Wren and the Werebear (11 page)

"It's nice to have you around here," Dawson said. "See you back in the dance."

"Sure," Wren said, her throat catching tightly. Her mouth was dry and something dark and hurtful twisted itself up inside of her. It felt like she was going to suffocate. Then Dawson went back into the hotel and she was alone outside on the porch. She looked up at the stars again. They seemed dimmer than before, and they shimmered and swam as tears filled her eyes.

She blinked the tears back. There was no reason to be sad. This was all for the best. She'd done the right thing, told the truth, saved anyone from any more hurt. Then why did she feel as though something had gone terribly, utterly wrong?

It was another few minutes before she could bear to go back into the dance. When she did, Dawson was already gone.

Chapter Thirteen

It was five o'clock in the morning and Wren tossed and turned before finally giving up on any more sleep. Her night had been filled with dreams of bears running through the woods. The furtive chase.

The sky was a dark gray hinting toward dawn when she crossed the road and picked the pay phone up from its cradle. Her fingers punched the numbers in staccato tones. The phone rang, and rang again. She slouched against the gas station wall, ready for another disappointment.

"Hello?"

"Hi." Surprised by his picking up, she straightened herself against the wall.

"You left two messages."

"I wanted to talk to you." He didn't say anything, and she coughed. Was she really going to tell him that her life as he knew it was a work of fiction? "I have something to tell you. Something important."

She paused and waited for a response.

"You know, Wren, me too. I have something to talk about with you. But I'd rather talk about it in person."

Wren tangled one of her fingers in the phone cord. Phone booths—god, how ancient. Marriage, too, was an ancient institution. More ancient.

She was sure he meant to propose.

"I can't...I'm in California for another couple days." Thinking about their vacation, she imagined him sitting across from her in a fancy restaurant. "I'll be back soon."

"That's part of what I want to talk with you about." His voice was smooth, calm. It made her even more nervous.

"My work?"

"Yes."

Wren took a deep breath.

"Olivier, I need to tell you something about what I do."

"I need you to quit."

Wren closed her eyes. She had to have heard him wrong. The pay phone was broken. Something.

"Excuse me?" Her voice came out high, girlish. Stupid sounding.

"This isn't working. You leaving on a whim for days at a time. Leaving me when I need you."

He was so calm as he spoke. It made her stomach churn even more to think that he had practiced this speech, thought about how he would say this to her.

"Olivier, it was an emergency." Her throat strained and she pressed her fingertips to her temple.

"I'm sure it was. But we lost the AeroCon rider and now they've pulled out of my re-election campaign."

"The election is more than a year away."

"You know how it is in Washington, Wren."

"Yeah. I know."

Wren's fingers fluttered at her forehead, brushing back strands of hair that weren't there. Was this really happening?

"I need you by my side," Olivier continued. Reasonable. So goddamn reasonable. Except that he had no idea what this actually was to her. "I need you to be able to help me. And that isn't going to happen if you keep this consulting job."

"I can't— I can't quit." Her eyes were closed, but she could not stop the image of Tommy from filling her vision. She opened her eyes and tilted her head back. There was no way she could be dizzier than she already was. The clouds were wisps of shadow against the lightening sky. In them she saw figures, animals racing across the sky, hands and guns and trees, all in shadow.

"I can't quit," she repeated. The clouds moved and she followed one of them, a face in the sky. It twisted slowly under the unseen high winds. As though it was trying to escape before the sun rose to burn it away.

"Do you understand what you're doing, Wren? Do you understand what you're saying?"

Wren blinked and the figure was gone, melted into another form.

"Olivier, you don't understand what you're asking me to give up."

"I can take care of you. I have the money."

"It's not about the money. It's about—"

"No, Of course not. It's about you." Olivier's voice turned mean, low. She wondered idly if he was in the office, trying to keep his colleagues from overhearing. "It's always about you. What you want. All your selfish desires. You know what, Wren? Fine. I'm done with it. If you can't compromise on anything—"

"I can! Just not on this!"

