The last rays of golden sunlight shone over the mountains as Gretta and Miguel looked down at the old Corolla’s smoldering engine.

“Now what?” Gretta asked.

Miguel shrugged. “I’m not a mechanic. I don’t suppose you know what to do?”

Gretta looked up from the engine. “If you don’t know how to fix an engine, why did you lift the hood?”

“It’s what you do.” Miguel sighed. “Let’s push it off the road, and maybe we can cover it with some brush so it’s tough to spot.”

“Sofia, you might want to get out of the car in case it rolls into something,” Gretta said.

Sofia put on her small backpack and crawled out of the car. She watched in misery. Miguel walked around to the driver’s side, put the car into neutral, stood with his shoulder against the door frame, and put one hand on the wheel. Gretta went to the back of the vehicle to push from the trunk.

“On three,” Miguel said. “One-two-threeeee!”

The car began rolling slowly at first, but as it slid down a steeper embankment, it picked up speed until Gretta had to jog to keep up. Miguel hopped into the driver’s seat and steered it to a halt behind a Palo Verde copse.

Miguel pulled out his backpack and the grocery bag with the remainder of the food he had brought, then set them on the ground near Sofia.

“I’m going to hide the car. Wait here for a little longer,” he said.

He strode back toward the car and held out his hands, muttering the ancient word of growth. Gretta could feel the surge of magic from her deity flowing through Miguel. His ability to channel magic was strong.

Within moments, desert grass sprouts began shooting up from the ground around the car, but the energy kept flowing. Soon, thicker stems of small shrubs grew from the infertile desert soil. The Palo Verde copse that was there when they pulled over grew denser, and the car became more obscured with each passing moment. Finally, Miguel fell to one knee, breathing hard.

Gretta crossed to the other side of the road, picked up falling branches, and brought them back to help cover the car’s reflective surfaces, making it more difficult to spot from the road.

“Nice job, Miguel,” Gretta said. “Someone who knows to look for it will spot it, but anybody who isn’t explicitly looking for it probably won’t find it.”

“Where are we going?” Sofia asked.

Miguel got down on one knee. “I think we’re going to have to get you to your mother, but it’s a long trip.”

“Where is she?” Sofia asked.

“A place called San Diego,” he said. “We won’t be able to walk the whole way, but we have to get away from those people chasing us, which means we’ll need to walk far enough to get on a train or bus. It might take a few days.”

“That’s a hard trip. Just getting to the next major city is easily 100 miles of walking, most of which is across a desert where people frequently—” She faltered when she saw Sofia’s face. “—have problems with exposure.”

Miguel stood up and looked at Gretta. “I appreciate your concern, but you’ve done enough at this point. You should go home.”

His words stung. They both knew Sofia would have been safer in her aunt’s house longer if Gretta hadn’t found them. Gretta could see that he’d been bottling up the blame for the situation, and a tiny bit had leaked out. She wasn’t a child, though, and she would help Miguel and Sofia, whether they knew it or not. Accompanying them directly would be far easier than stalking them at a distance.

“I get it. It’s my fault they found you as soon as they did, but I am trying to help, and they would have eventually found you.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Miguel lowered his voice. “I would have had a plan by then.”

Gretta shook her head. “You would have been even more strapped for cash, and they would have snuck up on you in the dead of night rather than rushing in to catch you before you fled.”

“Dad, let her help,” Sofia said. “I can feel it. She’s on our side.”

Miguel looked at the horizon where the sun had already dipped too low to see. “Wanting to help is not the same thing as being helpful. I already have one child to protect.”

Gretta’s voice was quiet but determined. “I’m not a child, and if you give me a chance, I think you will find that I can be more than a handful in a fight if those guys catch up to us.”

“Are you bulletproof?” Miguel asked.

Gretta shook her head. “Sadly, I’m not, but I have quite the knack for healing.”

