Her Bear In Mind (15 page)

“I’m going to put this inside you, and crank it open until you beg me to stop.”

Sierra drew in another ragged breath and tried to speak. Her words came out in just a broken whisper, barely audible.

“What did you say?” Dorrian asked.

Sierra coughed and tried again.

“I said, you were wrong. These kids are not loyal to you. They don’t want to stay just because you gave them toys and took away their curfew. Deep down, they want their pack, and they hate you. All it took to convince Gina to fly away was five minutes of talking about her parents’ houseboat. They hate you. Just like all the packs under your control hate you. You have no loyalty. All you have is fear. You’re disgusting. And I will never come to you.”

Dorrian backhanded her across her face. The blow made her head spin. He immediately followed this action by tenderly stroking her cheek.

“You’re dangerous.” he said, almost admiringly.

He brushed the hair out of her eyes.

“And you may well be right. Perhaps the only real tool I have is fear. Which is why I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”

He held up the pear of anguish.

“But first, I am going to hurt you.”

*

At some point Dorrian had unchained her. It didn’t matter, because she no longer had the strength to fight back anyway.

He had left her there on the floor, bloody and bruised, her body struggling to heal itself. Morning light was just starting to stream through the windows.

She had thought he was going to kill her that night. Many times, she had wished he would just kill her. She had expected him to just finish her off when he was done.

But Dorrian had bigger plans for her than that. He told her, before he left, that she wasn’t going to die quietly in this room. He had to make sure there was an audience first. The children were talking, you see, about Gina’s escape. If fear really was his only tool, then he was going to use that to its full potential.

She was going to die today, but she wasn’t going to die quietly in this room. Oh no. He was going to assemble all the children in the lobby and execute her in front of them. He just hadn’t  made up his mind on how to kill her yet. He was debating between having his leopards rip her apart and eat her, and a good, old-fashioned crucifixion.

She had known that Dorrian was egotistical, and sociopathic. But she hadn’t realized quite how sick he was. She shuddered, trying to block out the memories of what she had endured the night before.

Dorrian was very, very sick.

How long had it been since he had left her? Hours? Was it daylight when he left, or still dark? The pain made everything confusing.

But the pain was fading with remarkable speed. This new body of hers was an amazing thing. It was the first time she’d been able  to appreciate her accelerated healing. The burn on her shoulder had healed already, leaving behind a knotted pink scar. The rest of her body was putting itself back together, little by little.

She wondered how long it would be before he came for her. Before her public execution was staged in front of dozens of horrified children.

Maybe she could do something to prevent that.

Slowly, she pried herself off the floor. Trying valiantly not to think too hard about what she was doing, Sierra considered the array of instruments lined up neatly on the wall in front of her. Her legs shook as she walked along the wall, letting her fingers trail across them as she considered each one. Her fingertips dusted the handle of a hammer, the curved blade of a scythe, the fine point of a stake, and the cool metal of a bowie knife.

Could she do it?

Was she brave enough to do this?

If she was going to die, she didn’t want her death to be some sick teaching moment for Dorrian.

But could she do it?

She had almost convinced herself that she couldn’t when she came upon an electric carving knife. It was the kind you’d use for a Thanksgiving turkey. She picked it up. In her mind’s eye, she saw that Hallmark image of a family gathered around the table while dad sawed off a neat slice of turkey. Sickened by the image, she dropped the knife and threw up all over the blood stained, blue carpet.

She knelt there for a moment, gathering herself. She took a deep breath, then stood up and picked up the knife. She took the power cord and plugged it into the wall.

It’ll be easy
, she told herself. The knife will do all the cutting for her. It will hardly take any pressure from her. She could go straight for the artery in her neck. She’d bleed out quickly. Maybe a minute, and it would all be over. And surely it would be less painful than whatever Dorrian had planned for her. Certainly less painful than what she had endured last night.

She flipped the switch to turn the knife on. The mechanical whir of the blade was almost impossibly loud. The sound drilled into her head, filling her with cold terror. She almost turned it off then.

Almost.

Summoning her resolve, she took a moment to think about Joe. Her wonderful, strong Joe. She hoped that he’d find a way to get by without her. Tears ran down her face as she considered that an afterlife wasn’t necessarily in the cards for an immortal. That she may wait for him in Heaven for a very, very long time.

“I love you, Joe.” she whispered, and with shaking hands, she raised the knife to her neck.

*

She dropped the knife in surprise as the lights went out in the room. A moment later, dim, auxiliary lighting kicked on and an alarm began to sound.

A few minutes passed. Sierra stood still, waiting to see what would happen next.

Then, from out in the hall she heard shouting, followed by gunshots.

Sierra ran to the wall and pulled down the scythe. She pressed her body against the wall right next to the door and waited.

A few more minutes passed, and then one of Dorrian’s guards burst into the room. He looked around wildly for a moment, expecting her to still be on the floor where they left her. Sierra sneaked behind him and slashed the scythe across his throat. She ran out or the room and down the hall to the lobby.

The hotel was in chaos. Bullets rained down in the marble foyer, leaving dust clouds in their wake as they hit home in the cold stone. Dorrian’s men were all over. Some were dressed in tactical gear and bearing automatic weapons. Others were fighting off the intruders in leopard form.

