. “So much for our camping trip.”

  “I don’t think it will be that bad,” said Mister Morgan. He glanced behind them.

  Stella looked behind them. She saw Mrs. Morgan and Melinda off to one side of the

  trail. A group of hostile feelings were beyond them and closing fast. She imagined

  they were mad because they didn’t want to be in the woods, and they had to come up

  to look for her.

  She didn’t like that last part at all.

  She wondered where Ruff had gone. She couldn’t sense him, but she thought there

  should be something to tell her where he went. Maybe there was something about him

  she couldn’t read.

  “I think you kids should keep going,” said Mister Morgan. He waved them to move

  faster down the trail. “I’ll see what’s going on.”

  Stella didn’t like that. She brushed off Mark’s hand.

  “They’re looking for me,” she said.

  “And I think they shouldn’t find you, so go with Mark and Bond so I can handle this

  without worrying about you getting hurt,” said Mister Morgan. “Go ahead. If there’s

  any real trouble, Finch will take care of it.”

  “All right,” said Stella. “This is about what my dad’s doing, isn’t it?”

  “Talk about that with him when you get home,” said Mister Morgan. “Now go ahead.

  This is nothing but trouble, and you don’t want to be around to see this.”

  Stella didn’t like it. Her dad trusted the Morgans, and she did too. They shouldn’t

  have to protect her at the cost of their own safety.

  She would talk to her parents about this. She was old enough to take care of herself.

  Her gift made it easy.

  Mark led the way, swinging the fish bucket in one hand. Somehow he had taken

  Mister Morgan’s fishing pole and carried it in the other. He hummed as he walked

  along.

  “Your dad could be in trouble,” said Stella. She glared at him. How could he be so

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  cheerful when things were going wrong on their camping trip?

  “Anybody who hurts Dad, better be looking for Mom,” said Mark. He gave Stella a

  smile. “Cause she will hurt them right back.”

  “Mark’s right,” said Bond. “Mrs. Morgan is formidable.”

  “And she lives for stuff like this,” said Mark.

  “Are you two sure about this?,” asked Stella. Maybe they were right. They seemed

  unconcerned about a group of men talking to Mister Morgan in a hostile way.

  “Trust me,” said Mark. “They’re not going to let us get anywhere close to anything

  exciting. This is their day off. I’ll start worrying when part of the park goes up in

  flames.”

  “Not that we need to be anywhere near anything exciting,” said Bond. He ran his

  hand through his blond hair. “I’m happy just waiting at the van for the grownups to

  show up to tell us everything is okay.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Mark. He shook his head. “Maybe if Ruff shows up.

  Everything will be all clear then.”

  “Ruff will be back when the trouble is over?,” asked Stella.

  “Sure,” said Mark. “He’s supposed to watch out for us. When there’s nothing to look

  out for, he’ll come back.”

  “How do you know he’s doing that?,” said Stella. “He could be hurt and lost.”

  “He’s one of Dad’s animals,” said Mark. “He’s not hurt, or lost. He’s hunting. When

  he’s done, he’ll come back.”

  “I thought he was alive,” said Stella. “I thought I was picking up a weird vibe from

  him, but I didn’t think it was because he wasn’t alive.”

  “I don’t know if he’s alive, or not,” said Mark. “Dad still doesn’t know how his

  power works. He could be alive, just smarter than a normal dog.”

  Stella kept her assessment to herself. She hadn’t picked up thoughts from Ruff

  because he was more like a machine than a normal animal. She should have seen that.

  Mister Morgan was known as the Animal.

  At least she could let Mark and Melinda pretend that Ruff was alive. That made it

  better for them. She had liked Ruff enough to wish he were alive instead of a furry

  puppet.

  He didn’t behave like a furry puppet. Stella realized she only had her talent telling her

  that he wasn’t alive. She wasn’t that sure of it.

  She put aside the question of Ruff’s mortality and looked back behind them. The

  hostile feelings had run into Mister Morgan’s animal categorization of his thoughts.

  Neither seemed that happy about it.

  “There’s going to be trouble,” said Stella. “I can see it in the way they are looking at

  each other.”

  Some of the hostile thoughts vanished to Stella’s senses. She paused in their escape

  to search for them. They were afraid of something. She couldn’t figure out what it

  was. Then they were painfully knocked down from the real world.

  “There’s something behind the group talking to your dad, Mark,” said Stella.

  “So?,” said Mark. “We should keep moving.”

  “It’s something other than your mom, or Melinda,” explained Stella.

