by Lynn Red
After six rhythmic bounces, I sprang back to the balls of my feet and dug in a third time.
Each time I sprinted, my mind relaxed. The knots in my brain loosened, one after another. By the time I finished, the sun was burning hot overhead, judging from where it was in the sky, I’d been dashing back and forth for most of the morning, and felt it, both in clarity of mind, and in sore legs.
The only problem was that in my newly clear mind, there was only one thing at the front of it. One thing I didn’t want to admit to myself that I understood.
Orion.
I had questioned myself as much as I possibly could. I knew that if I kept badgering, I’d upset myself trying to solve mysteries that were already answered. I had to relax and allow myself to be open, to be vulnerable and honest.
And I had to do all that with myself before I could manage to talk about it with anyone else.
Talk with anyone else... for some reason, I felt like I was forgetting something. I stood still for a moment, staring at the top of Mt. Jamesburg, off in the distance. It had some other name to outsiders, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Everything around here has another name outsiders have given, but to us? That hardly matters.
My mind was a blank slate except for the golden haired, pale-eyed bear I couldn’t shake. There was nothing else I wanted more than to feel his hands on my arms again, to feel his calmness surrounding me.
Slowly, I made my way back to the house, stripped off my soaked shirt and running shorts, and threw them in a heap in my laundry room. I could have started a load of laundry, but...
My phone, which I’d forgotten on my nightstand, started buzzing. Good thing for my lynx ears. I heaved a sigh, getting a little impatient with myself for pining like a teenager over a guy I’d hardly met. At exactly the same instant, two things happened – I picked up the phone and saw Dean’s name pop up, and realized with a shock that I was supposed to meet them for barbecue.
“Shit!” I texted back without even looking at his message. “Sorry, I was running, I have no idea how it got to be so late.”
I shot a glance at the clock – already past eleven. I’d been out running for almost five hours. I must really have had some angst to bash out. On the other hand, that meant a giant pile of vinegar-sauced meat would be exactly what I needed.
“No worries,” he shot back. “We’re late too, meet us at the joint by the food trucks at half past?”
My stomach growled just thinking about the sticky, tangy sauce, the perfectly smoked ribs and pork and... I shook my head. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. At least hunger was something I was ready to deal with.
Orion? Not so much.
Helmet on, tires aired up, I pedaled past the courthouse, giggled at the bureaucratic erection, and shook my head. I had to get him out of my mind.
If I didn’t, I was going to be as whacked out as that screeching beaver from the art museum. And it wasn’t going to take long.
*
“Damn these are good,” Dean said, cramming his eighth rib into his slightly yellow mouth.
For my part, my stomach had stopped rumbling after the second piece of brisket, but I didn’t stop until the... ninth? I took a quick survey of the wreckage. Three cornbread hunks, a pile of green beans, some macaroni, that sublime brisket and ribs all lay destroyed across my plate like discarded corpses strewn gloriously around a giant’s castle.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I said, smiling as I dropped a bone on my plate. “But it’s the good kind of sick.”
“There’s a good kind?”
“Uh-huh, this kind,” Malia said, wiping a glob of sauce off her chin. “I feel like I’m drunk.”
“Meat drunk buddies,” Dean grabbed his plastic cup of iced tea and lifted it in the air. “I propose a toast.”
I picked mine up, but took a swallow before lifting it in the air. “What for?”
“Two reasons. First of all, I’m pretty happy you’re still alive.”
I snorted a laugh. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m kinda... to be honest I never really felt scared. That whole deal happened too fast for me to think much. And afterward,” I shrugged. “I had other things on my mind.”
Malia just shook her head.
“What’s the other thing?” I asked.
He paused, considering what he was about to say. “Out with it,” I urged. “Come on, don’t leave us hanging like that.”
I had almost gotten Orion out of my mind. Between the meat-drunk swooning and the conversation and the jokes, I’d gotten myself almost back to normal.
“I’ve never seen you happier,” Dean said. “I mean, it’s a confused kind of happy, but I can see your eyes sparkling like I haven’t seen in... hell, a decade? Maybe more?”
And there it all went, right down the hope toilet. Welling right back up, a sewer blockage of angst I thought I’d managed to sweat out. I guess I made it a little more apparent than I meant to, because Dean’s reaction was to frown.
“Oh Jesus,” he said. “I boned that up, didn’t I?”
“No, no,” I said, forcing a smile. “I just don’t really understand what’s going on, to be honest with you. The first time I laid eyes on him, I got that little swell in my guts, but... I just don’t know.”
“What’s not to know?” Malia asked, leaning forward to catch my attention. “I know it’s not my place, but...”
I grinned.
“Yeah all right, fine, I know I think everything is my place. So shoot me. Anyway, you and Dean have known each other forever, but—”
“Uh, since we were fifteen, babe,” Dean cut in. “That is most certainly not ‘forever’, thank you very much.”
Malia pursed her lips to suppress a laugh. “Anyways,” she said. “All I know about Liam is what you told me, but the chemistry I saw between you and that bear? That was...” she shuddered. “I kinda wish I still felt like that about Dean.”
