by J. L. Wilder
Bradley drives on. After a while, we are no longer surrounded by skyscrapers. The buildings are lower to the ground, and they’re also much older looking, made of brick instead of steel. I see fast-food restaurants, brand names I recognize from TV commercials, and my mouth waters. That food always looks so good on TV. Maybe we can go to one of these places for our dinner.
Bradley finally pulls to a stop in front of a red brick building covered with creeping vines. I stare out my window at it. “This is the place?”
“This is it,” Bradley says. “Come on, let’s go.”
I’m hesitant. Seeing the building here in front of me makes it all very real, very intimidating. My new life could be waiting right behind that green door. I remind myself that Bradley’s friend is a woman, and a human, and both of those qualities make her infinitely less threatening to me than Aiden was. This has to be for the best. Bracing myself, I get out of the car and follow Bradley up to the front door. He rings the bell.
After a moment, it’s answered by a thickset man in a faded gray t-shirt and jeans. He looks muscular, as if he works out several hours a day. His hair is buzzed so low on his scalp that he’s almost bald. “Bradley,” he says, his voice grating.
“Evening, Miles,” Bradley says.
I wait for my introduction. I wait for Bradley to ask this Miles person to go get the woman who lives here. Is Miles her boyfriend? I don’t understand what’s happening. I look to Bradley for an explanation, but he’s not looking at me.
“What have you got here?” Miles asks.
“Polar bear, I think,” Bradley says. “She’s from that pack up around Blind River.”
Miles whistles, long and low. “I thought that was just a rumor.”
“Turns out it was a rumor worth looking into,” Bradley says. “I found her on the side of the road. She wasn’t happy with them. Didn’t even have to take her. She wanted to come.”
“Not that you told her where she was going,” Miles says.
“Well, come on. She’d have tried to run if I had. Truth be told, I think she was halfway ready to run anyway. Some stupid plan about living in the woods. I had to convince her that it wouldn’t work.”
“Wait,” I say. My head is spinning. “What’s going on? Where’s your friend, Bradley? The woman we were going to meet? Who is this?”
Miles looks at Bradley. “Woman?”
“White lie.” Bradley shrugs. I notice, with a sudden shock of horror, that his fingers are closed around my wrist. It’s not painful, but it’s tight. I can’t pull away from him. “I told her I could help her get her own apartment.”
“I don’t know why you bother to lie to them,” Miles says.
“Because it’s better if they’re not panicking the whole ride here,” Bradley says. “What do I want to deal with a bunch of crying and fighting for?”
Miles looks me up and down. “All right. How much do you want for her?”
“What?” I whisper. I’m shivering too hard to struggle much. I feel like my knees are going to buckle at any moment. What’s happening?
“Two thousand,” Bradley says.
“Two thousand?” Miles laughs a laugh that dissolves into a cough. “Go to hell.”
“She’s an omega.”
“Bullshit.”
“Smell her, then. Go ahead.”
Looking as if he resents the whole conversation, Miles leans in and sniffs my neck. I feel a surge of bile in my throat. How can this be happening? How can my escape be falling apart like this? I thought Bradley was going to help me, but instead, he’s delivering me into another unlivable situation. What am I going to do?
“Hmmm,” Miles muses, pulling back from me. “She’s fresh.”
“Exactly. You don’t have an omega at the moment, do you?”
“We don’t,” Miles admits.
“So, two thousand is really very generous, if you think about it.”
“I have to consult with Dan,” Miles says. He slams the door abruptly in our faces and I hear the faint sound of his footsteps receding inside the building.
I look up at Bradley. He’s not returning my gaze. “What’s going on?” I ask him fearfully.
“Sorry, kid,” he says. His grip on my arm remains firm, but not painful, and I believe he actually is sorry, but I also believe he’s not sorry enough to really care. “I gotta survive too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is my job,” he says. “People pay me to find things. When I find what someone is looking for, I bring it to them and collect. I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I do feel badly about it. But at least you didn’t have to deal with being afraid while we were on our way here.”
