by Fleur Smith
SHE’D SEEN THE slightest streak of brown and green moving through the trees, and yet it was enough to send Bambi running in that direction. She didn’t give a second thought to Barrett despite being the sole reason he was out in the forest. Instead, she followed the flash with a singular focus.
After following the flash of colors for a little distance, she figured she’d be faster in deer form even accounting for the time it took her to change. She stripped off her clothes and tucked them among the roots of a tree before focusing on the shift.
As soon as the pain from her shift had subsided enough to move, she took off in the direction of the flash she’d been following. As she ran, she understood why she’d been so compelled to follow the streak of colors. She caught up with a man plodding through the forest.
Samson.
His head was focused on a spot just ahead of him, and his features that had always seemed so friendly to Bambi were turned downward, possibly in concentration or sorrow. It was impossible to say which from the distance she followed him.
Cautious of tipping Samson off, she slowed down and blended into the trees as best as she could. She followed him for almost an hour before he stopped in front of a small clearing and dropped the package he was carrying. At one end of the clearing were two rough crosses, one appeared a little older than the other. Samson stood in front of the two crosses with his head bowed for a few minutes. He seemed to be talking, but none of his words found their way to her.
After his moments of near reverence over the two crosses, he picked up a shovel and moved to the other side of the clearing. Bambi crouched low as she watched him digging a hole through the overgrown grass.
For the next twenty minutes, she didn’t dare move in case she gave away her position but watched intently as the hole Samson was digging grew bigger and bigger. Eventually, a change in pitch suggested his shovel hit something other than soft dirt. Unable to resist, Bambi crept forward inch by inch to get a better look.
Samson wiped his furrowed brow and shook his head. Then he fell, his knees hitting the ground with a padded thud.
Bambi padded forward to see what he was seeing.
Samson leaned into the hole he’d dug and moved some more dirt with his hands.
From her position, Bambi watched him pull a large piece of wood from the ground. She moved further into the clearing to figure out what he was digging up. Before she could see what it was though, Samson broke down. Sobs racked his body, and he pressed his filthy hands against his face.
Bambi couldn’t stand watching him cry. He might’ve been a stranger, but his pain was real, and she wanted to do whatever she could to help alleviate some of it.
She shifted back into her human form, ignoring the fact that she was naked and walked up behind him.
CHAPTER TEN
SAMSON’S TREK THROUGH the forest had been filled with demons from the past.
He had to know though. Taking Bambi back to her home hadn’t been enough to wipe the memory. That particular genie was out of the bottle, and he wasn’t able to stuff it back in long enough to force himself to forget the memories that had sprung back to his mind again.
The image of the dead bodies partially shielded by his father’s back had hovered in his vision with every step. The fawn hovering nearby that he chased away while his father shouted at him to go get his mother. No amount of tears or rubbing his hands on his eyes
Now, in the light of the newest revelation, one thing was clear to him.
He hadn’t imagined the day he and his father hunted two deer but buried two bodies. Opening the grave his father had dug that day, uncovering the human bones within, left him without any doubt.
Magic was real, even if it didn’t make any sense.
As a child, he’d aimed for a deer, and killed a person. Just like he had with Bambi. He’d shot at a deer but had somehow hit her.
The memory of the fawn he’d shooed away that day so long ago returned to his head. Had that been a random deer or like the other two?
Like . . .
A hand touched his back, and the shock sent him to his feet.
He spun around with eyes wide. “B-Bambi?”
She was standing naked in front of him. Her face echoed the sorrow he felt, and he couldn’t understand it.
His gaze fell to the place on her chest where his arrow had hit her. The wound was puckered and red, well on its way to healing. It should have been impossible considering how recently she’d been hurt.
In his mind, he was no longer fully grown, and she was no longer a woman. He was a child shooing off a fawn as his father panicked over what might happen if anyone discovered their secret. Their family would be split apart, and they’d all be sent to jail. He’d lived his life under a cloud of that fear without fully understanding why.
“What’s wrong?” Bambi asked, brushing away tears he hadn’t even realized still wet his cheeks.
“Why are you here?” he asked. Seconds after the words left him a new thought hit. “Are you actually here?”
Maybe it was all a hallucination. Maybe he’d completely lost his mind, and his guilt was manifesting her in front of him because of his worry over the arrow.
“Of course I’m here, where else would I be?”
“In your home, where I left you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Let’s talk about that too. Why the hell did you just drop me back home without so much as a goodbye?”
“I thought you wanted to get home.”
“Of course I did, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to be unceremoniously left back in my dump.”
“I thought it would be best after . . .”
“After you shot me,” she said, arching one brow.
“I didn’t though. I shot at a deer. I know I did. So unless you are a deer—”
She flinched as he said the words and that small action was enough to confirm everything for him.
“Or both. A deer and a person.”