“Hey!” he said, laughing.
Their disarming play made me feel a little better, but not as much as it should have. It was true, though – I was happy, or at least hopeful. And I’d never felt like this before, but... admitting that to myself? I don’t know, it seemed like a whole step further than I was willing to take. Especially after just one day. That’s it – one short meeting with the guy, and I couldn’t stand thinking about not seeing him again.
I shook my head, stunned, and staring at the table.
“I’ve seen that look before,” Malia said. “After I met this jackass, I saw that exact same face staring back at me in the mirror.”
I swallowed, hard. “I just don’t know,” I said. “After Liam, I...”
“What did he do? How did he break your spirit so much?”
The sounds of thunking red plastic cups and laughter at all the other tables, and of Leon the town salamander setting down his fourth beer of lunch, made it feel like the three of us were on an island of angst floating in a sea of good cheer.
“Oh God,” Malia followed up. “Me and my big, idiot mouth. I’m sorry Clea, I didn’t mean—”
I shook my head and touched her hand. “No, it’s not like that,” I whispered. “He didn’t do anything, not really. He said some mean shit to me, but then again, I said pretty horrible things to him, too. But the thing that’ll stick with me forever is the way he turned away from me. I’d touch him at night, and he’d recoil. I’d sit by him on the couch while he was watching TV and he’d pull away.”
She didn’t say anything, but both Malia and Dean were listening intently.
Swallowing another gulp of water, I continued. “It was... God, it was years like that. We got together, and got married like eight months later. Everything was this big, giant hurricane, you know?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Dean said. “Crazy.”
“Crazy’s exactly what it was. We got together, and dated approximately twice before I decided I was in love with him.”
“You weren’t?” Malia asked.
“No, I was. I defini
tely was. But it was the kind of love that you catch, you know? The kind you catch like a cold and then it goes away and you’re left living with your cold. I think it was like that for both of us, but he wouldn’t let me go. I seemed like a trophy or something to him. The cute little lynx you keep at home and don’t touch except when you’re out at a party.”
Malia’s mouth was a little open, Dean’s was a hard line. He knew all this and, from the look on her face, he’d never betrayed my confidence.
“I... uh, sorry,” I said, smiling nervously. “I didn’t mean to unload all that.”
“I’m the one who asked,” Malia said.
My cheeks were hot. I knew tears were coming soon, and I hated it, I hated feeling weak.
“If it does any good,” Dean said, grabbing my hand. “From the very beginning, I knew Liam was a creep. I told you as much, right?”
I nodded.
“I just got that feeling in my guts like he was up to no good. But this guy? It’s weird. I met him once, talked to him for about thirty seconds, but I got the feeling that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye. There’s a good soul in that bear’s body.”
Staring down at the ravaged remains of my lunch, I reached out and tried to calm my trembling hands with another drink of tea. It didn’t work, but it was a good effort.
“I’m just scared, I think.”
Dean shrugged. “It makes sense. I mean, you got burned once, right? But think of it this way. How many shitty relationships did you watch me go through?”
I snickered. “I dunno, about thirty?”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Something about like that. Did you see me panic and get scared?”
“Sometimes.”
“Exactly. I got down, I felt beat up, and I felt like there wasn’t anyone who would ever want me. And you know what?”
“You were right,” Malia said, interrupting.
Never – not once in my life – had laughing ever felt so good, or so desperately needed.
-7-
“The only part about hunting I like is the finding part. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.”
-Orion
He counted the days.
Every single one that went by without his seeing neither hide nor fur of Mitch or the Devils, Orion kept count of them by digging a notch in the side of his boot. Every day that passed without him figuring out what to do about the broken heart he suffered? Those days he counted with a notch in his mind.
That’s where it hurt the most. That’s where he was most likely to remember.
He counted the nights, too, like this one. A big, fat, yellow moon hung in the sky. In one way it was a comfort to see, but in another it was almost like the thing was mocking him. After all, moons are meant to be shared, watched with someone you love.
But for Orion, love was something that he’d run from his whole life.
There were a couple of women he’d seen that he really liked. A couple he’d probably loved. Every single one of them, he’d run off because he was scared of what would happen if Mitch, or the rest of the Devils, found out.
They’d harass him, they’d gang up on him – because they had to if they wanted to stand a chance in a fight – and then when they couldn’t actually hurt him, they’d hurt her.
This girl though? Clea? She wasn’t like them. She would’ve died to save that cub. That’s not the kind of girl Orion needed to worry about. Then again, she’s also not the kind of girl he could find.
“I promised to find her,” he said, dropping a pebble in the water. “And here I sit, wondering how.”
He’d been a hunter all his life. That’s what his actual job was in the Devils. He hunted people who didn’t want to be found. He caught people on the run. He made people pay who deserved it. And others, like Ricky? Those that the Club wanted to murder who he knew didn’t deserve it? He’d always found a way to let them escape.
But he couldn’t find a damn girl. All he needed was one clue, one tiny hint.
That single piece of evidence eluded him.