"Tell me why. Tell me, Wren."

She thought about Tommy's hand over hers in the bar, the blood pact he'd given her. Her dad, lying in the hospital, his useless legs in front of him like two dead things. About the bear, and the wolf she'd killed before retiring early. About all the shifters she'd killed.

She realized that she had never told him because she couldn't. She didn't trust him.

"Wren? Wren?"

"I'm sorry, Olivier."

All this time, and she had never really trusted him. What had her dad said? To trust her instinct. She hadn't. She's made the right decision, the reasonable decision. She'd dated an ambitious, handsome man, someone who would complement her and give her a good facade once she was ready to step into the world. She'd weighed the variables, one by one, and ignored the most important variable of all: what her heart told her.

"You won't tell me? Then it's over. That's what you're saying?"

And now her heart was telling her just one thing.

"If you need me to give up my job... then yes. It's over."

She felt far away from herself. Like it wasn't her own voice speaking.

"Are you serious?" Olivier's voice was louder now. She wanted to tell him not to yell, that his colleagues would hear.

Instead, she didn't answer. There was nothing more to say, not really.

"You—you selfish bitch!" Olivier was louder now, screaming into the phone. "I can't even believe you're doing this to me. The year before the re-election? You think you'll keep your job to spite me? Wren, when you get home—"

Olivier was still talking when Wren hung up. The phone rocked slightly in its cradle, the cord twisting in on itself, retangling. Her heart was numb, and her chest felt as it did whenever she was sick with the flu. Hollow. Emptied out.

A cough from behind the gas station brought her back to her senses. Who was it? The shifter?

Slowly she stepped around the side of the building, peering around to the coastal side. Dawn was coming quickly, and the blue light of the sky illuminated a form sitting on the back curb.

It was Shawn. He looked up at her and jerked the joint out of his mouth, trying—and failing—to hide it between his knees.

"Hi," he said, smoke billowing from his mouth as he spoke. "Uh, can I get you a coffee?"

"In a bit," Wren said, a strange kind of relief flooding her system. She came and sat down on the curb next to him, looking out through the pines at the coast. Beyond the tops of the pines she could see the waves swelling, blue-green and dark. "It's beautiful here."

"Sure is," Shawn said, looking out. She could tell he wasn't sure if she would rat on him or not. He didn't have to worry. The last thing she cared about right now was getting a teenage pothead in trouble.

"I just broke up with my boyfriend."

She said the words out loud and then it was true. There was no going back, and she wouldn't have wanted to, anyway. The numbness in her body and mind began to crackle at the edges. She had broken up with Olivier. Now she was not Olivier's girlfriend. This...this was a fact.

"Oh. Jeez. That's what that was. Sorry about that."

She nodded in thanks, looking out at the ocean. The waves rose and fell, and the crashing of water against cliffs soothed her senses. The sun was rising behind them, behind the mountains, and the sky was quickly becoming brighter. It was already too bright for her.

"Do you want..."

She looked over to see Shawn holding the sweet-smelling joint out toward her in offering.

A smile came over her face. She leaned over and took the thin cigarette from his fingers, held it to her lips. The smoke burned her throat at first, but just for a moment. She held the breath and exhaled, a white cloud wisping from her lips and joining the other clouds in the air.

"Thanks," she said.

“I have to smoke out back here,” Shawn said.

“To hide from your dad?”

“He doesn’t care so long as I get good grades. And I get straight As.”

“Oh. Then why?”

“So Eliza doesn’t see.” Shawn looked out over the ocean. “She’s too young. I don’t want her to try until she’s old.”

“You’re a good brother,” Wren said.

The colors of the ocean and pines brightened as the sun's rays pierced the ridgeline and came streaming through the tops of the trees behind them. The water, which in the darkness had looked soft and swelling, shimmered with turbulence. The sharp edges of waves reflected silver light everywhere.

Wren felt an immense swelling in her heart, the relief of a great weight suddenly lifted from her. Everything happened the way it ought to, and she would catch the shifter soon. Then she was free to do anything she wanted to do. The future spread in front of her in all directions, the possibilities as numerous as the needles on the pine branches swaying in the morning wind.