Miguel leaned close and whispered soft enough so that Sofia wouldn’t hear. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Gretta shook her head. “It has never come to that, and with any luck, it won’t need to.”

Miguel sighed. “Let’s start walking while we still have a little light. It would be nice to have a campfire tonight when it gets cold, and I don’t want to be in sight of the road when we light it.”

“You can see for miles here,” Gretta commented.

“All the more reason we need to move,” he said. “I don’t want to be caught in the open when they come for us.”

Sofia looked at Gretta and asked, “Can I ride on your back?”

“Sure,” she said and knelt. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to carry you.”

Gretta frowned. “I meant when you are a cat. Then I’d be the cat princess, and we could dance in the moonlight.”

“Oh,” Gretta said, looking up at Miguel, who shook his head. “We don’t have a saddle, so there’d be no way for you to hold on. Your dad would be upset with me if you fall off.”

Miguel raised an eyebrow but said nothing, his expression between amusement and disbelief.

“Cats have scruffs you can hold on to,” she said. “I’ve read all about it. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

Gretta smiled. “It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel great either.”

Sofia’s eyes widened. “Has somebody ridden on your back and held your scruff before?”

“No, but I can turn into a house cat, and I have been picked up by the scruff.” Gretta thought about it. “It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not exactly fun, either. It’s like someone holding your arm tightly—not painful if you don’t move, but still uncomfortable. That’s why cats only scruff kittens for a little bit—to keep them safe.”

Sofia nodded. “Is that why you only do it to kittens for a little bit? So mother cats do it to keep their kittens safe and together, and humans do it because it’s the safest way to move them, but that doesn’t make it fun for the kitten.”

“Exactly!” Gretta said, smiling. “You’re pretty sharp, you know that?”

The distant sound of a car made everyone turn. They had no way of knowing if their pursuers were approaching. For all they knew, the man Gretta called the Hoodie might have betrayed them. She wasn’t ready to trust a disciple of the Trickster god.

Miguel glanced at her, his expression grim. “Let’s move. We can’t afford to stay here.”

Sofia crawled up on Gretta’s back, and Gretta stood, taking a moment to steady herself.

Walking through the desert in near darkness presented many challenges. The ground was uneven, with rocks and clumps of grass, but also where dried-up washes had eroded it and left treacherous, steep tears in the desert landscape. At points, Gretta and Miguel navigated on all fours as much as they walked on two legs.

The temperature dropped precipitously over the three hours of traversing the desert, and while Gretta stayed warm due to the exertion of moving, she could feel Sofia shivering.

“We’re going to need to stop for Sofia soon,” Gretta said. “She’s getting cold.”

“Let’s get a jacket on you, sweetie,” Miguel said. He pointed at a clear spot on the ground. “Let’s make camp here. We should be able to hide the fire from the road if we position it near the scrub.”

Gretta put Sofia down and felt a wave of exhaustion. Carrying an eight-year-old for at least seven miles was a real workout.

Miguel pulled a jacket out of Sofia’s pack and helped her into it, then pulled out a blanket from his backpack and set it on the ground for his daughter. “Stay warm while daddy gets a fire going.”

Gretta began scrounging for firewood, but there wasn’t any deadwood. Miguel broke a few branches off a living tree and made a small stack of the only kindling he could find in the dark.

After twenty minutes of failing to start a fire, he kicked over the pile of twigs. “She’s going to freeze to death, and I can’t get a fire started. Everything is too wet. We’re in the desert, and it’s too wet.”

“It’s okay,” Gretta said. “It’s dark, and picking out good kindling is impossible. I can keep you both warm.”

She pulled in her magic for the second time that day, shifted into a massive tiger, and then padded over to where Sofia lay and curled up near the child. Sofia’s eyes fluttered open momentarily, and she scooched closer before leaning in the thick tiger fur and drifting off.

Miguel shook his head. “I seriously hope you don’t roll around in your sleep and crush us.”