VEX: Valley Enforcers, #1

by Walters, Abi

  He lifted his hands and made a sweeping motion. “Uncharted territory, man. Who knows what’s up there. It’s a whole new world.”

  In a way, we both were heading into uncharted territory. I had a feeling, though, that whatever Hakeem would be dealing with up North would be a hell of a lot worse than my Acacia issue. Maybe not. Like he said, it was a whole new world.

  Chapter Two

  Acacia

  The door to my RV slammed shut behind me and I jumped. Somehow I managed not to spill the contents from the plastic clam that held my dinner. Or brinner, I guess. When I asked the waitress if their meat was locally sourced and organic she looked at me like I was from Mars. I went with the pancake platter to be safe. She still looked at me like a new aged hippie. I just liked knowing where my food came from.

  Heavens knows I’d broken a lot of my rules for food. They don’t have many organic options in federal prison. Whatever I ate in Waseca was barely considered food but I didn’t have any room to complain. But in the middle of nowhere in Montana, hours from home, I had a choice. As I dug into the still steaming stack of cakes I was never more thankful for gluten.

  Halfway through my silent meal alone my phone rang. I sprang towards my discarded bag and tore through the remnants of my day. I put up over a dozen flyers, and it was probably too soon for a phone call, but a girl could hope. Yeah, hope it’s that sexy beast of a man from earlier in the day. I bit my tongue.

  The guy who was probably most definitely a werebear. The same one who tried to get me to leave town. He also, coincidentally, was one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen. He didn’t look like he was a Montana native. With his naturally bronze skin, dark silken hair that reached his shoulders, and even darker eyes, he looked like he belonged on a beach. His eyebrows were thick and prominent, and there was a scar that ran through the left one leaving a small patch without hair. He was tall, dark, and sexy… and completely out of my league. He tried to run me out of town, which was probably evidence enough that he thought I was a complete psycho loser.

  I had completely forgotten about my phone call, but whoever was on the other end called back right away. I glanced down at my phone and let out a deflated sigh before answer.

  “Hey, Jade. What’s up?”

  “Wow. Don’t sound so excited to talk to me,” My older sister said dryly. “I was just checking in with you. Did you make it to the bear place or wherever the hell it is you are?”

  “Yup. They threw a party in my honor. I was welcomed by a marching band and two gorgeous hunks carried me around all day.”

  She snorted, “Carried you straight to the loony bin.”

  “Rude, Jay. What part of that wasn’t believable? I thought I was an expert storyteller,” I said the last part a little too bitterly.

  “Don’t be like that, Acacia. You know Mom means well.”

  “She is worried about her reputation. I decide to go to vocational school and become a cosmetologist? Not applying myself. Start a group with my friends and go out ghost hunting and looking for Bigfoot? Need to go to therapy. Arrested and thrown in federal prison? Scandalous.”

  My mom probably did mean well but I learned at a young age to keep my thoughts to myself. She was a wonderful woman and a great preschool teacher, but she always treated me a little differently than my brother and sisters. I was more of a daddy’s girl growing up. My dad was the reason I got into animal rights and environmental protection… which is eventually what led me into cryptozoology. As an environmental planner, he was always busy with something. He let me sit in his office after school and any time I had a question, he answered it. My favorite memories growing up all involved the solo camping trips Dad and I would take. Jade was always too busy on the weekends to go with us. Eden, my younger sister, was so afraid of bugs she didn’t even like to play outside. And my young brother Aiden preferred staying in and bugging Jade or terrorizing Eden. That left the trips all to me. I loved them.

  And then there was the night of the attack. The night that changed the rest of my life. It was the night I learned that there were things in the world I didn’t understand – things people chalked up to myths and legends. Werebears existed. And one of them saved my life.

  “You have to admit that that last one is pretty scandalous.”

  “Puh-lease! It was a bullshit charge, and you know it,” I huffed into my phone angrily. “Listen, I don’t want to hear about it anymore, okay? It happened. I did my time. Now I’m trying to make my life better and do what I want to do.”