  “It’s probably Ruff,” said Mark. “This is what he supposed to do when he’s not

  looking out for us.”

  “Whatever it is, it is scary,” said Stella. “It’s just grabbing minds and causing fear.”

  “How do you know this?,” asked Bond. He looked back where they had walked from

  the pond. He couldn’t see the interaction going on himself.

  Stella realized she had said too much. No one was supposed to know about what she

  could do. She supposed she thought they would miss it in the excitement. She should

  have known that Bond would catch the slip.

  “I can sense things from a distance,” said Stella. “And I know that the group with

  Mister Morgan are starting to realize that someone is picking them off one by one.

  They want to know what’s going on.”

  “Mom’s probably taking some of that action where Ruff couldn’t grab someone,” said

  Mark. “Dad’s not going to like us getting too close. Do you see Melinda? We should

  get her and take her down to the van with us.”

  “She’s closer to us,” said Stella. She searched for a more precise direction. “I think

  she wants to join in, but she’s holding station.”

  “Let’s go up and get her,” said Mark. “Then we can head back to the van like we’re

  supposed to be doing instead of getting in trouble.”

  “Okay,” said Bond. “We can’t let them see us. We really can’t let them see Stella if

  that’s why they are here. They’ll stop what they’re doing to go after her.”

  “I agree with that,” said Mark. “We can’t ask her to stay behind either. What if there

  are more goons out here? Dad will be irritated if we lost her.”

  “So we all go as sneaky as we can,” said Bond. He nodded. “Let’s do this before more

  trouble shows up.”

  “This is better than running from expanding frogs,” said Mark. He grinned. “Which

  way do we go, Stella?”

  Stella pointed at where she felt Melinda’s thoughts. Mark set off, vanishing in the

  undergrowth like a ghost. Bond started after him, working his way slowly along. She

  fell in with the blond boy, helping him push branches out of the way.

  Mark and Melinda met while Stella and Bond were halfway to the spot. The siblings

  came back toward them faster than they could travel the same distance.

  “All right,” said Mark. “Mom and Ruff are taking care of things. We should get to the

  van before Dad does. He doesn’t look like he’s in a good mood.”

  “His weekend is ruined,” said Bond. “I can see why he wouldn’t be in a good mood.

  I mean we have his fish dinner right here that he won’t be able to cook because of

  what’s going on.”

  “I know,” said Mark. “Let’s go. Maybe we can salvage something if we beat him

  down to the van.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Stella. “I think we’re going to be packing up the camp and

  going home early.”

  “Maybe that will blow over if we don’t say anything,” said Mark. “Let’s go.”

  Mark led the way down to the van. He kept an eye open for more trouble. Ruff

  usually ran interference when possible. The guardian was back on the trail with their

  parents.

  They reached the van without a problem. Cars marked by trail dust were in other

  slots. Mark checked them but he didn’t see anyone sitting inside.

  “I think we should key them,” said Melinda.

  “No,” said Mark. “If any of them make it back here after dealing with Mom, Dad

  would want them to be able to get out of here without problems. We just need to get

  in the van and make sure they can’t see us.”

  He opened the back and stored the fish and the poles. He closed the hatch. He went

  to the side and opened the door and helped Melinda inside. He pointed for her to get

  in the back, and be ready to hide if someone other than their parents showed up.

  Bond and Stella took their own seats. Stella looked out the window. There were a few

  people close by, but nobody was interested in them.

  Mark took the front after closing the side door. That gave him two doors to use if he

  had to get out of the van for any reason. And his dad had been showing him how to

  drive so he was reasonably sure he could follow the signs to any ranger station that

  might be near by.

  “Who knew camping could be so exciting?,” said Bond.

  “This is because of my dad,” said Stella. “They were looking for me. I wonder what

  he did.”

  “Your dad is a detective, right?,” said Mark. “Maybe he found out something he

  shouldn’t have.”

  “But he’s been handling divorces,” said Stella. “All he does is prove people are

  cheating on each other.”

  “That’s all he does now,” said Bond. “He might have taken a criminal case again.”

  “Those guys looked like criminals,” said Melinda. “Maybe your dad took a divorce

  case that involved criminals.”

  “The main thing is they didn’t know who Dad and Mom were,” said Mark. “If they

  had, they probably wouldn’t have come up here after you.”

  Stella looked out the window and saw Ruff sniffing along the trail. Mister Morgan

  walked behind him. He seemed in a better mood than what she had felt previously.

  “It looks like we’re eating fish tonight,” said Mark.