Orion dangled his legs into the Jamesburg River, exactly one and a half miles downstream from where he’d met her. He went back through every day for the last nine days, hoping to find some trace of her – a forgotten shirt, a lost bandana – anything. He could track her, hunt her down, make her his.
Of course, that was all predicated on finding something in the first place, which he had so far completely failed to do. And for a bear? That was pretty embarrassing.
Not like he had anyone to be embarrassed in front of, though, not since running from the Devils.
His constant companion was his paranoia.
Every stick that cracked, every fish that broke water in the river and plopped back in made him look around nervously, convinced that something was coming. Nothing did, but he never quit looking back.
“Hell,” Orion said, swirling a toe in the water and dropping another of the small pebbles he had picked up from the sandbar where he met her. He didn’t really have any idea how, but something told him he’d never forget that girl, with her streaky, dirty-blond hair and those cool, even eyes that turned up just slightly on the outside corners. “What am I doing?”
The big, slumped over bear took a deep breath and let it out slowly, dropping another pebble in the water. This was the other way he passed the time. Paranoia, thinking about Clea, and how she was so strong, so brave, that when the little cub was in trouble, she dove on top of her.
And then, this. Dropping pebbles in the water. Every hour or so he’d trek back to the sandbar, grab another handful of rocks and wade back. It was like a very slow, very boring version of limbo.
Another tiny stone plunked into the water between Orion’s feet and he plucked the next one, rolling it around in his fingers. Each rock was worn into a smooth oval. They’d probably been in the river for a thousand years or more, sitting there, waiting, and letting time wear them down.
Exactly like him.
In between rounds of pondering the finer points of existence, a loud crack caught Orion’s attention. He swung his massive head to the left, in the direction of the sound, and glared hard into the trees. Every muscle in his body tensed, ready to pounce. He climbed up on his branch into a low crouch. Whatever came out of those woods was going to regret being alive.
He narrowed his eyes, sniffing the air to catch the scent of whatever was...
“Jesus,” Orion grunted. “A squirrel? I need some Xanax.”
As he derided his own anxiety, a small, brown and white speckled squirrel poked its head out of the undergrowth. Orion watched it run along the riverbank for a second, dig something up from the dirt and then run off, back into the trees. On the edge of the forest, the little guy sat up on his haunches, gnawed on whatever he’d dug up and then disappeared with a chirp.
Slouching heavily, he relaxed again. The overhanging branch that functioned as his throne creaked slightly as Orion settled back into his standard, straddling position and dropped one more time-worn stone into the water. This time when he did, a foursome of trout scattered when the rock hit the surface and sank.
For a moment, he stared at the ripples emanating from where he’d dropped his rock, just letting his mind be carried away like the leaf that came down the river, followed the ripples and went on its way.
The oak leaf didn’t do any attention-getting at first, but a second later, Orion surveyed the woods again, and realized that the only trees as far as he could see, were Douglas firs. Jamesburg was famous for them. Or so he’d heard.
Looking back toward the sandbar where he met his destiny, he stood up, craning his neck.
“What in the hell?”
Orion hopped off the tree and took a few steps toward what appeared to be a massive tree that had fallen in the river. Unconsciously he shoved the handful of pebbles in his pocket and took a few more steps.
“A tree? Another one? What’s going on here?”
Someone in the distance shouted – or maybe
it was a laugh, it was hard to tell – and then another tree, then another, and a fourth, all fell at more or less the same time, splashing into the river and sending down a cascade of leaves.
These were oak leaves, Orion noticed. They came from somewhere else. All that was around the Jamesburg River were huge Douglas firs. Oaks? Someone was doing this on purpose.
In the distance he heard a squeaky, partially slurred voice shout triumphantly. “This’ll show that asshole mayor!”
Orion cocked his head to the side and leaned toward the sound, sniffing the air. The acrid, sharp odor was familiar to him, but it was just outside his immediate grasp. There were hints of musk and heavy rose aromas overlying a very potent perfume. It seemed to him that sort of scenting could go a long way to hide the smell of a body. “Muskrat?” he said under his breath. “No, no... too sickly sweet. Buffalo?” Again he shook his huge head, shaggy hair falling around his shoulders.
His eyes weren’t the best, but when three figures emerged from the forest to inspect what had just happened, he squinted against the moon.
“Squirrels,” he said, immediately remembering the curious little guy who had popped out of the forest earlier, and stared at him for a second. “Two small ones, and one that looks like a mutant.”
“If he won’t do anything to preserve the forest,” the shrill, and very angry, voice squawked again, “I’ll do it for him! That stupid Erik Danniken won’t know what to do when Celia Maynard plays hardball!”
Orion shook his head in disbelief, still staring upriver as another torrent of leaves circled his outcropping. That’s when he noticed something different about the river.
The current was weaker. Not much, but it was enough to note.
“Without water,” the strange, incredibly angry creature shrieked, “this town’ll dry up! It’ll die! It’ll rot in hell!”
“Wouldn’t it not rot?” It was the squirrel speaking up, in a markedly smaller voice that Orion could barely pick up with his super-sensitive hearing. “Not being wet, I mean. Wouldn’t that make it—”