She took a step back. “What? Don’t be crazy.” There was no conviction in her voice as she tried her denials.
“That’s why you were naked when I found you on the road. Why you’re naked now.” As the words flowed from him, she shook her head as if in denial, but even as the words formed, he felt the truth in them.
“A deer and a person,” he repeated. “Like they were.” He glanced down at the grave beside him.
“What? They?” Bambi glanced from his face to the hole beside him and back.
He saw the moment her gaze found the skull he’d uncovered in his need to know the truth.
She shook her head harder than before, staring at the grave. “Who is that? What is that?”
“When I was a boy, my pa took me out hunting.”
Bambi paled. “No. It . . . it can’t be . . .”
Before he could say anything more, she turned and ran into the trees. He chased after her, but she had disappeared before he reached the trees.
“Bambi!” he cried.
To one side of him, something moved through the forest, and he caught a hint of red and brown disappear among the green, but it was gone before he could even attempt to follow it.
BAMBI DIDN’T know where she was going. It was impossible for her to reconcile what she’d seen with her memory. It was almost like the years had wiped away, and she was a fawn being scared through the forest by a stranger again.
A stranger she now knew had been Samson. As he’d been accusing her of being a deer and a human, things had started to make sense in a way they hadn’t for years. The reason for everything that had happened since she’d taken the witch’s potion grew clear. She knew what had happened to her parents now. Why they’d left her—she hadn’t been abandoned, they’d been murdered. Hunted. It might have been an accident, but that didn’t change the situation she’d been in.
She ignored every ache in her body as she leaped faster and faster to get away from the clearing and the horror it contained. She was still bounding as
fast as she could when she ran into Barrett. Just like he had so many years ago, he held his hand up to stop her.
“Bambi!” His voice held the timbre of his inner bear as he demanded she stop.
Once she stopped, she could barely stand as all four of her limbs shook violently. Tears that couldn’t fall in her current form burned behind her eyes.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Barrett glanced around the trees as if looking for the threat she was running from.
Like she had when she was a fawn, she focused on Barrett’s calm voice to find the calm she needed to change back into her human form. She fell forward into his arms as a sob ripped from her newly reconstructed throat.
Her body shook in his arms as Barrett drew her against his chest and brushed his hand over her hair.
“Dead.” It was the only word she could squeeze out between sobs. “They’re dead.”
“Who's dead? What’s happening? You’re scaring me, Bambi.”
She couldn’t find the words she needed to tell him everything, and even if she could, her breath was too ragged to try.
“Are your clothes far away?” he asked.
She managed to shake her head.
“Okay, I’m going to go find them and then I’ll be right back. Are you going to be all right?”
All she could do was give a quick nod.
Barrett lifted her into his arms in one swift motion and placed her into the cab of his truck. After he’d shut the door, he pulled his clothes off and placed them on the hood.
Bambi tried to pull her thoughts together as Barrett shifted into his bear form and followed her scent into the forest. She curled up on the seat, pulling her knees against her chest. As the moments went by, the horror of the situation crept back up on her again.
Her parents were dead. In some ways, it was a relief. She hadn’t been so fundamentally broken that they felt they had no choice but to abandon her. It was something she’d felt over the years even if she had no basis for that thought. That was the source of her most deep-rooted insecurities. Ones she thought she’d gotten over as she’d grown up, but realized were still there the moment she learned the truth.
Not long after he’d disappeared, the giant brown bear Barrett had become ambled back out of the forest with her clothes in his jaws. He came to her door and was human again by the time he reached her. He passed her clothes to her before moving to get dressed himself again.
By the time he climbed in the driver seat, Bambi had collected herself.
“The witch’s potion worked,” Bambi said. “I know what happened to my parents now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BARRETT stared out the window as Bambi explained what she’d seen through her sobs. He reversed the truck and tried to follow the path they’d taken into the forest back out again.
“How do you know it was your parents?” he asked when she fell silent.
“I suppose I don’t know, except that somehow I do. It was them. I just know it was.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. What can I do?”
“You could call the cops.”
“Yeah, that conversation would go super well. ‘Hi, I’m a deer shifter and so were my parents. They were murdered years ago, and they’re buried in the forest. I’m not sure I can tell you exactly where, but there’s a hermit who lives alone in a wooden cabin somewhere in the forest who will probably be able to tell you.’ What exactly do you think any sane officer would say?”
“Well, that depends.”
“On?”
“On whether the officer in question is aware of the unique life we lead.”
“I’m shit out of luck then.”
“Not necessarily. Pa was saying there’s a new cop in town. Someone Mayor Howard recruited specifically to help with cases involving others.”
“And she knows about shifters and everything else?”
“According to the rumors, it takes one to know one.”
“No shit?”
