Wren and the Werebear (16 page)

The bear came crashing down the slope. Just as she was reaching for the weapon, it reached her and swatted her away.

The blow hit her directly on the head, and she flew sideways, landing on the ground. She skidded down the slope, leaves and mud coating her limbs. Her arm was broken. It was definitely broken. She pushed herself up with her left arm and turned to face the bear. The world spun dizzily and she pressed her hand to her temple, stumbling down to one knee.

The huge creature in front of her growled again, and she swore she saw a glint of pleasure in its eye. She tried to get up again, and stumbled again. She had no weapon. She was injured. The bear was just playing with her.

Turning to crawl away, she heard the black bear breathing heavily, grunts and sniffs. She clawed at the forest floor with her left hand, pulling herself forward inch by inch. She couldn't run from this creature, but instinct screamed at her to try.

Behind her the bear roared, and she looked back to see it backing up, getting ready to charge. The bear's snout twisted in a low rumbling snarl, and then its jaws opened as it let out a deafening roar. The sound echoed off of the walls of the valley and filled her ears.

The bear pawed the ground and started to charge.

She would not close her eyes. She would die facing her enemy. The roar in her ears made her whole body trembled as the bear charged, coming closer, closer—

Just before the monster could reach Wren, another bear came rumbling out from nowhere and barreled into the side of the black bear. Wren gasped as the huge golden grizzly slammed into the bear's side and the two creatures tumbled down the slope.

Two bears, one black, one golden. At the bottom of the slope they circled around each other, snarling. The black bear lunged forward, and the grizzly snapped at it, sending it scurrying back. The grizzly was half again as big as the black bear, but Wren knew the black bear was clever: a shifter, after all. It crouched back on its haunches and growled menacingly, its intelligent eyes darting back at Wren even as it faced off its opponent.

Wren scooted backwards, one eye on the dueling animals, the other searching for her gun. There it was! She scrambled up, her broken arm howling in pain with every motion. Even if the grizzly killed the shifter, she would still have one bear to contend with. And the other agents were supposed to be coming soon.

The grizzly stood on its hind legs. Upright, it looked twice as big as the other bear, and the black bear cowered in front. The grizzly tilted its head back and roared, sending the birds in the branches above flurrying away to safety.

The black bear snarled back, then turned and lumbered away, crashing through the underbrush.

No! She couldn't let the shifter get away!

Wren hopped up the muddy hillside, stumbling and falling on her good arm more often than not. Finally she reached the gun. She took it in her trembling, mud-slippery hands and turned around to see the grizzly bear coming up the slope toward her.

It was huge, its golden brown fur matted with mud from the tumble down the slope. Its yellow eyes locked onto Wren's, and its hulking shape showed its muscles moving under the thick pelt. Jesus.

She raised the gun, realizing too late that the safety was on. Her fingers fumbled with the lock, but before she could snap it off her eyes refocused on the bear in front of her.

The grizzly was... changing. It stood again on hind legs, but this time it looked smaller. Its fur rippled across its body, and its claw retracted into its paws. The limbs shrunk, twisting. The snout, too, shrunk back and morphed and—

"Oh my god," Wren whispered, her hands still holding the gun out in front of her. It couldn't be. It wasn't.

As she watched, the bear's body disappeared and became the body of a man. A man with light hair and a thick muscled chest. He raised his head, and his golden brown eyes locked onto Wren's.

"Dawson." The name came off of Wren's lips like an accusation and a plea at the same time.

He stood there naked in front of her, his hands outstretched. Wren froze, the rush of blood roaring through her ears like the howl of wind through the pines. Or the crashing of waves onto the cliffs. Or... or...

A bear.

"No." Wren shook her head, unwilling to believe it.

"Wren—"

"No." She choked on the word. "No. Not you."

"Wren, please—"

From over the hill she heard the shouts of the CSE agents coming in for backup. Dawson looked up to where the noises were coming from. Then he looked back at her, pleading silently.

A flash of memory. His touch. His hands on her body. The bear's paw swiping across Tommy's face. Her hands clutched the cold metal of the gun. She lowered the barrel and swallowed the hard lump in her throat.

