Triplets For The Bear

by Amy Star

  Slowly, Cheyenne sighed and kicked off her blanket. She set her laptop aside and got out of bed, reluctantly making her way out into the hall, offering a waspish, “Alright, what did you leave here?” before she was even fully out the door.

  Once she was out the door, a hand pressed against her chest just beneath her throat, and all of the air left her lungs as she was pushed backwards until her back slammed into the wall. She wheezed for a moment before everything seemed to go cold as she realized that Lorraine was holding a kitchen knife in the hand that wasn’t pinning Cheyenne to the wall.

  The look on Lorraine’s face was calm. Unnervingly so, in fact. Much the same as it had been whenever she was simply waiting for Harry to give her instructions for the day. She didn’t look as if she was readying herself to murder Cheyenne in cold blood, though as she lowered the blade until it was pressed against Cheyenne’s stomach, it was abundantly clear that she intended to do exactly that.

  Cheyenne wanted to scream, but her mouth worked uselessly, and she couldn’t get any sound out. Focused on the moment, she didn’t even notice the sound of another door opening.

  The knife was sharp. Cheyenne could feel it through her shirt, pricking at the skin of her stomach just enough to be noticed, though not enough to draw blood. Not just yet, at any rate. The look in Lorraine’s eyes made it rather apparent that drawing blood was the goal, though. Her knuckles were white with how tightly she was holding the knife’s handle, and it shook slightly as her arm trembled.

  Cheyenne stood stock still. With the wall behind her, she couldn’t back up. And if she tried to inch to one side or the other, it would take no effort for Lorraine to just sink the blade straight into her stomach.

  Lorraine was speaking, mumbling something, though it was so quiet that Cheyenne couldn’t tell if Lorraine was speaking to her or speaking to herself. In the end, she only managed to catch the last few words, as Lorraine’s voice rose slightly with conviction as she ground out, “I want them gone.”

  Cheyenne’s blood ran cold, and for a moment she swore her heart stopped in her chest. Lorraine wanted to cut her babies out of her. She wanted to murder Cheyenne in the process, clearly, but that wasn’t actually the part that Cheyenne was the most concerned about just then. No, everything in her head was circling around the fact that Lorraine wanted to hurt her babies, and the urge to cover her belly protectively was almost irresistible. She held herself back only because she wasn’t sure what Lorraine would do if she moved.

  Cheyenne was so focused on what was happening right there, right then that she didn’t notice the footsteps getting closer. At least, not until Daphne tackled Lorraine from the side and threw her to the floor like a sack of potatoes. As they both went toppling to the side, the tip of the knife sliced a neat slit in the front of Cheyenne’s shirt, but that was all the damage it managed to do.

  Lorraine howled in outrage as the knife went clattering out of her hand, and Daphne grabbed it and threw it aside before Lorraine could scramble after it. Eyes burning, Lorraine instead lunged for Daphne, catching a fistful of her hair and then smacking her head against the floor. Cheyenne gave a wordless outcry of shocked distress, though that only seemed to attract Lorraine’s attention back to her. As she turned away from Daphne, Daphne didn’t stir.

  Lorraine backed away a few paces, as if she needed more space for something, and Cheyenne dropped to her knees on the floor and scrambled over to Daphne’s side, ducking low over her to make sure that she was still breathing.

  She squeezed her eyes shut when she heard cloth tearing, and when she heard a huff of breath a moment later, it was not a human sound. Cheyenne crouched closer to Daphne, curling over her protectively, eyes still squeezed shut for only a moment longer before she slowly opened her eyes again and turned to look.

  Cheyenne had always known that lions were big. She had seen them at the zoo before. But Lorraine was not just big; she was enormous, with a tail like a snake, paws like shovels, and a mouth like the jaws of life.

  Cheyenne had been within touching distance of Lorraine whenever she was shaped like a lioness, though at the time she had been convinced that she had simply dreamt it. That almost seemed tame compared to being within a few feet of her, while leaning over her unconscious best friend to keep her safe. Cheyenne wasn’t sure how she was supposed to do that, considering she wasn’t exactly an imposing figure at that point, and she only barely knew how to throw a proper punch, so it wasn’t as if she was going to have any luck fighting off a lioness of all things.

  Lorraine seemed to agree with that assessment, as she rolled her eyes before she began to take those first few steps closer. Her paws were the size of catcher’s mitts, and her teeth gleamed like diamonds as she opened her mouth.

  …Only to grind to a halt as she heard steps behind her, until she was abruptly thrown to the side by a bear roughly the size of a rhinoceros. Lorraine made a noise like all of the air had been pushed out of her by an MMA champion as she hit a wall and slid down it, and for a moment she didn’t move, stunned, before she slowly began to peel herself off of the floor.

  She glanced around for a moment, eyes darting past Harry as he placed himself between Lorraine and Cheyenne and Daphne. And then, Lorraine’s gaze darted to the nearest window, and she scrambled towards it. The glass shattered as she threw herself out it, and there was a muffled thud as she landed in the dirt outside.

  Harry growled low in his throat, but he turned to look at Cheyenne, his ears laying back against his head as he did.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him, and she gestured him towards the door with one hand. “I can take care of Daphne. You go deal with this mess.”