“I wouldn’t have come with you,” I whisper.
“Yes, you would,” he says calmly. “If I had to knock you out and tie you up, you would have. Do you have any idea how valuable an omega is? I could look all my life and never find another one. I know for a fact the Hell’s Bears are going to pay my asking price for you. They’d never pass up the opportunity to add an omega to their pack.”
A chill washes through me. It’s so intense that I feel as if my blood is freezing. “The Hell’s Bears?” I ask.
“You’ve heard of them?” Bradley raises an eyebrow.
I don’t answer. Of course, I’ve heard of the Hell’s Bears. The Hell’s Bears are infamous. Even Aiden is afraid of them. Our pack never went into the city if it could be avoided, specifically because we knew the Hell’s Bears had a stronghold there. They’re known for being aggressive, mean, and responsible for most of the minor crime in the Toronto area. Sheldon used to brag about how he could overpower any of the Hell’s Bears if he had a shot at them, but Aiden always told him to shut up, and of course, he had to obey the alpha’s command. If I’m truly standing on the doorstep of the Hell’s Bears’ home, things have definitely gone from bad to worse.
The door opens. It’s Miles again. “Dan says we’ll take her,” he says. “Your price is acceptable. Does she have anything?”
“No possessions,” Bradley says.
“How do I know you’re not just keeping her things for yourself?” Miles asks.
Bradley nudges me. “Tell him.”
I can’t. I can’t speak. I can hardly draw breath.
Miles rolls his eyes and hands out a wad of bills. “Whatever,” he says. “Here you go.” He grabs my arm and pulls me toward him, away from Bradley. Before I can do anything, before I can scream or cry out or try to run, or even latch my hand onto Bradley’s arm, I’m inside the Hell’s Bears’ house with Miles and the door is shutting behind me, between me and Bradley, between me and freedom.
Chapter Six
Miles pulls me inside and down a long, dark hallway. He’s not rough with me, not violent, but he’s not gentle or reassuring either. It’s as if I’m a piece of furniture that he doesn’t want banged up too badly.
I can feel a scream welling up in my throat, but when it reaches my lips, it’s just a whimper. My breath is coming hard and fast, and I stumble beside Miles. He pulls me up and sets me back on my feet. “Is something wrong with you?” he asks.
“I... please, just let me leave. I promise I....” What can I promise this man? I don’t have anything he wants.
“Look, the alpha’s going to want to see you,” Miles says. “I can’t just let you go. You understand that. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to hurt you or anything. You’re a bear, right? That’s what that wolf said, although God knows they never know what they’re talking about.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m a bear.”
“Yeah, well, so are we. You’ll fit in just fine.”
I highly doubt that. For one thing, the Hell’s Bears are not polar bears. Everyone knows that. They’re grizzlies, and grizzlies are the wildest, most out of control, bears there are. There are rumors that some members of the Hell’s Bears’ pack even live wild by choice, finding caves and lairs in the middle of the woods to hide out in, hunting and eatin
g raw meat in bear form. I’ve never run with my pack, but I know the antics they get up to have a lot more to do with scaring tourists and playing in the stream. They’re always home by dawn. For them, being bears is something fun, a hobby. For the Hell’s Bears, according to the rumors, it’s serious business.
I’m too scared to try to articulate all that, though. “I’m not like you,” I say to Miles. “Please, just let me go. I don’t belong here.”
“You don’t know what we’re like,” Miles says, now leading me up a flight of stairs. I feel like I’m going to throw up. Will I even be able to find my way back out of this building? I feel as if I’ve blacked out for part of our walk and I don’t remember the turns we’ve taken. We emerge into another hallway, this one just as dark but lined with photographs.
“I do know what you’re like,” I say. “You’re the Hell’s Bears. I’ve heard about you.”
Miles looks equal parts amused and irritated by this. “Is that so? What have you heard, exactly?”
