by Cara Wylde
“Krista!” I shielded my eyes from the intense sun. “Krista!”
Like a madman, I ran to her trailer and burst through the door. It was empty.
“Krista!”
I ran back outside. By this point, the women, men and children living in the trailer park had gathered around, watching me in stunned silence. When they saw I’d re-emerged from Krista’s trailer empty handed, they started whispering amongst themselves, asking about my woman and my cub. We were all bear shifters here, living by the forest, away from civilization. Nothing interesting ever happened in our small community, and the fact that two of us were apparently missing was a huge event.
“Brooks, what’s wrong? What’s gotten into you?” Lincoln approached me. He was wiping his greasy hands on a dirty rag. He’d been working on his car again, trying to figure out why the hell it had died on him a week ago.
Speaking of cars… I looked around me. Krista’s was gone.
“Her car is not here.”
Lincoln shrugged. “She must have gone shopping.”
“She took Milo with her.”
“Of course she did…”
Colt popped up out of nowhere. He hadn’t been at the pub with Lincoln and me, so I could only guess he’d spent the night with some random female.
“Dude, what’s up? How much did you drink last night?” He laughed. “You’re getting old. Can’t hold your liquor anymore.”
That was just as stupid as thinking I was having a heart attack earlier. Men like us never got drunk. But the feeling tearing me up from within was real. I pressed my hand to my heart again, my fingers digging into my skin.
“Something happened to them.”
“What?” Lincoln placed a dirty hand on my shoulder. “Mate, calm down. She went shopping, that’s all.”
“No!” The pain was starting to shift into something darker and much more dangerous. Defeat. Helplessness. Anger. “It doesn’t feel right. Something bad happened, I’m telling you. I can feel it.”
I looked deep into my friend’s eyes, and Lincoln finally nodded. He turned to Colt. They were both big and burly, though not as big as I was. Lincoln had short hair and a massive beard, and Colt had dreadlocks which he wore tied up high in a messy bun. I loved these guys to pieces, and I knew they would understand. I knew they believed me when I said that something bad had happened to Krista and my cub, because we’d been friends since childhood, and they knew my gut was never wrong.
“We have to find them.”
“Okay.”
“I feel like it’s too late already, but we have to try.”
“Alright, buddy. We’re with you,” Lincoln said.
We shifted right then and there. Our neighbors took a few steps back to offer us space. I got rid of my pants as fast as I could, and Lincoln and Colt did the same with their clothes. I tapped into my beast and allowed it to take control. I fell on all fours, feeling my body expand, fur sprouting out of my pores, my face growing bigger, my teeth turning into sharp, deadly fangs. My hands and feet morphed into immense paws that ended in razor sharp claws. I sniffed the air and letting the scent of my cub – blood of my blood – guide me, I launched myself in a mad run through the trailer park. Lincoln and Colt were right behind me. I could hear their massive paws hitting the ground as they kept up with me. Soon enough, we were on the road, following it to the nearest small town.
We did our grocery shopping there, and some of us even had jobs at the supermarket, the bar, and the drive-through. Krista herself had worked at the bar in town. Then she got pregnant, and I insisted she changed jobs and came to work at the pub near the trailer park, which was exclusive to bear shifters. It was safer that way. We tried to stay away from humans as much as we could. It was crucial to keep our community a secret from them. However, we were similar enough to them that we could mingle from time to time, for a couple of hours. That meant keeping our instincts in check, as well as our great strength, speed, and tendency to get angry very fast. Usually, our females were better at this. They could work with people for longer periods of time, while it was better for the males to opt for jobs that didn’t require as much human interaction. I worked for a lumber company, and as long as they had jobs in the area, I was good. In the past, I’d traveled with my crew, but I couldn’t do that anymore. Not when I had a family at home. Lincoln and Colt both worked in constructions, getting seasonal jobs, moving from one company to another, laying low as they put some money aside. We were far from pretentious. Bear shifters usually weren’t. We were happy in our community, and we didn’t dream of big houses and expensive cars. We just liked living close to nature.
The scent of my cub and my lover intensified. We were getting close. I picked up the pace, and Lincoln and Colt did the same. We were alone on the road. Not many cars drove through here, and no one knew about the trailer park behind the hill, at the edge of the woods. We were in the middle of nowhere. In bear form, we were faster than a car, so if we happened to hear one approaching, we could just duck in the woods and hide behind the tall, wild shrubbery. Finally, I could see something up ahead. It looked like a terrible accident had happened. One car was on the side of the road, while the other one, totally wrecked, was right in the middle of the road, smoke coming out of it. When I was just a couple of feet away from the disaster, I stopped in my tracks and turned to Lincoln and Colt. Lincoln growled low in his chest, and Colt bowed his head. Yes, that was Krista’s car. Completely totaled. The smell of smoke and gas was intense, but I could distinguish her unique scent. The scent of my lover, of the woman who was the mother of my cub. I took a deep breath, released it slowly, and gathered my courage. All three of us approached the car.