  “You’ve always done what you want to do, Acacia. That’s the problem. You’re not a teenager anymore. You’re twenty-seven.”

  “And this conversation is over.”

  Acting more like the teenager I was claiming not to be, I hung up on her and silenced my phone. I was almost positive she wouldn’t call back, but I didn’t want to hear it ring if she did. I knew I probably wouldn’t get any calls from locals wanting to dish about bears, so I wasn’t too worried about lodging my phone somewhere between the bench cushion.

  No longer wanting to sit in silence, I stood up and walked over to the tiny flat screen TV I installed just before leaving for my trip across Montana. I flipped through my DVDs before putting in an X-Files disc and settling back down with my pancakes.

  The RV had been my permanent home since I got out of Waseca. It was my parent’s but they let me buy it off of them for a lot less than it was worth. It was twenty years old, but they kept it in good shape and I renovated the hell out of it. The only place that would hire me was a plastic factory on the outskirts of town. I worked my ass off at the raging inferno long enough to pay off the Winnebago and stash a couple thousand away in savings.

  My friends at the Supernatural Society – the same ones that all but abandoned me after I was arrested – didn’t welcome me back with open arms. There had been tension before shit hit the fan. Slug, my former partner in crime and the other co-founder of the society, was set on making big bucks doing quack ghost hunts. He was so wrapped up in trying to make cool videos for the internet that he completely glossed over the initial reason we started the society. I, on the other hand, wanted to stick to our roots and do things authentically. I wanted to look for Manipogo and the Turtle Lake Monster. He wanted to fake EVPs and charge confused families thousands of dollars to essentially do nothing. He took over when I went away and the attention got to his fucking head. When I tried to attend a meeting I was kicked off the property and banned from the society.

  That was one of the biggest reasons I ended up in Brown Bear Valley looking for werebears. I wanted proof. I wanted to rub it in Slug’s face. I wanted to go back to doing what I loved with my friends and enjoying it. We used to stay up all night camped out in trees or breaking into old abandoned homes. We ran on coffee and adrenaline. Back before there were dozens of generic shows mocking ghost hunting or cryptid hunting on cable television, we were the kings and queens. I knew things would never go back to how they were. I guess more than anything I wanted proof for myself. Proof that my entire life hadn’t been wasted searching for made up monsters.

  I knew the monsters existed. Maybe not all of them. Aliens? Hell yes. Mothman? Definitely. Nessie? Probably. Slenderman? Not so much. My ‘The truth is out there’ tattoo was a permanent stamp reminding me that there’s a lot out there that is unknown. But after years of being laughed at, rejected, and treated like an immiscible, I was ready to be the one laughing. No, I needed to be the one laughing.

  I finished my dinner and powered down the bulk of the RV. With only a few strands of white Christmas lights and the soft glow of the TV I quickly found my eyes drooping. After finishing my exhausting drive I had jumped straight into putting up my flyers and attempting to talk to people in the town. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was dark and I was cozy. I unfolded a fleece blanket at the end of the bench and wrapped myself like a burrito.

  I dreamed of Mulder and Scully turning into angry half bear half dinosaur creatures and Mr.
Tall, Dark, and Sexy saving the day.

  Tearing into my protein bar, I absently wandered in the woods. Again. I had been in Brown Bear Valley four days and my investigation was at a standstill. Day One brought Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy. Day Two, I noticed all my flyers had been taken down. I replaced them all and attempted to talk to a few people around town. A few looked at me like I was nuts. One threatened to call the police. And another told me to leave town. Day Three I decided to take a different approach and do some field work. I picked a location close to the report that led me to the quiet mountain town and started exploring the woods. Over twelve hours later I returned to my RV dirty, sweaty, and empty handed. With my morale low, I really wanted to take a personal day and stay in. I had reading to catch up on and networking to do. But something told me to crawl out of bed and go back to the woods. I pulled off the main road that wound through the mountainside and took a few random turns before parking the RV and gearing up.