“You get into barfights,” I say. Even as I speak, I’m kicking myself. What am I thinking, letting these words come out of my mouth, letting this threatening man know all the bad things I’ve heard about him? I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill me for this. I should shut my mouth, and yet I don’t. “You go around disturbing the peace and you’ve all spent time in jail. You’re thieves. You’re drunks.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miles says. “You shouldn’t believe everything small-town hicks tell you. I assume it was your old alpha who told you that, by the way?”
I don’t say anything, but my face must give away the answer, because Miles makes an I thought so noise and shakes his head. “You know, I always thought the stories about a pack of polar bears at Blind River were fake, because who would want to live there?” he asks. “And as stupid a place as it is for humans, it’s even worse for bears. I understand the appeal of small towns if you’re a human. A little place where everyone knows everyone else? It’s not for me, but it’s cute. But then you add the fact that they’re shifters into the mix, and it’s just insane. You’d have to be lying to your neighbors all the time. You must be a real piece of work. Lying to people that way, it’s sociopathic. And you want to judge me because I like to drink? Because I’ve been in fights? Get over yourself, sweetheart.”
He’s wrong. I never lied to the neighbors. I never even met the neighbors. But being spoken to that way makes my face heat up and my eyes fill with tears. I don’t bother trying to hold them back. I’ve just been sold to the Hell’s Bears. I’m allowed to cry. God only knows what they’re going to do with me.
Miles pushes open a door to a room at the end of the hall. It’s dark inside, even darker than the hall itself. Don’t these people have any lights? He pushes me in—not hard enough to hurt, not roughly. Just completely without emotion. All he’s thinking about is getting me from point A to point B. He’s not thinking about how I feel about it at all.
“Someone will be along for you in a few hours,” he says, and shuts the door, leaving me isolated in the room. A moment later, I hear a key turn in a lock, securing me inside.
Find a window. I turn to the wall opposite the door. Sure enough, there is a window, but it’s tiny and round and far too high up on the wall for me to reach. It looks like it doesn’t open. There are no other windows in the room. I consider breaking it, but I don’t think I could squeeze my body through it, and even if I could, I’m on the second floor and I have no idea what’s below this room. The drop could be onto anything.
I look around the room itself. The furnishings are bare. There’s a futon in one corner with no blankets on it. A single throw pillow has been tossed carelessly into the middle of it. The floor is hardwood and looks ancient. There is no other furniture in the room and nothing hanging on the walls.
I sink down onto the futon, crying in earnest now. I should never have run away from my pack. Things were bad there, it’s true, but I was so naive to think they couldn’t get worse. At least in Blind River I knew what my future held. I didn’t have options. I didn’t have control. But I would have had good things. I was with fellow polar bears, my own kind. I was going to be a mother. I would have hated mating with Aiden, but what came after...that might have been good. Having a litter of little cubs of my own to care for. They would have loved me. They would have been the first people in my life to ever really love me. Suddenly, running away seems monumentally stupid. Now I’ll never know love.
What are these grizzlies going to do to me? In all the rumors that have reached me about the Hell’s Bears, I’ve never heard anything about them kidnapping members of other packs. I have no idea what they want with me or why.
I try to force myself to calm down. I do know one thing. The alpha wants to see me. Miles said so. That means that before anything else happens, I’m going to be taken before the alpha. They aren’t going to come in here and kill me right away. There’s some comfort in that. And that also means I’m going to have an opportunity. Because the alpha is the one who’s in charge of the whole pack. The alpha makes the decisions, and his word is law. Which means that if I can persuade the alpha of something, it won’t matter what Miles thinks. It won’t matter what any of the others think. There’s only one person I have to convince, and I have an audience with him coming up.
In a way, I realize, I’m actually very lucky. I’m being taken straight to the one person who can help me, who can save me. If I had a request, that’s what I’d ask for.
My heart rate slows as I come to grips with the fact that I’ve still got an opportunity to save myself. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to do it, but somehow, I’ve got to convince the alpha of the Hell’s Bears to let me go.