Krista was in the driver’s seat. From the way the front of the car was bent and torn, I could tell that she’d shifted after the accident. Maybe she’d been badly injured in her human form, and she’d tried to shift so she could heal faster, but it had been too late. In human form, we were more vulnerable and prone to getting hurt. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing. I nudged her with my snout, and her head lolled to one side. Colt walked to the other car, trying to figure out what had happened. As I grabbed Krista’s lifeless body with my teeth and pulled her out, I heard Lincoln growl in distress behind me. I ignored him, too busy pulling Krista into the woods. Someone could’ve driven by at any moment, and the last thing I needed was for some random stranger to call the police. I had to make sure that my lover was safe, away from prying eyes. Next, we were going to have to move the car and hide it, too. Lincoln growled louder, and I finally turned to him. Adrenaline rushed through my veins when I realized what he was showing me. The car door at the back had been torn open and was now lying on the ground. Inside, there was no one. An intoxicating mixture of feelings washed over me, as I tried to grasp what this meant. On the one hand, I was expecting to find Milo’s mangled body in the back, and while pulling Krista out, I’d been trying to avoid thinking about it. The smell of blood permeated the air, along with the crushing energy of fear and terror. On the other hand, if the car door had been torn out and Milo wasn’t in the back, neither dead, nor alive, then it meant someone had done this. Someone had taken him. That someone had crashed into Krista as she was coming out of the side road she usually took to avoid the crowded streets in town, had left her to die, and then had stolen Milo. He could be hurt. This person could be hurting him even worse right now. I had to act.
I pushed Lincoln aside, stuck my head inside the car, and inhaled deeply. Yes, there was a scent there that wasn’t Krista’s, nor Milo’s. Next, I walked to the other car, which Colt had already inspected thoroughly. I shot him a questioning glance, and he shook his head at me. Nothing. He’d found nothing. I sniffed the driver’s seat, and the distinctive smell of a human female filled my nostrils, then my lungs. She smelled like cupcakes and roses, like someone who liked to bake, but at the same time, there was also a strong smell of fear, anxiety, and panic mixed in with the sweet one. It was all so powerful and heady that it
almost made me dizzy.
I took a minute to compose myself. The woman had taken Milo with her. Of that much I was certain. But before the hunt began, there was something we absolutely needed to do. I growled loudly to get Lincoln’s and Colt’s attention. They immediately understood what I needed from them. When we were in bear form, we could almost communicate telepathically, reading each other’s body language with ease. Together, we pushed Krista’s car away from the road and into the woods, hiding it as best as we could. For now, it would have to do. First, I wanted to get my cub back, and then we were going to take care of Krista’s body and her car. If we were lucky, this wouldn’t take more than an hour. We were fast, and the air was filled with the woman’s scent. We knew exactly where to find her.
We tracked her to a cheap motel a few miles from the place of the accident. She’d run through the woods, so aside from her scent, we followed the clues she’d inadvertently left – broken branches, crushed leaves where her feet had sunk in the soft soil. We came out of the woods on the other side, where another road led toward the big city. The motel was right across the street. We stopped for a minute to assess the situation. The motel was probably mostly empty, as usual. It was a dump, and no one in their right mind booked a room there, unless it was an emergency. There was only one car parked upfront. Eventually, I decided it was safe to cross the road and inspect the place. If anyone saw us, what were they going to do? People knew very well that there was wildlife in the area, and Lincoln, Colt, and I were three humongous bears, much larger than normal bears. No one would fuck with us if they knew what was good for them. Besides, we only needed to go in and out. Fast.
We approached the motel from the side, and following the human female’s scent, we found her room in a matter of minutes. I listened closely and concluded that, indeed, there was no one in the rooms close to hers. I signaled for my friends to follow me, and together we burst right through the door.
She screamed like a banshee. I broke the door, and Lincoln and Colt broke massive chunks of the walls around it. She jumped off the bed and curled up in a corner, holding Milo in her arms. My Milo, my cub, was in his human form, his tiny mouth attached to her breast. I saw red. She was cradling him, squeezing him to her chest like he was her own, and the boy was probably hungry, scared and missing his mother. He’d attached to her, and she’d taken advantage. She had stolen my cub and was now breastfeeding him like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was enraged.
I lunged at her, my paw ready to strike. She screamed again, hugging Milo as close as she could, covering her head with her free hand.
She’d taken everything from me.
I was going to kill her.
Three
Rosalie
“You can’t do this, Rosalie,” I thought as I kept trying to run through the forest. What had started as a panicked sprint had turned into a slow-paced walk. Branches, raised roots, rocks and various wildlife kept slowing me down, not to mention that I had this child in my arms that I had to shield.
What had I been thinking, running away from the scene of an accident and taking the boy with me? Did I just steal a child? Oh God, it was true! A criminal would always escalate their crimes. I took all the money from the house, stole a car from an old lady, now a baby!
