Defender Cave Bear: Protection, Inc: Defenders # 1

by Chant, Zoe

  Caro had read all about parents not understanding how to deal with their kids once they became teenagers, but she’d never imagined it would happen to her. But it had. Dad had fixed fancy breakfasts for six little girls having a sleepover at Lina’s place, but he’d bailed on Caro’s cook-off. Lina was the one he’d hugged until she let go. Caro was the one he hugged for fifteen seconds, max.

  She’d thought she’d cry all night. But when her tears finally dried, she was surprised to see that less than an hour had passed. She could still go down and have dinner. Abuelita would definitely have saved some for her, and she was hungry.

  Caro swung her legs over the edge of the bed, then stopped. If she came down for dinner, she’d be giving in. It’d be like she didn’t really care that Dad had canceled her cook-off. She had to stay in her bedroom, hungry and alone. Caro began to sniffle again.

  Something flew in through her bedroom window. She gave a startled jump, then craned her head to see what it was. It was too big to be a moth or beetle. A bird? A bat? It was moving too fast to see clearly, its wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s…

  Of course! That must be what it was. Caro loved hummingbirds. She sat still and silent, so she wouldn’t scare it, and slowly extended her hand, palm up. She didn’t really believe that it would land on it, but you never knew.

  The hummingbird darted in close, then landed on her hand. It let out a tiny, triumphant neigh.

  Caro gasped. It wasn’t a hummingbird at all, or any kind of bird. It was a winged pony small enough to stand on the palm of her hand.

  Disbelieving her own eyes, she brought her hand closer. She was going to wake up from this wonderful dream at any moment, so she wanted to get a good look at it first, so she could treasure the memory.

  The pony’s coat was a white so bright and pure that it almost glowed, like a living piece of the moon. Its magnificent feathered wings, still outstretched, were opalescent, gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow. Its flowing mane and tail were opalescent as well, cascading like a liquid kaleidoscope. It had the perfect conformation and proud bearing of an Arabian stallion, with big, dark, intelligent eyes.

  The pony snorted, then folded his wings over his back, bent down, and nuzzled her wrist. She felt the warmth of his breath and the velvet softness of his muzzle. Its hooves were hard and smooth against her palm, and her wrist ached from bearing its weight. His coat had a faint scent of rain and fresh-cut grass.

  The flying pony was real.

  All her sorrow was swept away in a wave of pure joy. The flying pony was real! She had a miniature flying pony in her room!

  The pony tossed his head, sending his rainbow mane flying. But no, it wasn’t quite a rainbow. The colors were paler and more shimmery than that. They reminded her of a photo she’d seen once of a rainbow made by moonlight rather than sunlight: a moonbow.

  “My name is Carolina Alejandra Valdez,” she said softly. “What’s yours?”

  The stallion didn’t reply or seem to understand. Instead, it unfolded its wings and launched itself off her palm. It flew much more slowly this time, so she could easily see that it was heading toward the open window.

  “Oh, no!” Caro cried out.

  She lunged to close the window, desperate not to lose the beautiful little pony. Then she stopped herself with her hand still outstretched. Slowly, she let her hand fall to her side. This was a magical creature, obviously. She couldn’t imprison him. The winged stallion had to stay with her of his own free will or not at all.

  His wings beating like living opals, the pony flew out the window. He glowed against the dark and moonless sky, flying in leisurely swoops and circles and figure-eights, while Caro watched with her heart in her mouth.

  And then, at last, he flew back into her room, landed on her bed beside her, settled down, whickered softly, and laid its head down on her bare foot.

  “You don’t talk, do you?”

  The pony made no reply. From all her experience with horses, which admittedly consisted of riding lessons for one wonderful summer and reading about a million books about them, she felt sure that he was a regular… miniature winged pony… as opposed to a human-level intelligent miniature winged pony.

  “I’m naming you Moonbow.” she said. Even if he couldn’t understand her words, he’d understand her tone. Even regular ponies were very smart. “I promise to take good care of you, and feed you and groom you, and keep you secret. Make sure no one but me sees you when you go flying, okay? They’d lock you up and keep you in a lab or a zoo or something. But don’t worry, Moonbow. I’ll protect you!”