  Harry dipped his head once as he nodded, before he turned and bounded towards the hallway. Cheyenne heard the door burst open and then swing closed, though she didn’t hear it click, and she was pretty sure the entire knob and locking mechanism were going to need to be replaced. Not that she could say she was especially surprised just then.

  Daphne was finally beginning to stir, and Cheyenne clamped her hands down on her shoulders to keep her from getting up off the floor. Daphne lifted a hand, flapping it at her weakly as she groaned, “Nothing’s broken, now what the fuck happened?” Slowly, Cheyenne let her go, and Daphne wobbled as she sat up on her elbows and slurred, “I feel like I got hit by a motorcycle.”

  “More like a very large cat,” Cheyenne corrected her. “Bigger than a motorcycle, actually.”

  With a weak laugh, Daphne flashed her thumbs up, and then laid back down on the floor. “I’m just…going to stay here for a while,” she stated.

  Cheyenne eyed her for a moment longer before she got to her feet. Lingering for another moment, she said, “Holler if you need help or if it feels like something’s off,” before she turned and hurried over to the door.

  It swung open at a touch, and it didn’t close entirely as Cheyenne tried to push it closed, and she cringed slightly at the mess of chipped and cracked wood that the locking mechanism had turned into. But she had other things on her mind, and she pushed it from her thoughts and turned away.

  From the edge of the porch, she could just barely make out Harry’s and Lorraine’s shadows around the side of the house as they clashed, so their shadows more resembled a writhing mass than two separate creatures. Even more than that, though, she could hear them both as they snarled. While she knew it would be safer if she just stayed on the porch and waited until everything was quiet, she couldn’t bring herself to just sit there as if everything was normal, and she found herself jogging down the porch steps and creeping towards the side of the house.

  She stayed close to the house, figuring the stone would offer her better protection than if she just stood out in the open, and she peered cautiously around the corner, hands curling around the edge of the wall as she did.

  She nearly flinched back behind the wall again when the first thing she saw was Lorraine smacking Harry across the face with one enormous paw, her claws fully extended.
Harry stumbled to the side only a step, and while Lorraine tried to use it as a chance to flee, Harry recovered quickly enough to catch her tail in his teeth, yanking her back before she could get very far, her claws raking furrows in the grass as she tried to scrabble away from him.

  Once it became apparent that wasn’t going to work, she changed tactics, instead turning to curl herself towards him. She lunged, mouth open, and Harry let go of her tail as he tried to backpedal out of range, though he wasn’t quite quick enough. While Lorraine didn’t manage to sink her teeth into his actual jugular, they did still slice through the skin of his neck and tear away a clump of fur.

  Cheyenne kept a hand clamped over her mouth. She didn’t think Harry would actually let Lorraine get past him, but she wasn’t going to draw any sort of attention to herself regardless. She didn’t even want to be watching, frankly, and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away as they clashed.

  It was like watching a force of nature at work, as Harry slammed a shoulder into Lorraine, bowling her over so she tumbled across the grass. Evidently, cats didn’t always land on their feet, and especially not when they were being knocked over by several hundred pounds of enraged muscle.

  She bounced back quickly, though, scrambling back to her feet. Her legs were longer, and she was built more for running, so it took little effort for her to dart around behind Harry and launch herself onto his back. He snarled as her claws dug into his shoulders like a set of climbing cleats, and he turned his head, jaws snapping as she tried to get a hold of the back of his neck.

  Harry gave her no such chance, though, instead rearing back onto his hind legs once it became apparent that he wasn’t going to be able to simply shake her off. Lorraine launched herself away from him as he began to topple backwards, and once he landed, he had to bolt back to his feet and hurl himself at her before she managed to make a break for it.

  Frankly, Cheyenne was all too willing to simply let her get away, since it seemed unlikely that she would come back again to try killing Cheyenne a second time. But if Harry was completely set on making sure she couldn’t even consider it, then Cheyenne wasn’t going to argue with him, and she certainly wasn’t going to try to get in the way of their argument, if a battle to the death could be called an argument.

  Other lights on the street were beginning to come on by then, and Cheyenne hoped that, fatal or not, they wrapped things up quickly before they had half the street and the entire city police force storming the yard.

  If nothing else, she didn’t need to worry about either of them trying to drag things out on purpose, as neither of them seemed to be holding anything back at all. They slammed into each other with an audible slap and tumbled across the ground, a blur of fur and teeth and claws and too bright eyes, and Cheyenne ducked behind the wall when they tumbled too close to her, only to peer out again a moment later as Harry kicked Lorraine off and bounded after her before she could get any farther away.

  With a sound like an angry garbage disposal, Lorraine lunged, one shoulder slamming into the side of Harry’s head and forcing it back, until it met one of the trees with an audible impact that had Cheyenne cringing from her hiding spot. Harry wobbled for a moment, but he recovered quickly, shaking his head and ducking under a swipe that was probably intended to take at least one of his eyes. Rather than retreating a few paces as it seemed Lorraine expected, instead he surged closer, mouth opening as she lifted a leg to ward him off when it turned out that the fence was right behind her and she had no room to back up any further than she already had.