But then again, I couldn’t have left him all alone back there. Staying with him was just not an option. I was still too close to my hometown, and if the police escorted me back to my local precinct, adorned with silver bracelets A.K.A. handcuffs… No, just no, this was the only way.
It was getting colder, though, and the sun was setting. I needed to find a place to spend the night. I’d never been the outdoors-y type, never liked camping, nor did I have what was needed to lie down and sleep in the forest. I didn’t even have the car to use as a temporary shelter. My only hope was to find a cheap motel room for the night, and pray no one asked me any questions.
Perhaps I would have risked it and tried to climb a tree and sleep like a monkey, hanging from a branch, but I couldn’t subject an innocent child to that. I would have to make do and spend my savings earlier than I had anticipated. I would also have to make adjustments for him, I thought as I looked down at the sleeping child. How could he be sleeping right now? He truly did not realize I was not his mom?
I slowed down until I stopped for real and let myself fall to the ground. Children needed food, clothes, toys… I was not a mother. I raised my head to the sky and prayed to God to help guide me, to show me the way, to have mercy on me. The wind ruffled the branches, which gave way with the ease of bird feathers, and a warm light illuminated a path to the north. There was something further up. I hugged the boy tighter and carefully advanced. I prayed for a motel and not some folks’ home, because my faith in people was at a woefully low level nowadays.
My prayers were answered, and I exited the woods right where the motel’s backyard was, with dumpsters and rats and one horribly drunk man. I scrunched my face in disgust and circled the building, but I stopped myself before entering. I had a few spare clothes, so the least I could do was clean up a little and avoid any questioning. I put my bag down, grabbed a few items from it, then nestled the baby on its clean surface. I threw a long skirt over my dirtied jeans, I changed my blouse and used the dirty one to scrounge up more dirt, grime and blood from my face. It was too dark to look into a mirror, so I had to hope I looked tired, but decent enough.
The front desk lady – an elderly woman with long, gray hair trapped in a bun – had a good look at what she assumed to be a mother and her son, and likely took pity on us, because I was sure she “forgot” to charge me extra for the clean towels, and she also threw in a bag of “complimentary snacks”, claiming we looked like we could use the rest and the late meal. I almost burst into tears, unused to such kindness in a long, long time, but the boy began to stir awake, and that gave me an excuse to rush the kind woman and to hide within the four walls of my temporary home.
I was so exhausted after an afternoon of running through the forest, keeping an eye out for the wolves or whatever inhabited these places, and the baby was starting to fuss too, probably hungry and just as tired. I unlocked the door and entered the room – which was on the first floor, – and I was happy to note that the area was clean and pretty spacious, but also that it was close enough to the emergency stairs. I guessed that would be my life from now on – always assessing the situation, always looking for an escape, a plan B, an option. I would never again put all my faith, all my love and all my hopes into one thing or one man. I’d learned my lessons.
While the room didn’t have more than a single-sized bed, a small table with a lonesome chair and a TV straight from the early 90s, it was enough for the night. It wasn’t like I wanted to start rebuilding my life here, like this. I almost wanted to laugh, but not a heartfelt laugh, a hysterical one. “Look at me now,” I thought, “an adult fleeing for my life with a baby that is not mine, headed nowhere, with all my plans and ideas up in the air.”
I carefully placed the child on the bed and went to clean myself a little.
God, I really looked like hot mess central. My make-up was smudged, and one could clearly see my bruised face, so I guessed that was why the lady had been so kind to me back there. I fit the battered woman poster to a T. I removed all my clothes, bra and panties too, and stepped into the shower. The hot water helped with the soreness of my muscles and the aches from holding on to the boy with one arm and a half. I tried to flex my left arm – it was worse than before. I winced in pain and allowed myself five minutes of crying, but not more. I had to keep it together. I imagined myself a soldier on a battlefield. I could be brave and resourceful. I had to. For myself and for the young life I now had in my care. I dried myself and wrapped the biggest towel around me.
I filled a cup with water and grabbed the face cloth. The boy needed some cleaning, too. When I emerged back from the bathroom, his big blue eyes were scanning the room. He looked about to cry, but then he saw me and made
a noise that sounded like a sniffle. I walked to the bed, the mattress giving way under my weight, and tickled his tummy.
“What’s your name, little guy?” I asked him, as if he could somehow answer me. “You’re such a good boy, do you know that? I think I should name you. Huh? What do you say?”
I carefully removed his stained and smelly clothes, dipped the corner of the cloth in the lukewarm water, and began wiping the boy’s bloodied skin, only to discover that he wasn’t hurt at all. He was even giggling at me, the sound of it doing something to my soul. Innocence. Sweet innocence and purity. A thing I hadn’t seen or experienced in so long. But the more I scrubbed, the more blood was coloring the cup of water, marring a little of this feeling of purity. What sort of child was he? Was he truly a human… ish? Bear cub?
“What the…” I rubbed frantically, trying to cover more skin, pulling on his little legs and arms. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Every tiny scratch or cut that I found was closing, or was already closed, looking more like a fading scratch.