“Maybe we can call her when we get you home.” Barrett was certain of one thing—he wasn’t going to leave Bambi alone with the discovery. At least, not until he was certain she was okay.
“I don’t—” She cut off and frowned.
“What is it?”
She sighed. “It’s going to sound crazy.”
“So what else is new?” he teased.
“Ha ha. I was going to say I don’t want Samson to get in trouble.”
“You just said he killed your parents.”
“Maybe. But he’s too young to have been responsible, or at least to be solely responsible. He wouldn’t have been able to dig the grave alone, not at that age. I just want answers.”
“Explain that to Officer Keets. I’m sure she’ll be able to help out.”
Bambi wrapped her arms around her legs. “Maybe.”
They both fell silent for the rest of the journey. Every so often, Barrett glanced across the truck to check on his sister. Being the one who found her when she was younger left him more protective than any of their other brothers, and it physically hurt him to see her in such pain.
SAMSON HAD considered running away. Seeing Bambi in the clearing where his parents were buried—where the past had been buried until he’d dug it up—had all but cemented that plan. The fear and hatred on her features had made him want to run. He’d been a child when the accident happened. He wasn’t sure whether it was him or his father who had taken the final shots. Maybe it was both of their shots that had taken the lives.
Instead of running though, he returned to his home and waited by his campfire. He had no idea how long it would be until justice would arrive, but he was certain it was coming. His pa’s warning about ensuring no one discovered their hidden secrets echoed in his mind. The police would come and take them all to prison. Now, only Samson was left to face punishment.
As he’d feared, justice arrived swiftly. The patrol car pulled up without the lights flashing, but that didn’t give him any sense of relief. A lithe young woman with golden yellow eyes stepped out of the car alone.
Samson didn’t stir or move from his place at all. He barely acknowledged the new arrival. At least, until she moved to his side.
He lifted his hands, ready to accept the punishment sure to come.
“What are you doing?” the female officer asked.
“You’re here to arrest me, aren’t you?”
“Is there something, in particular, I’m supposed to be arresting you for?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Can I sit next to you?”
He dropped his hands and shrugged. If she sat, it was a few moments longer that he was free of prison. He had no idea whether he wanted to delay the inevitable, but the idea of prison terrified him. The way his pa had described it, it sounded torturous.
“Did you want to tell me why you think I should be arresting you?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning is usually a good place.”
He stared at the campfire and started his story, certain that the officer would think he was insane. Maybe she wouldn’t arrest him after all. She’d lock him up for his insanity instead.
BAMBI APPRECIATED Barrett’s company when she got back home. He made sure she had something to eat. He rang the police officer he’d mentioned to come speak to her. Best of all, he didn’t ask unnecessary questions or push her for more information than she was ready to give.
Even after Officer Keets had been and gone, Barrett stayed with Bambi throughout the night. He took the couch and was there for her every time the nightmarish memories of the day her parents disappeared took over again.
In the morning, he had breakfast cooked while she was in the shower, trying to wash away the memories.
He was the one who answered the door when someone knocked mid-morning.
From her place sitting on the couch, Bambi recognized Samson’s voice asking whether she was there.
With shaking legs, she climbed from the couch. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk. But only if you want to.”
Barrett stood by with his arms crossed, clearly deferring to Bambi to make the decision.
With her jaw clenched, she nodded. “I’ll hear you out.”
“Alone?” Samson added.
She indicated her acceptance of the request to Barrett who gave a curt nod in reply, letting her know without words that he would be there in a flash if she called for him, and then left as Samson came through the door.
“What do you want?” Bambi asked.
“I don’t even know really. I just needed to come here to talk to you. Office Keets came to see me yesterday, and she told me what you said to her. About your parents. And about not wanting me to get in any trouble.”
Instead of responding to his statements in any way, Bambi waited for him to continue.
“I wanted to say sorry and thank you. I’m still trying to understand the world I’ve stumbled into. I’d convinced myself I had made up the events of that day, but now I know it was real and that you’re . . . Well, what you are and that I was responsible for the death of your parents, at least in part. I’m sorry I can’t give your parents back or make up for you not having them in your life. But I am grateful that the truth has come out, for my own benefit as much as yours. I wish I’d known about magic and shifters and all of that sooner.”
Bambi barely realized her tears had started again until she went to speak, and her voice quavered. “Did Officer Keets tell you about others?”
“She did. She told me about herself too.”
Bambi chuckled in spite of herself. “Who’d have thought our local police force would include a werewolf.”
Samson paled at the W-word but nodded. “I never imagined this world. At all.”
“Is that why you came into the city during the day?”
“Things need to change. I’ve spent most of my life hiding in my cabin in the woods terrified of something I thought might have been a fantasy. Now I know it was real, and the lengths Pa went to in order to cover it up, I need to reconsider what I want from life. It was a little lonely living off-grid.”