  Harry’s teeth clamped down on Lorraine’s leg, halfway between her paw and her shoulder, and it looked as if he was going to simply rear backwards and rip the limb clean off. Lorraine, though, had no intentions on letting him get that chance. With a yowl, Lorraine hooked her other paw into the dirt of the nearest garden and flung it, launching dry dirt and mulch straight into Harry’s face and then tearing herself free of his hold as soon as his grip slackened.

  Harry shook his head rapidly to shake dirt and debris out of his eyes, as he backpedaled as quickly as he could lest she try to blind him further, only just avoiding a swipe to the face. He snapped his jaws, snagging Lorraine’s paw in his teeth, and with a massive heave, he tugged her over and then tossed her, his mouth opening at the last second to let her fly, throwing her in a way that Cheyenne hadn’t even known was possible.

  (Granted, she hadn’t known people could turn into animals until a few months before, so she wasn’t inclined to be too surprised if they didn’t actually fight the way she expected animals to fight with each other.)

  Lorraine hit the ground with an impact that forced the air from her lungs, and she had no time to try to get back to her feet before Harry was standing over her, one paw landing heavily on her chest as he lowered his jaws towards her throat, enormous teeth bared and almost seeming to glow in the low light of evening.

  Lorraine had just long enough to be aware of what was about to happen to her as Harry’s jaws closed around her neck, and her eyes went wide. Squeezing her eyes shut, Cheyenne looked away, but she still heard the wet, meaty crunch as Harry snapped Lorraine’s neck, the last yowling gasp that left the lioness’s body, and the dull thump as Harry dropped her body onto the grass.

  Slowly, Cheyenne cracked one eye open to peer around the wall again, and then the other eye. Harry was standing over the cat’s still form, his sides heaving as he caught his breath. He looked as if he still had no idea that Cheyenne was just a few feet away, watching him. He probably didn’t, she thought and she didn’t feel particularly inclined to draw attention to herself just then.

  Instead, she let him get back to work in silence, watching him quietly as he shuffled closer to Lorraine’s body once again, nudging it with one enormous paw to turn it.

  Harry closed his teeth around the base of Lorraine’s tail and began to haul her away, leaving hardly a sign that there had been a body on the grass just a second before.

  It took surprisingly little time for Harry to clean up the…mess that remained after the scuffle, but even so, Cheyenne felt an odd tension as she made her way back to the porch, only to pause on the walkway halfway there. With a very sudden sort of clarity, she realized there was some sort of liquid running down her legs and that her pants were suddenly soaking wet, and she looked down to see that she was standing in a small puddle that most definitely hadn’t been there a moment before.

  “Oh,” she observed quietly, blinking slowly. “That’s not good.”

  Daphne was back on her feet by then, creeping out the front door as she peered around carefully to make sure nothing else was going to attempt to maul her, when she heard Cheyenne’s tiny observation and burst into motion. Muttering a steady stream of, “Shit, shit, fuck, shit,” under her breath, she latched onto Cheyenne’s elbow and began towing her towards the driveway and towards the nearest car.

  She ushered Cheyenne into the passenger seat before turning and sprinting back to the house to get a set of keys.

  Daphne was nearly back to the car again when Harry re-emerged from wherever it was he had dumped the rather conspicuous body of a dead lion, head cocked to one side in what Cheyenne was guessing was a mix of concern and confusion, though reading the expressions of a bear wasn’t one of her strongest skills at that point.

  “Her water broke,” Daphne explained in a hurry, still making a beeline back to the car. Before Harry could even do anything, Daphne continued to shout at him, “You go get cleaned up and meet us there!” before she turned and practically sprinted the rest of the way back to the car and practically lunged into the driver’s seat.

  For her part, Cheyenne was surprisingly calm. Granted, the world seemed to be a bit fuzzy at the edges, so she was willing to assume that it was just shock or some sort of dissociative episode, but in the moment, she was pretty much alright with assuming that she would start freaking out later instead.

  And maybe it wasn’t a great idea for someone with a probable head injury to be driving, b
ut it wouldn’t be great if Cheyenne drove, only to start going into full labor on the way, and truth be told, none of them were really thinking that clearly at that point, for reasons that were fairly obvious to all involved. So, Cheyenne didn’t protest when Daphne shoved the key into the ignition and started backing the car out of the driveway.

  The drive to the hospital seemed to pass in a blur, and next thing Cheyenne knew, Daphne was tugging at her arm to lead her out of the car and into the emergency room. There, too, Daphne did most of the talking, until Cheyenne was situated in a clean room, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, hooked up to various monitors. A stream of doctors and nurses were in and out at first, and then everything got very calm.

  It was another forty minutes before Harry arrived, being ushered into the room by a benevolent nurse who patted his arm in a slightly maternal way, wished Cheyenne a pleasant good luck from the hallway, and then went on her way. Harry looked sort of flustered, but he was clean, and there was no evidence that he had been in any sort of a fight.

  He paced around the room fretting for a little while, until Cheyenne threatened to throw the remote she could use to summon a nurse at his head, and finally he sat down.