Molly had her sketch pad on her lap. She was sketching her assailant with a charcoal pencil clutched in her shaking hand. Even upside-down and from across the room Sierra recognized Eric’s face in the drawing. Etched in charcoal, his long hair looked like wisps of smoke. The cold expression in his eyes bored into her and she couldn’t help but feel a wave of guilt wash over her. Was this her fault? Had Molly been caught in the cross fire caused by her ambition?
Sierra rushed over and hugged her.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “How bad are you hurt?”
“That son-of-a-bitch destroyed my paintings.”
“I saw. Molly, I’m so sorry.”
“He wanted you. He kept asking where you were and I didn’t know where the hell you were even if I’d wanted to tell him. Which I didn’t. Because I’m a really fucking good friend.”
“You are the best of the friends. I’m going to buy you new overpriced paints. And wine.”
One of the cops interrupted.
“Do you know this man?” he asked, indicating the charcoal drawing.
“No.” Sierra lied. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Any idea why someone might want to hurt you?”
“I told you,” Molly interjected. “She’s a reporter. She basically pisses people off for a living. It could have been for dozens of reasons, right, Sierra?”
“Yeah.” Sierra agreed, seizing on the plausible narrative like a life raft. “I can call my editor and have him scan the hate mail file to you.”
“Please do,” the cop said.
The cops continued to question them for the next hour. When they asked Molly to go over it all again for the third time that night, Joe stepped in and demanded if it was necessary. The cops, bashful after being chastised by the governor, agreed to call it a night. They promised to have a patrol car check in on them periodically, asked that Sierra and Molly call if they remembered anything, and went on their way.
By then Molly was three glasses of wine in and had almost stopped shaking.
“Okay,” Molly said, adopting her rarely used no-nonsense voice, “Now you’re going to tell me why you lied to the cops.”
Her accusation hung in the air. Speechless, Sierra turned to Joe, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was looking determinedly at a piece of couch stuffing.
“You can’t know,” Joe said softly. “I’m sorry you can’t know, it will just put you in danger. More danger then I’ve already put you both in.”
He knelt down eye level with Molly and took her hand.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you why that man attacked you. He’s a coward for hurting someone weaker than himself. But I promise you I will find him and I will kill him.”
He stood up and finally met Sierra’s eyes. With a sad expression, he caressed her face.
“Sierra, I’ve enjoyed out time together, but I need to keep you safe, and you can never be safe when you’re with me. We can’t see each other anymore.”
Sierra reeled from the shock.
“What? You’re dumping me? Now?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I’m going to hire security to patrol your place. They’ll make sure no one bothers you again.”
Sierra felt hot tears spring into her eyes which she refused to allow to fall. She wasn’t sure if she was more angry, scared, or heart broken.
“I have to go now.” he said as he headed for the door. He gave her one last, sad look before leaving.
“Goodbye Sierra.”
*
The next day Molly and Sierra popped their first cork at 10:00 am, ordered a pizza, and set to work cleaning the apartment. Sierra found a pair of work gloves and started picking the larger chunks of glass out of the carpet while Molly scrubbed the red paint out of the places it had splattered. They put on some music and tried to focus on the task at hand instead of dwelling on the night before.
There was a knock on the door shortly after they got started. Sierra answered it with her gun behind her back.
At the door was a pale young man with sandy blond hair and a muscular frame. He held out his hand awkwardly. Sierra did not take it.
“Hi,” he said. “I thought I should introduce myself. I’m the, uh, security guard Joe hired. My name’s Zeke.”
Sierra regarded him for a moment.
“Well why don’t you help us then, Zeke? No sense in standing around. Why don’t you carry that couch down to the dumpster?”
“Sure.” he said, eager to please. Then he hesitated. “I mean…uh…maybe I could find someone to help me carry it.”
“I’m pretty sure you could lift it by yourself.” Sierra countered.
“Yeah but…” he dropped his voice to an undertone, “I’d look pretty obvious carrying it by myself, right?”
A few minutes later, Zeke had enlisted the help of a neighbor, and Sierra uncorked the second bottle of wine.
The man she was falling for had unceremoniously dumped her less than a week after their first date, and now there was a teenage bear shifter in her apartment. It was just going to be that kind of a day.
Molly refused to throw out the paintings. She gathered up every scrap, laid them lovingly in a storage bin, and then spent the next hour crying.
By the fourth bottle Sierra had called in sick to work and Molly had moved on to sketching cartoons of Eric dying in increasingly violent and creative ways. A lot of red colored pencil went into those drawings.