  “I should get a tape recorder. At least then when I talk to myself it looks professional,” I mumbled. “Captains log: Buy a tape recorder.”

  I shoved the crinkling wrapper into a side pocket and exchanged it for my cellphone. I’d been using an app to track where I walked. There wasn’t any method to my madness. There were thousands of acres and I had no way of knowing where to go.

  My field work did provide me with some interesting information, however. I had yet to come across any wildlife, let alone a bear. For a town named Brown Bear Valley, I sort of expected sightings to be plentiful. I hadn’t seen or heard any indication that bears were anywhere near the valley. Hell, I hadn’t even seen a deer. Aside from a few squirrels, a gaggle of annoying birds, and a never ending supply of mosquitos that had a taste for my blood, I was alone. What kind of place is named after bears when there aren’t any around in the first place?

  The boredom set in a lot quicker than it had the previous day. Without any real idea of what I was looking for, I wandered almost aimlessly. I knew how to read maps and use a compass, but I was glad there was an app tracking my route because my mind drifted more often than not. I knew it wasn’t safe to put in my headphones so I resorted to singing to myself and playing the drums on trees. Even though I hadn’t seen or heard wildlife didn’t mean it wasn’t out there. And there were far scarier things I could encounter if I wasn’t careful enough. Hillbillies. Sink holes. The Blair Witch.

  A twig snapped in the distance and my head shot up. A tremor of fear rushed through my system. Was The Blair Witch like Bloody Mary? Was she summoned if you thought about her too long? Reaching back slowly, I grabbed my Taser from my pack. Fear gave way to curiosity, and like all the dumb bimbos in the horror flicks, I walked in the direction of the noise. At least I was self-aware. Even when I first started ghost hunting as a teen I never stayed afraid for too long… or I tried to, at least.

  Walking deeper into the woods with my Taser handy was definitely one of those adrenaline moments that reminded me of the old days. It was impossible to record and have the Taser handy, so I kept my camera in my pack. Running a solo operation was way more difficult than even a two person team, and I didn’t have the funds for a laptop, let alone a fancy GoPro to attach to my chest.

  I started climbing the hill in front of me as quietly as possible when the light suddenly disappeared and a shadow surrounded me. There was a low, menacing growl, and for a fraction of a second I thought I had stumbled across a bear, but a familiar voice followed.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  I used my hand as a visor and looked up at Mr. Tall, Dark and Sexy. The sun haloed around him making him look like some sort of gift from the heavens. He looked like he was going out on a military expedition with his camo pants and hunter green shirt.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  He descended the hill with expertise and stalked over to me, arms crossed in an annoyed fashion. His hair was pulled back, which only made his face seem more angular and foreign. The obsidian pools of his eyes were terrifying, but they elicited something deep inside of me.

  “Hunting,” He grunted. “Are you lost?”

  “Hunting?” I drawled sarcastically. “I guess you could pass that off with outfit, but you don’t have any weapons. And no, I’m not lost.”

  “Are you hunting, then? I don’t think a Taser will get you far in that department,” He spoke almost teasingly.

  It was my turn to give him a nasty look. “Hunting is inhumane and unnecessary.”

  “Ah. Okay. An animal lover.” For the first time since I met him, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy smiled. It was toothy and crooked, but it was so bright and warm it needed to be illegal. “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing trespassing on my property, Acacia.” And like that his smile was gone.

  My eyebrows raised in surprise. “Your property? Huh. I didn’t see any signs marking it off. I was just hiking. You know, the whole animal lover thing.” He hadn’t said it in a judging tone or offensively, as most people did, but it didn’t keep me from putting a little bit of venom in my voice. “The Taser is for my protection. Have you ever watched a horror movie? The woods are crawling with weirdos trying to infect you with a disease, tie you to a tree and have their way with you, or chop you up into pieces and put you in a stew. Oh, let’s not forget the sacrificial murder thing either.”