"Run," she whispered.

Dawson did not wait or argue. He turned away and ran, moving through the trees quickly. Wren's heart ached as she let the gun fall to her side, watching him go. She saw a flash of skin, and then fur glistening in the sun, and then he was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

"So the bear had a trap laid out. A rope that caught you."

"Yes."

Wren sat at the edge of the bed in her hotel room, her broken arm stretched out for examination by the medical assistant they'd called in. The official agent questioning her sat on a chair opposite the bed. She was higher ranked, an official from CSE that Wren had never met before.

"And what about the man in the recording?"

Wren winced as the medical assistant wrapped a bandage around her arm to brace it.

"What man?"

"Here's a drink, agent." The other CSE agent handed her a drink that smelled like it had a lot of rum in it. Wren sipped it appreciatively, wincing again as the alcohol hit the back of her throat. Immediately her arm felt less painful. She looked up at the slim blond official who had a clipboard in front of her.

"At the end of your transmission recording, we got a glimpse of a man running away. The shifter. It's blurred, but we made out his path. We have agents tracking him down now."

Wren's throat tightened. What if they find Dawson? What if they kill him?

"Could I have..." She held out her empty glass, and the other agent poured her another drink.

"It was the bear," she said, avoiding looking at the questioning official. She hoped the recording didn't show them anything else. "He must have shifted back into human form."

"Did you see the man?" the official asked, tossing her blond hair back over her shoulder.

"Not really," Wren said, lying. Had they seen both bears?

"Not really?"

"I was dizzy. The bear hit me on the head and knocked me down." Wren took another sip from her drink. It calmed her, made her numb to the pain. Numb to the fear that Dawson was being chased right now, as they spoke.

"Hello? Isabel?"

Wren raised her eyes to the hotel door. Matt was standing in the doorway.

"You can't be in here," the blond official said, standing to block him.

"Wait! It’s okay," Wren said. "I'm waiting for a call."

The official frowned, puzzled.

"Nothing new," Matt said. Wren exhaled, her body still twisted with tension. She couldn't relax with no news. "Your mom called about a half hour ago, but they said it would be a while yet. I just thought I'd—I'd let you know. What is all this? What happened?"

"I took a fall in the woods," Wren said, looking away. She hated to lie to such a nice person as Matt.

"Who are these people?" Matt stepped forward into the hotel room. "You guys have government plates on your cars—"

The other agent blocked his path before he could come inside any more.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave," he said.

"Matt, I'll explain later," Wren said. To her relief, he nodded and left, glancing up and down suspiciously at the agent's suit as he walked out the door.

"Had you ever seen this shifter before?" the official continued.

"Before?" Wren was confused, her mind swirling. Who was the other bear? Was Dawson really the killer they were looking for?

"Before the attack. Before you saw him as a bear."

"Oh, no," Wren lied. "No, I never saw him before. I don't think."

"Do you think that there's anyone in this town who knows about this? Have you gotten to know any of the locals?"

"Not yet," Wren said. The alcohol helped her lie. "I asked about bears, but it seems like none of them knows anything out of the ordinary. Really, I was focusing on tracking. You know, for Tommy..."

Wren teared up, but not for Tommy. She'd wept for him already. Right now she was wallowing in self-pity. If only she hadn't come here. If only she had stayed out of the field. Stayed with Olivier. Or stayed in Chicago, with her parents.

That's where she should be right now. In the hospital with her dad, instead of chasing bears around the woods in California. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere. The CSE official put her pen down on the clipboard and leaned forward.

"I'm sorry. It's a shame about Chief."

Wren nodded and took the offered tissue, pressing it to the corners of her eyes.

Her emotions tore back and forth from wanting Dawson back to wanting him killed. Was this all his fault? Tommy's death, his fault? She could not imagine it. But then again, she couldn't have imagined that he was one of those monsters.