Zeke was eventually relieved by Damon around the sixth bottle or so. Damon was an older shifter who hardly spoke to them and would not help move furniture, not even when offered cold pizza.
By the time Damon was replaced by Steve they had hauled out all the broken furniture and appliances. They were left with their kitchen table, two out of four chairs, and one bed.
The two of them passed out on the living room floor where the couch used to be, empty wine bottles at their feet. Steve covered them with a blanket before assuming his post by the door.
Sierra woke up stiff and hung over. A look out the peephole confirmed that Zeke was back again.
Molly, annoyingly more capable of bouncing back from a bender than Sierra ever had been, busied herself with the acquisition of breakfast. She had a meeting with her publicist to discuss the lost paintings. Sierra supposed she ought to go to work too.
It just all felt so mundane. Toasting a bagel. Going to work. In the last week she had witnessed amazing and terrifying things and let herself fall in love with a man whose very physiology defied reason. Now it was just business as usual.
Sierra waved goodbye to Molly. Ate her bagel. Took a shower. Put on a suit and high heels.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Could she do this? Could she just go back to the way things were?
Sierra kicked off her heels and walked to the front door. She swung the door inward, almost sending Zeke, who had been leaning on the other side, tumbling to the ground. Startled, he smiled at her sheepishly.
“Good morning ma’am.” he said.
“Come in, Zeke,” she instructed him.
Sierra sat down at the kitchen table and poured them each a cup of coffee. Zeke sat down and dutifully accepted the mug.
“I need you to tell me what’s happening.”
Zeke shook his head empathetically.
“I can’t. We’re not supposed to talk to you. Just keep the place on lock-down.”
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Sierra insisted. “You will tell me, or I will call Joe and tell him I caught you sleeping on the job.”
Zeke gaped at her.
“But I wasn’t…you can’t do that!”
“Try me.”
Zeke swore.
“Okay…but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“A good journalist never reveals her sources,” Sierra assured him.
“Okay.” Zeke said, reassured. “So there’s like this faction thing happening.”
“Factions?”
“So what’s Joe doing now?”
“He’s doing the politician thing. Trying to convince everyone you’re not a threat and to keep supporting him for Alpha.”
“And how’s that going?”
“Not good,” Zeke said darkly. “More and more of us are going over to Eric’s side every day. People are scared.”
“What happens if Eric becomes Alpha?” Sierra asked.
“He can order the pack to turn you. But they’ll have to get through me first.”
“You’re not going to side with Eric?” she asked.
Zeke shook his head.
“No ma’am. I’ve seen what he did to this apartment and your friend’s face. We don’t hurt humans. That’s like a dude beating a woman or a grown up beating up a kid. You don’t hurt people who can’t fight back. It’s not cool.”
Zeke sipped his coffee.
“Eric is not a cool dude.”
*
Molly’s publicist probably deserved a raise.
Instead of throwing his arms up in despair over the loss of over fifty completed paintings and a few unfinished pieces as well, he’d booked a private gallery for the next week.
Sierra was there both as a friend, and in a professional capacity, having promised to write a short article on the exhibit for the Post. She arrived at 8:00 pm, iPad at the ready and photographer in tow.
The sign in edgy painted letters hanging just inside the door declared the name of the exhibit “Home Invasion”. At its center was the charcoal police sketch Molly had made of Eric. It was accompanied by a series of stark, gut wrenching photographs of Molly’s bruised face. And then there were the paintings. The slashed canvases had been proudly framed and hung on the gallery walls. The shredded strips swayed slightly in the breeze generated by the A/C. Each one hung next to a small sign declaring its “former” title, medium, and price tag.
The price tags were nothing to scoff at.
Sierra noted that several pieces were already marked as sold. She paused to listen in as a couple admired one.
“It just makes you feel like everything is so fleeting,” the woman was saying. “Like it can all be taken away from you at any moment.”
The woman clutched her date’s hand, and he put his arm around her protectively. Sierra felt a pang of sadness, thinking about Joe.
After finding out what was going on from Zeke, she had tried to call him. After failing to get a response on his cell phone she repeatedly tried his office and his home. Sierra was sure the staff had grown tired of pretending he wasn’t there. She even considered driving out to Sleuth, but rationality and self-preservation had won out in the end.