  Moonbow gave another little whicker. She stroked his velvet-soft coat and silk-smooth feathers, and he turned his head to nuzzle her fingers. Her heart swelled with love and happiness.

  It was too bad she couldn’t tell Dad. He loved animals too, and he’d always bought her horse books and toy horses, and paid for her riding lessons. And he’d be amazed to see the pony. But he was a bodyguard, and before that he’d been a Marine, and before that he’d been a cop. He believed in law and order and rules and institutions.

  He’d think Moonbow was an important discovery that the government ought to know about—much too important to keep for herself. And then men in black would arrive and show him their badges and say they’d take good care of Moonbow, and Dad would believe them. And Caro would never see Moonbow again.

  “You’ll be my secret,” whispered Caro, stroking him. “I’ll just stay up till Abuelita’s asleep, and then I’ll sneak out and collect some grass clippings and rolled oats and chopped carrots for you to eat.”

  Who cared about some stupid cook-off when she had a tiny magic flying stallion?

  Chapter 9

  Tirzah had always been a homebody, content to stay in her apartment and have the world come to her. She could easily go a week without ever leaving, and not even notice till some neighbor knocked on her door and asked her if she wanted to go somewhere with them. But after less than a week in her apartment with Pete and Batcat, she was going stir-crazy.

  Batcat wasn’t the problem. Tirzah had worried that she’d never be able to have neighbors over again, but she’d found that she could stash Batcat in the carrier with a slab of lox and then stick the carrier back in the closet, and she’d be happily and silently occupied until Tirzah took her out.

  The problem was Pete. She’d never lived with anyone once she’d moved out of her college dorm, and had worried that she was too introverted to be able to stand having someone else in the apartment with her. But he was quiet and self-contained enough that she didn’t feel intruded upon, and she could always retreat to her bedroom if she wanted more privacy. And when she wanted company, she had someone interesting and funny and smart to chat or watch movies with.

  She also had someone who could turn into a cave bear and who had a teammate who turned into a velociraptor alternately neatly dodging her attempts to inquire about that little matter, or looking so troubled at the prospect of talking about it that she felt guilty and dropped it. Override’s burning curiosity was going unsatisfied and literally keeping her awake at night.

  And then there was that other thing keeping her awake at night, which was that she had someone extremely hot sleeping on her sofa (while she lay in bed imagining him lying beside her), borrowing her shower (while she sat in her living room imagining him naked and dripping wet), having daily private phone calls in whatever room she wasn’t in, presumably with his girlfriend since he didn’t leave the room to talk to his teammates (while she sat in the other room seething with jealousy), and just generally being there (while she was in his presence imagining what he’d be doing with his girlfriend as soon as he finished being her bodyguard.)

  And since there hadn’t been the slightest hint of anyone trying to come after her, and Pete’s team hadn’t yet found any leads, there was no distraction. There was just Pete, being secretive and sweet and sexy, right there with her all of the time. Being with him was wonderful and frustrating and also pre
-emptively heartbreaking, because eventually he or his teammates would track down Jerry. She’d be safe then, but Pete would be out of her life for good.

  Enjoy what you have while you have it, she told herself.

  It was hard to do when she was pretending to work on her computer while Pete sat at the table drawing up a blueprint for a superhero obstacle course, complete with adorable sketches of Batman brooding atop a wall that Spiderman was climbing while drill sergeant Wolverine yelled at them from the sidelines.

  The knock at her door came as a welcome distraction. Both she and Pete glanced at the camera feed, but it was only Esther with a cup measure in her hand, her white hair in a neat bun. Pete went to the fridge and got out a slab of lox. Batcat, by now used to the routine, flew straight into her carrier, purring loudly.

  Tirzah waited till the closet door was shut, then went to open the front door. “Hi, Esther. Need something for your baking?”

