Chapter 5: The Cat and the Trap

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The howling continued to dog them that night. The next morning, Theresa searched around their camp. She pointed out lupine looking tracks in the mud. The tracks circled their camp. Amber shivered at how close the werewolves had come to them without being detected.


“They could kill us at any time.” Amber said.


Theresa shook her head, “No. But they want us to think that. They are toying with us, like a cat playing with a mouse. But the mouse still has teeth. And the cat may regret its play.”


“What do we do?”


“I will set traps for our pursuers.”


Theresa used the daylight to set up her traps. She set up metal bear traps along the most likely avenues of approach. She hid the traps with brush and debris. And then she set more obvious deadfall traps made from gathered wood and leftover rope. Theresa finished. And then she went back and removed her tracks by brushing the forest floor with a cedar branch. 


As the daylight faded, they surveyed Theresa’s work. 


“Won’t they see the deadfall traps?” Amber asked.


“I would be surprised if they didn’t. And thus they will walk straight into the bear traps as they try to avoid the more obvious traps. At least that is my hope. Now we pretend to sleep. Both of us. With luck this will lure them out.”


“Won’t they be suspicious?”


“Yes. but they will discover the deadfall traps. And with luck, they will think that they have discovered our strategy.”


And so they bedded down. Theresa wrapped her arms around Amber. The younger woman nestled into her bodyguard’s embrace.



Read more in "Daughters of the Digital Empire," Available soon! Check me out on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddwardiswriting Check me out on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ddwardiswriting

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