She felt shellshocked from the revelation. It was as though she'd opened up the doors in her heart a tiny bit. Not much, only a sliver of an opening. And here, pain had forced its way in, gushing and raw. Nothing good could come of opening her heart to anyone. It was stupid of her to think that she could have told Olivier the truth. Stupid of her to think that Dawson was the one for her.

Rule three. Anticipate the enemy. It was her fault for forgetting. She hadn’t seen any of this coming because she hadn’t been following the rules. Of course the shifter would want to get close to her, to make sure that he had all the information she had. Dawson had used her. She felt like a complete idiot for trusting him, for giving into him. He was the enemy.

Then why hadn’t he killed her?

She swallowed the last of her drink and could not even feel the burn in her stomach anymore. Good. She would numb it all back again.

Another agent ran into the hotel room, catching himself on the doorframe. Every head turned to look at him. He raised a walkie-talkie and spoke breathlessly.

"We got him," he said. "We got the shifter."

Chapter Twenty

Wren could barely breathe the entire way through the forest. Even though her arm was shot through with pain, she hurried forward and was the first to reach the agents in the middle of a forest clearing, near the first den she'd found.

A green tarp covered a bulky figure in the center of the clearing. Around the body stood a half-dozen CSE agents.

Wren blinked back tears as she stepped forward, steeling herself for what she would find under the tarp.

Dawson—Dawson, the man who'd pulled her into a kiss without asking any questions. The man who'd held her hand at sunset, who'd laughed at her. Who had given her the purest kind of pleasure, asking nothing in return. Dawson, his eyes crinkling in a smile.

She bent down next to the body and closed her eyes. Taking a breath, she reached up and drew down the tarp.

The man lying dead amid the pine needles was not him. The jawline looked the same—the same squared bone structure. The same nose. But his hair was dark, and his features were pinched, darker and more drawn than Dawson's. His skin was scarred in several places.

Wren stamped down the feeling of relief and locked her jaw.

"We got him cornered and shot him twice before he shifted back into human form," one of the CSE agents was saying.

"That's him," Wren said. She stayed kneeling, not trusting her legs to hold her.

The CSE official was speaking into her cell phone. She lowered the phone and spoke to Wren.

"How much do the locals know?" she asked.

"Nothing until you guys showed up," Wren said. She covered the face with the tarp and stood shakily. "Good luck cleaning up this mess."

***

The next hour was a swirl of activity, and the agents did clean it all up, or as near enough as they could. Matt stood outside of his hotel, watching the CSE agents get into their cars and drive away one by one. The body had been taken out on some side road, as far as Wren could tell. She didn't see it again.

In the parking lot, the CSE official came over and shook Wren's hand firmly. Wren noticed that the woman had perfectly clear skin and cold blue eyes.

"Excellent tracking," she said. "I'll put you in for a promotion the next round. If you decide to come back into the field, that is. After this catch, you'll have whatever assignment you want."

Wren nodded and watched as the woman slid into the passenger's side of a black sedan and pulled out of the parking spot. The sun was dipping toward the horizon, the sky growing a muted blue-gray. The car's headlights came on as it pulled out of the parking lot and drove away.

There was something sharp in her pocket, something poking her through the jeans fabric. Wren reached back into her pocket and pulled it out. The shark's tooth. Wren turned it in her fingers, watching the fading light of the sun glint against its surface.

Excellent tracking. The accomplishment felt hollow, and for the first time Wren was unsure about whether or not she was doing the right thing. The shifter that they'd killed—did it have a family? Friends? And would they ever know what happened, or would they be left waiting?

It was for Tommy. Wren cradled her broken arm in its sling and comforted herself with that thought. No matter what else, she'd gotten revenge for him, at least.

"Isabel!"

Wren turned at the name, thinking dully that she did not want to be Isabel any more, or Wren. She wanted to leave, to move somewhere she'd never been before. A big city, where she could lose herself and have no name at all.

"Isabel, it's your mom." Matt had a strange look on his face, and he pointed through the hotel door. Wren hurried inside. The phone lay on its side next to the receiver on the hotel counter. She picked it up and nodded at Matt, who left out the back door. She was alone in the lobby.