  “Snickerdoodles,” Esther said. “I thought I had enough sugar, but I’m a quarter cup short.”

  “Could you reach it down, Pete?” Tirzah asked. “It’s on the far left top shelf.”

  He headed for the kitchen. Tirzah, still in the open doorway with Esther, watched him go. The rear view was very fine indeed—

  WHACK!

  Something hard smacked into Tirzah’s head. More startled than hurt, she let out a yelp and looked up, just in time to see Esther, her wrinkled face twisted with fury, take another swing at her with the plastic cup measure.

  Tirzah ducked, and the cup measure shattered against the doorframe. Bewildered, she spun her chair backward. “Esther! What are you—hey!”

  With a scream of animalistic rage, Esther lunged at her, stabbing with the tiny stub of the plastic handle.

  Pete jumped in front of Tirzah and caught Esther’s arms. The elderly woman shrieked and kicked at him, but he easily held her at arm’s length.

  Past Pete and through the still-open door, Tirzah saw more neighbors rush from their apartments and toward hers. All of them had the same look of feral rage as Esther. Miriam brandished a coffee mug with coffee slopping out of it, Ali held a thick college textbook as if he was going to slam it down on someone’s head, and Jamal had a can of spray paint which he was madly spraying in all directions.

  “Pete!” Tirzah yelled. “Shut the door! The neighbors have all gone crazy!”

  Pete twisted around and took in the situation at a glance. He scooped up the thrashing, shrieking Esther, ran to the door, placed her down in the hallway, and shut the door. A second after he did, the ravening neighbors slammed into it, nearly breaking through. Pete braced his entire weight against it and locked it.

  Thuds and howls of rage sounded in the corridor. The doorframe shook as the neighbors whacked it with whatever they had in their hands.

  “Apex!” Tirzah gasped. “The file said you all had powers—Could they—”

  “Yeah, the Apex guys do too,” Pete said. “This has got to be Jerry.”

  “That asshole! He’s putting everyone in the building in danger just to get to me. Can you call your team?”

  Pete shook his head, his expression grim. “The last thing we need right now is an enraged velociraptor.”

  “Oh.” Tirzah swallowed. “Good point. Then what?”

  Pete spoke with calm decisiveness. “We leave. I’m sure he’s doing this to force you out, so once we’re gone, your neighbors should be safe. And I’ll keep you safe.”

  “But Batcat—”

  Pete was already striding toward the closet. Over his shoulder, he said, “I need my hands free. You hold her.”

  He extracted the kitten from her carrier and thrust her into Tirzah’s arms. She yanked out her collar and stuffed Batcat down the front of her blouse. Pete’s eyes widened.

  “I need my hands free for my wheelchair,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Right,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Don’t hurt them!” Tirzah said.

  “I won’t. And I won’t let them hurt you, either.”

  Chapter 10

  Pete fetched some supplies from the closet. Then, shielding Tirzah with his body, he opened the door.

  The mob of enraged neighbors had gotten even bigger. But whatever power was compelling them obviously couldn’t control their individual actions beyond “grab something and attack.” Pete redirected the blow of another tiny white-haired grandma, this one swinging a cast iron frying pan, into the wall instead of his head. A necktie wielded like a whip by a middle-aged man in a suit slapped him across the back of his neck.

  Then, with them all nicely bunched up, Pete flung the quilt he’d gotten from the closet over the entire pack of them. He and Tirzah bolted for the elevator. He’d intended to push her chair, but her shoulder muscles bunched as her hands flew, and she easily kept pace with him.

  The elevator chimed, and the door slid open. The teenage girl inside hurled a bottle of nail polish at Tirzah. Pete batted it out of the air, grabbed the girl firmly by the shoulders, and held her off while Tirzah went inside. Then he dropped a pillowcase over her head, gave her a gentle shove toward the heaving, amoeba-like quilt, and stepped inside. The doors closed and the elevator began to head down.

  Tirzah’s eyes were wide, her mostly-exposed cleavage moving up and down as she panted for breath. A mist of sweat made her skin almost seem to glow. Pete looked aside, to keep his mind on his job rather than where it wanted to go, which was straight into the gutter.