She just wanted to tell him he was being an idiot. Did he really think she was any safer not being with him? The damage was done. As long as Eric was out there and making his power play, she was in danger. So what did it hurt for them to be together? Life, as the woman viewing Molly’s slashed up painting had pointed out, was fleeting.
Molly was at the center of every one's attention, sipping a glass of burgundy while she recounted the attack to the awed spectators. The bruise on her face had blossomed into shades of purple and green her publicist had insisted she not cover up.
Sierra could not for the life of her decide if the whole spectacle was a particularly appalling example of commercialism gone mad, or a legitimately great art piece born of the kind of suffering great artists are known for. For Molly’s sake, she decided the spin of her article would definitely be the latter.
Sierra pushed her way through the crowd towards Molly.
She whispered to her, “That couple over there just paid $2,500 for what I told you to throw in the trash.”
“I know!” Molly whispered back enthusiastically, “Don’t remind me. My publicist says I’m not supposed to smile too much.”
Her photographer, James, approached them with a smile.
“You ready to take some pictures?” he asked.
He took several shots of Molly posed with the police sketch. He even insisted on one of the two of them together.
“It was your apartment too,” he said. “You’re a part of this story, Sierra. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
Dutifully, Sierra stood next to Molly.
“Serious or smiling?” she asked.
“Definitely serious.” he said.
Damon, their three to eleven guy, lurked in the background, looking extra conspicuous amongst the clean cut, art buying crowd. He had followed Molly to the gallery earlier. Zeke was pulling a double, sticking close to Sierra. Currently he was chatting up a pretty young socialite who couldn’t peel her eyes away from his muscular chest. Sierra had gathered that poor Zeke was working doubles as punishment for telling her what was going on in Sleuth. At least he didn’t seem to be hating this one.
Sierra said goodnight to Molly and went to get her coat. Zeke was still entirely focused on the pretty brunette. Sierra tried to come up with any way she could interrupt them without ruining his chances with her. Every scenario she could think of made her look like the girlfriend. Deciding she could surely survive the walk to the car without him, she slipped out of the gallery and into the night.
It was about a five-minute walk back to her car. Sierra pulled her coat tighter against the cold and started down the sidewalk. The street was mostly deserted, and the flickering lights overhead made her shadow dance on the pavement. Her black high heels echoed loudly. Regretting her decision to leave Zeke behind more and more by the minute, Sierra rounded the corner on to the street where her car was parked.
There was the Prius, parked on the corner, thirty feet away from her. Eric was leaning against it.
CHAPTER 7
“End of the line, buttercup.” he said. “Here’s the deal. You come over here like a good little reporter and I’ll bite you. Promise it won’t hurt too much. You try to run, I’ll rip your head off and eat it. What’s your vote?”
Sierra, cold terror clenching her insides, turned from him and ran. She kicked of her shoes and bolted down an alley way, her stocking feet splashing in the cold puddles of rainwater. She heard Eric take off after her.
Halfway down the alley, she heard the sound of fabric ripping and chanced a brief glance backward. Eric was shifting into bear form without breaking stride. Currently half man, half monster, he came at her on all fours. She wretched her eyes away and turned back just in time to narrowly avoid tripping over a trash can.
The muscles in her legs screamed as she tried to push herself faster, knowing she couldn’t possibly outrun a bear. She burst out of the alley way and ran into the street. Cars swerved and honked as she cut through their path. She heard a thud and a roar as one of them struck Eric and chanced another glance backward. He was sprawled onto his back, bleeding, but was growling at her as he climbed up again.
Sierra ran up the street and back towards the gallery, fervently praying Zeke had noticed her absence by now. He was fast, so much faster than her. She could feel his hot breath on her, just behind her now. One great paw reached up and scratched her across her back, knocking her down to her knees just as she reached the gallery doors. Eric stood on his hind legs, towering over her prone figure and roared.
The gallery doors flung open. Zeke and Damon came rushing out. They were followed by James, who was fearlessly snapping pictures. The repeated camera flash shone in Eric’s small, black eyes.
Eric looked around wildly. Everyone inside the gallery had their faces pressed against the glass, watching the scene. Crowds of passersby had gathered, keeping a safe distance as
they took pictures and videos on their cell phones. Sierra realized very quickly the mistake Eric had made, the one he himself was coming to realize. He had exposed himself. It wasn’t exactly commonplace to see a wild black bear chasing people through downtown. This would be all over the news.
After one last look at her Eric began to back away, then turned and fled. People screamed as he passed them on the sidewalk. Paying them no notice, he turned down an alley and was gone.
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 85