And the intruders…

Like Dorrian’s people, some were in human, and some were in animal form. There were wolves, alligators, foxes and lions. There were hawks swooping down from the lofted ceiling and striking with their claws and sharp beaks before flying back up again. And there were bears. Her bears.

Sleuth had come for her and their children.

All of the packs had come for their children.

And in the middle of the fray, there was Joe. She would have recognized his sleek, black fur and powerful form anywhere. He was fighting off four of the leopards at once, decimating them with ease. He tuned from them and saw her from across the room.

Joe bounded towards her, shifting smoothly as he closed the distance between them and breaking into a run. She threw her arms around him and he lifted her off her feet in his embrace, spinning her around and kissing her deeply. Amid the bullets and the chaos and bloodshed around them, they held each other just for one, still moment.

Then the moment passed and they returned to their dire reality.             

“Do you know how to get to the hanger?” he asked her urgently.

“Yes.”

“We have trucks down there waiting to take the children out of here. I want you to get in and take the first one out.”

“No!” she insisted. “I’m staying! I’m helping!”

“Sierra!” he shouted at her.

He took a moment to take in her determined expression.

“Fine!” he said. “I want you to go find as many kids as you can and get them down to those trucks. Okay?”

“Okay.” she said.

Joe pulled her into another brief kiss.

“I love you. Be safe.”

Joe ran off to rejoin the fray. Sierra darted for the stairwell, scooping up an abandoned rifle as she went.

The door to the stairwell was locked. Sierra fired the gun at the door handle, splintering the wood around it until the door would open. She bounded up the stairs as fast as she could. She headed straight for the twelfth floor, where she knew the older girls were.

Naked, covered in blood, and armed to the teeth, she burst into the hallway, where most of the girls were huddled together, wondering what was happening. They stared at her in surprise.

“Who wants to go home?” she asked them.

They were silent for a moment, before one of them finally spoke up.

“We’re getting out?” she asked.

“We’re getting out.” Sierra confirmed. “But I need your help. Where are the older boys?” she asked.

“Eleventh floor.”

“Okay.” Sierra said. “You, go down there. Tell them to start gathering up the younger boys. Go floor by floor. The rest of you, start gathering up the girls. I want you to meet me in the stairwell on the first floor. Do not go into the lobby until I get there!”

“What about the babies?” one girl asked.

“Shit!” Sierra said. “Do you know how many babies there are?”

“At least a dozen.” she replied. “They’re in a converted banquet room on the

second floor.”

“Okay.” Sierra said, thinking wildly. “You, come with me! The rest of you, go!”

Sierra ran back to the stairwell, the girls hot on her heels.

“I’m Beth.”

“Sierra,” she replied.

They ran down the stairs.

“We can’t carry them all!” Sierra yelled, thinking aloud. “We need.,. wagons or…”

“Housekeeping carts!” Beth exclaimed.

Sierra smiled.

“Beth, you’re a genius,” she  said as they ran out onto the second floor.

One of the guards stepped into the hallway just as they rounded a corner. Without hesitating, Sierra pointed the gun and shot him in the head. His body fell backwards to the ground. They ran past it.

“Wait!” Sierra yelled, and doubled back. She unclipped the guard’s security badge.

“We’ll need it for the elevator.”

In the banquet room were thirteen cribs laid out in rows, in each one a baby with a pink or blue blanket like a hospital nursery. The babies cried as they grabbed them and laid them down on the plastic carts. Each cart had two shelves, and they could fit three babies on each shelf. Sierra slung the gun over her shoulder by the strap and grabbed the thirteenth baby in her arms.

As fast as they dared, they pushed the carts back down the hall and into the elevator. Sierra flashed the badge and they took the elevator down to the lobby.

Mercifully, when the doors opened, the area immediately in front of them was clear. Sierra told Beth to wait there with the carts, thrusting the baby into her arms.

She ran to the shot up stairwell door. Behind it, she found at least fifty cowering children.

She took the first group down the elevator herself, making sure the hanger was clear. Six trucks were waiting at the other end of the hanger. She told them to run for the trucks and went back for the next group.

Only about a dozen kids could cram in the elevator at a time. She escorted each group across the lobby and into the elevator, sending them down before heading back to the stairs for the next group.

Finally, there was only one group left. They ran to the elevator, Sierra carrying one of the smaller boys. She loaded them in and sent them down, breathing a sigh of relief as the doors shut.

Her relief was cut short as she was suddenly thrown to the ground, sending the rifle spinning out of reach. A leopard had appeared out of nowhere, tearing its teeth into her calf. She screamed, and looked up at the leopard pinning her down.

It was Dorrian.

She tried to shift, but the pain and fear blocked out every thought in her head.

Dorrian shifted and held her down. He dug one hand into the wound on her leg, causing her to scream again.

“You have ruined everything for me!” he screamed at her. “You filthy little meddling bitch! You’re destroyed everything I’ve worked for!”

He wrapped his long fingers around her throat.

“I am going to take so much pleasure in killing you.”

She was losing air fast, clawing desperately at his clenched hands. Her vision was staring to gray around the edges as he smiled triumphantly down at her.

Then Joe ripped him off her. In one movement, he tossed Dorrian into the air and then snapped his powerful jaws around Dorrian’s torso, ripping him in half with a shake of his massive head.

Sierra drew in a ragged breath and coughed as Joe shifted back to human form and approached her.

“Joe…” she said weakly.

“Shhhh…” he told her. “Don’t try to talk. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”