  The elevator chimed and stopped… on the fourth floor.

  “Goddammit.” Pete made sure he stood between Tirzah and the door. It opened, revealing an angry ten-year-old with both hands clutched full of Legos. Pete let the hurled Legos bounce off his chest and fall through the space between the floor of the hallway and the elevator until the doors closed again.

  “Poor Maricela,” Tirzah said. “Those were her favorites. I’ll have to buy her another set.”

  “You ever think of having kids?” Pete asked. The question just slipped out. She was so good with them and liked them so much that he was surprised she didn’t have any already. She didn’t seem to have a significant other, but she was so independent that he couldn’t see that stopping her.

  “I might adopt some day.”

  “Why adoption?” Then, realizing that she might have fertility issues, he said, “Forget it, that was way personal.”

  She waved him off. “Not at all. It’s just that I’m not big on babies. I start liking kids when they’re old enough to have conversations with.”

  The elevator chimed again. To Pete’s relief, it was on the ground floor. But that only meant that the real danger was fast approaching. As he escorted her along the corridor, fending off neighbors left and right, he quietly warned her, “This is all a set-up for an ambush, you know. Whatever I tell you to do, you do, okay? I tell you to get away, you get away. I tell you to freeze, you freeze.”

  “Got it,” Tirzah replied. She sounded brave, but he could hear the shakiness underneath.

  Pete swallowed. He wanted to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but touching her was just too intense for him. It would distract him when he needed to be most alert. So he had to make do with words. “I’ll protect you. I promise.”

  Outside the apartment building, the city was strangely quiet. Too quiet. He’d worried about attacks from mind-controlled bystanders who were less harmless than Tirzah’s neighbors, but he instantly realized that he’d been barking up the wrong path. Jerry wasn’t planning to sic armed cops or gun collector civilians on them. He was clearing a path to attack them himself.

  “Hold tight. I’m going to push you.” Pete grabbed the push handles and began to run toward his car, which was parked a block away. Tirzah’s hair streamed back like a banner in the wind. They approached an intersection. To get to their car, they needed to make a left turn. Very softly, he repeated, “Hold tight.”

  Her hands gripped the armrests so hard that knuckles went white. Pete swerved i
nto an alley on their right. The wheelchair tried to throw her out, but she held fast.

  Pete hadn’t been running as fast as he could. Now he did. If they could get to the end of the alley before Jerry realized they weren’t headed for the car and tried to intercept them, they’d make it to the subway stop. By the time Jerry arrived, they’d be long gone. A couple quick subway switches, and they’d lose him.

  Sunlight glinted off the subway sign up ahead. Two more minutes, and Tirzah would be safe.

  The ground heaved beneath his feet. Pete staggered, nearly losing his footing, then stumbled to a halt.

  “Earthquake?” Tirzah gasped.

  Ahead of them, the ground rippled, then rose upward in a wall of shiny black stone. He spun around, ready to snatch Tirzah up and carry her out of the alley, but he was too late. Another wall of stone was rising up to block off the other end of the alley. And Jerry stood in front of it, smirking, empty hands upraised.

  Pete didn’t hesitate. Leaping in front of Tirzah, he drew his gun and leveled it at Jerry.

  Jerry gave a casual wave of one hand. The familiar heft of Pete’s gun was suddenly a heavy weight, pulling down his hand. It had turned to stone.

  For the first time in his entire life, he dropped his gun. It hit the pavement with a sharp crack, and shattered into fragments of glassy black stone.

  “My teammates are already on their way,” Pete bluffed. “You can’t turn them all to stone.”

  “Sure I could,” Jerry retorted. “If they showed up. But they won’t, because you haven’t called them yet. And if you were thinking of hitting some kind of panic button, forget about it.”

  Jerry waved his hand again. A weight tugged at Pete’s hip, then tore through his pocket. He had just enough time to see a cell phone-shaped piece of black rock before it too smashed like a dropped glass.