They sat there for a while, the teenager and the assassin, watching the sun come up.

Chapter Fourteen

A commotion came from across the street. Wren followed the noise back to the hotel, and Shawn followed her, wanting to know what the excitement was all about. In the parking lot, Wren noticed a station wagon with the windshield smashed in on one side. A car crash?

Back at the hotel, Matt was trying to calm down the tourists. It was the couple and their daughter, and the daughter seemed on the verge of hysteria.

"What's going on?" Wren said.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're here!" The teenage girl moved past Wren and threw herself against Shawn's chest. Shawn looked up, uncertain how to deal with the apparently terrified girl in his arms. The father rolled his eyes.

"It was just a bear, sweetie."

"Just a bear?" The mother wiped her brow with a shaky hand. "It was huge! And it attacked us!"

"I've already called the ranger," Matt said, peering over at the teenage girl now cuddled up against his son. "Who's that girl? Is that your daughter?"

"Is that your son?" the father asked, just as critically.

"What did the bear look like?" Wren asked. The events of the morning were already fading in her mind. Breaking up with Olivier was not nearly as important as finding the shifter she was here to find.

"Oh, it was enormous!" the woman cried out, evidently happy that someone was taking their plight seriously. "Huge and black, and with such claws!" "How did you get away from the bear?" she asked.

"We were in the car. It came out in the road right in front of us. And it slashed at the sides of the car, and we backed up, but it came forward anyway and tried to jump on top—"

"And it smashed the windshield!" the teenage girl interjected. Shawn gave her a tentatively consoling squeeze and she buried her face back into his chest.

"Let's wait until the ranger gets here," Matt said. "None of you were hurt?"

Wren was already moving to the exit. In the parking lot, she examined the car. Sure enough, on the top of the hood the metal was gouged deeply. Another few clumps of black fur were caught in the jagged edges of metal. Wren picked out the fur and placed it in a specimen baggie.

On the other side of the car, the door was ripped down through the handle. It was as though someone had tried to key the side of the car with a chainsaw instead of a key. Wren quickly took out her cell phone and snapped pictures of everything.

The family came out of the hotel just as Wren was putting away the cell phone.

"See what it did?" the woman cried. "My god, we could have all been killed!"

"Where was this?" Wren asked.

"Just down the road here," the woman said. "A quarter mile, maybe. Thank God we all survived! Do you remember what I read in my horoscope yesterday, dear? You will face down a terrible obstacle, but all will end well. And you say that astrology is bunk!"

"Astrology is bunk," the husband muttered.

Wren walked away from the group toward the trailhead. The second part of the loop led toward that part of the road, and she had a hunch that the black bear was the same one she'd chased off of the side trail yesterday.

Once out of sight, she drew her gun. She tried to stay calm, but the adrenaline pumping through her system made it hard. Step by step, she made her way up the trail. She didn't know if it was the adrenaline or the pot, but every small rustle in the forest sent her into a spin of worry. After the tenth time she pulled her gun up on a bird in the branches, she decided that there was a difference between being vigilant and being paranoid.

All of the hiking she'd done was catching up to her. Her knees ached with each step she took up the trail. She was acutely aware of her body, of every movement she made. Wrapped tightly around the handle of the gun, her fingers began to sweat. She wiped them on her shirt and continued on.

At the side trail, she headed off into the forest. It wasn't long before she ran into fresh tracks. They led up, away from the coast. Away from the road.

Following the bear tracks, Wren found herself moving like a predator. Crouched, eyes sweeping the forest. Each step over the forest floor was as soundless as she could make it. Silent, she thought. Silent. Creep up on the beast.

Strangely enough, the tracks swung back toward the main trail, and before long Wren had crossed the loop, following the broken brush and deep bear tracks. She found herself crossing and recrossing the trail at higher elevations. She furrowed her brow. The bear's den was lower than this. Was it running, trying to escape? Or was there another den she didn't know about?