  The smile was back. “How could you forget that one? It’s all we specialize in out here. I think a gun would be a better form of protection. Maybe holy water.”

  “I’m not legally permitted to have a gun,” I rattled off, cocking my hip to the side. Before he could ask any questions, I rushed to follow my admission with another truth. “And I have holy water in my sac. Do you think I’m an amateur?”

  “Definitely not,” He muttered under his breath, probably more to himself than to me.

  “Look, can you just point me in a direction that isn’t your property? Or better yet, show me where your den is? Nobody in town is talking –”

  He erupted in a whispered scream, “You talked to more people in the Valley? Jesus, Acacia! I told you to leave. It isn’t safe for you here.”

  “And I told you I’m not leaving,” I stressed. I lifted my chin and met his eyes. They swirled with energy. “This is important to me. Call me crazy. Call the government. Hell, call your leader because I know you’re a werebear –”

  He interrupted me with another shushed remark, “They’re called shifters, dammit! Shifters. Not werebears. Shifters. And you don’t know anything, so stop acting like you do.”

  I was a little embarrassed, a little angry, and hell of a lot intrigued. With lips pursed, I watched as he undid his hair and ran his fingers through it. My stomach did summersaults and my heartbeat sped up. It was almost as if he forgot I was standing there. I was too stunned by his outburst and calendar boy display to speak up. He paced in a tiny circle muttering under his breath about something, all while weaving his fingers through his hair and tugging at his scalp. When he finally stopped and turned his attention towards me I made a choking noise that was a mix between surprise and amusement.

  “I’ll make a deal with you. I will tell you everything you want to know about shifters if you agree to leave the town alone. Don’t post any flyers. Don’t ask people if they know about shifters. Don’t accuse people of being bears.”

  My breath caught and I rushed to agree. “Deal.”

  “And I retain the right to keep information from you.”

  “No deal.”

  His eyes turned to thin slits. “I can’t tell you everything. It’s dangerous for me to tell you anything in the first place. I want you to find the answers you’re looking for, but I want to keep you safe even more. Do you understand, Acacia?”

  I knew he didn’t mean it the way I took it, but each time he claimed he wanted to protect me or keep me safe my heart sang and warm tingly butterflies tickled my insides. I learned a long time ago to take care of myself and not rely on anyone else, but every now and then I
liked to dream about being cared for – being loved and protected by someone who understood me.

  I didn’t even know my stranger’s name and I was entertaining idea of him galloping in on a dark steed and saving the day. My past experiences proved that men were more like the Headless Horseman and their trusty steeds were rusted Ford Pintos. I wasn’t in Sleepy Hollow, though, and my stranger had the potential to be Ichabod Crane.

  “I understand,” I agreed softly.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I’ve been parking my RV in the grocery store’s lot. I haven’t been ticked or towed yet, so I’m going to stay there until they tell me to move.”

  He nodded his head. “I’ll come to you tomorrow sometime after five. You have to leave now. If anyone else stops you tell them you were lost.”

  I pulled my bag around and tucked my Taser away, exchanging it for my cellphone and folded map. “Yeah, yeah. Wouldn’t be my first time I’ve had to lie my way out of trespassing.”

  His gaze was intense and sent shivers down my spine. I tried not to pay any attention to his presence as I pulled open my routing app and set my destination back to the side of the road where I parked.

  “I still don’t know your name.”

  He reached up and scratched his face and a hesitant look crossed his face. After a few seconds of silence I realized I probably wouldn’t get his name and took my cue to leave. Hoisting the bag over my shoulder, I rolled my eyes and turned to head back to the road. My app calculated that it would take me almost three hours get there. My feet were already achy, and despite caking on the bug spray my skin itched under my clothes. Trudging along, I kept my eyes on the screen of my hand me down iPhone.

  “Vex. My name is Vex.”

  I was glad my back was turned towards him so he didn’t have to see the cheesy grin on my face or the way my eyes lit up at the sound of his voice. I paused and once I calmed down enough, I looked over my shoulder.