I’ll just have to throw myself at his mercy. I think that’s the only chance I have. I don’t believe there’s a realistic possibility of convincing anyone in this pack that it’s in their best interest not to have me here, not after they’ve already paid two thousand dollars for me. Why anyone would pay so much I can’t imagine. But there’s always the chance that the alpha will be merciful. That wouldn’t match with the stories I’ve heard about the Hell’s Bears, but maybe the stories are exaggerated. Maybe they’re just plain untrue.
At any rate, I’ll have to hope they are.
Chapter Seven
I don’t know how long I’m in that room before the door opens again. It’s long enough that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, so when the relative light of the dim hallway floods in, I blink several times and it’s a moment before I realize that the person who’s come to release me is not Miles. In fact, it’s a woman.
“It’s time,” she says simply.
I take her in. She looks a bit like the female version of Miles. She doesn’t have his grizzly facial hair, but they share the same ruddy complexion and scowl that looks like a chisel wouldn’t budge it. I also get the feeling she would have no problem picking me up and moving me around like a sack of flour. That’s not anything I want to test, though, so I get to my feet.
The woman leads me back into the hall. I’m expecting to go downstairs, but to my surprise, there’s another flight leading up and that’s the one we take. She moves quickly, despite the dark. She’s comfortable in this place. It suddenly hits me that, no matter how weird I find it personally, this really is home for the people who live here. They like the long creepy halls and haunted aspect. I shudder a little.
We stop outside a door. The woman turns to face me. Without speaking, she begins a process I recognize as tidying me up. She straightens my hair, wipes some dirt off my cheek with her thumb, tugs my shirt so the dust of the futon room flies off it. Why is she doing this? I want to ask, but I’m afraid of her. She hasn’t spoken to me yet, except for that initial “It’s time,” and I get the feeling I’m not supposed to talk to her.
Finally, she seems to decide I’m ready. “You wait here,” she says, pointing to the floor as if I’d have been confused otherwise about where her
e is. “I’m going in to announce you, and then I’ll come see you in.”
I nod. It seems to be what’s expected. She turns and disappears through the door in front of us.
Now is my opportunity. I could run, I know that. But the idea terrifies me. Who knows what’s between here and the exit? Miles, maybe. Maybe some other grizzly bears who would be even less kind to me than he was. Who knows what they might do if they caught me trying to escape? I don’t dare. I stand rooted to the spot, just as I was told, waiting for my summons to enter the room and face the alpha.
All too soon, it comes. The door opens and the woman who brought me here leans out. She grabs my arm and pulls me forward.
This room is much brighter than any other in the house, as if it’s the place where everyone really lives. It also looks more active, more alive, than the rest of the house. Most significantly, it’s full of people. A quick scan of the room reveals seven, including Miles, waiting for us to arrive. The woman brings me in and walks me to the center of the room before retreating to the wall and leaning back against it.
“So, this is the girl?” a voice says.
I turn. The speaker is a man in an armchair that probably normally points at the TV against the wall, but he’s swiveled it to face me instead. Physically, he couldn’t be more different from Miles. He’s short, fit, but slight, and clean shaven. His eyes seem to penetrate right through me, though, and I get the sudden impression that this man is exceedingly intelligent.
“This is her,” Miles says. “Dropped off about forty minutes ago.”
“And are we sure about her?” the man in the chair asks.
“Definitely,” Miles says.
The man squints his eyes and examines me. I feel naked under his gaze.
Finally, he speaks. “Girl, my name is Dan. I’m the alpha of the Toronto chapter of the Hell’s Bears. I imagine none of that raises any particular questions for you?”
I shake my head mutely. I’ve known what the Hell’s Bears are all my life. The only question I have, really, is how such a small man could rise to the rank of alpha with people like Miles around. I know it passes genetically from father to son, but surely, in a pack so notorious for violence, someone has had the idea to fight him for the role. I wonder if any such fights have taken place, and if so, how they’ve gone.
