by C. J. Ayers
“There we go! Now, yours.”
His fingers dug into the waistband of her pants, and a terror colder and sharper and deeper than Elie had ever known twisted inside her. Tears welled up, out of anger, out of fear, out of despair, whatever the source, they blurred the darkening forest as her skin was exposed to the cool night air.
“Hey! HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
Elie sobbed; she’d never been so happy to hear Jake’s voice.
The weight on her back disappeared at once, and Elie rolled away, trembling like a leaf. She reached to pull her jeans back in place, and found it difficult with fingers that wouldn’t listen to her properly. She looked up at the rush of sprinting boots, still tugging her clothes back up.
Jasper and Jake had come barreling through the forest; the shepherd let out a mournful howl and came to her immediately, sniffing her frantically, whimpering.
“You’re—r-really a—a coward—Jasper,” she whispered, hugging him close as Jake caught up.
Elie had seen Jake angry, but this was frightening. His face seemed gouged by lines of rage and hate, pulsing a purplish red with quivering veins bursting from temple and neck. He fell on Bryan like an avenging angel, and Bryan never had a damn chance. Jake had him by the collar, punching solid blows like hammer strikes that sent resounding cracks through the stillness of the forest.
Elie was still huddled with Jasper, digging her fingers through the spiny fur of his neck and shoulders. She watched in growing dread as Bryan Mosley’s attempts to fight back weakened and eventually stopped. By the time she managed to get her legs under her, Jake held him, limp, by the shirt collar, and was still going, going, going, like he was hypnotized. Blood coated Jake’s fist, and splattered across the front of his t-shirt, also white; in the twilight it looked powdery-blue, and Elie’s mental picture of Gwen Framer’s last moments jarred in her head like a struck bell.
“Jake!” she called. “Jake, stop! You’ll kill him!”
“I don’t give a damn,” he growled. Not only him. Something… else… thundered in his voice, something deep and inhuman. His eyes flashed gold, amber, in the dusk.
“I don’t care about him, I care about you,” Elie came closer. She looked at Bryan, fairly sure he was alive, but it was hard to tell. Jake had paused, looking at her, his chest heaving. “If you beat him to death, it’ll be second-degree murder, no matter how you slice it. Yeah, he tried—he tried to rape me, and he’s a meth dealer, but you’ll still get stuck with a murder charge. I don’t want that for you. Not over this asshole.”
She reached out a hand. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll sic the cops on him when we get back to town.”
Jake looked at her hand, curiously, as if he wasn’t sure what it was. Then he blinked, shook his head. He dropped Bryan Mosley and put his hand in Elie’s; it was the hand that was slick with blood. Elie clutched it tight.
“Let’s go,” she repeated.
Jake nodded. As if he was dizzy, he let her lead him towards the lake; she still had no idea where exactly they were, so following the shore home was the best bet. They made it to the water line and turned right; Elie could just see the lights over their picnic table.
Jasper shuffled along behind them as they walked. A mostly-full moon stretched upward over the valley in the east. With each step, Jake seemed to return to himself a little more, and eventually he squeezed her hand and took a deep breath.
“Thank you for stopping me,” he said, still staring at the ground. “I… I woulda beat him to death. I’d still go back and beat him to death, if I thought I wouldn’t go to jail for it. Thank you for… I didn’t want to kill anyone else. It gets hard, though…The bear, I mean… I forget where I am, I forget… about laws and decency and being human.”
Elie looked up at him. “Jake, you’re the most decent human I’ve ever met.”
He glanced sidelong at her, decided she wasn’t making fun, and smiled. “Well, you aren’t too bad, either.”
And then, the gunshot cracked open the night.
Chapter Nine
Elie spun; she could just see Bryan Mosley’s white t-shirt on the bank, fifty-yards back. He lowered his gun arm, and she could feel his smirk across the water.
Jake’s body bent outward, like a bow. His mouth opened, but no sound came out; he just stood there for a moment, gasping, before falling to his knees.
“Jake! Jake—no! Jake!” Elie fell to her knees with him; Jasper was howling and whining and prancing nervously. There was a dark flower of blood seeping across Jake’s mid-back, and they were still far from town. “Jake!”
He coughed. Coughed again. The third cough came out hoarse and snarling.
Elie froze. Before her eyes, it happened, in perfect reverse of what she’d seen on this lakeshore two nights before. His eyes changed first, glowing amber in a face that was sprouting a muzzle. Elie back away to give him space. His bear shape unfolded in a mass of twitching muscle, popping bones, and ripping skin. He screamed, and Elie couldn’t blame him. It looked painful as hell.
Jake’s scream echoed into a roar, a bellowing call into the sky as he grew ten more feet and a few hundred more pounds. His black fur bristled against the fading daylight, standing upright, sniffing the wind.
He looked down at Elie; Jasper had long run off.
Breathless, she stared back.
With a sneeze, the bear dropped to its feet and turned around. It pummeled around the lakeshore, and Elie knew exactly where Jake was headed. She struggled to her feet and followed after at a run, no longer certain what she planned to do when she got there. Stop him? Could she stop him? Should she stop him…?
Up ahead, Bryan Mosley’s shocked scream answered her questions, and Elie booked it the last twenty feet or so until she saw the great shoulders of the bear—Jake—hunched over a haunch of meat that had once been Bryan. His face was just barely recognizable. Part of his skull was crushed, as if he’d been slapped into a tree by a monstrous force.
He was dead as a dishrag. The sight was something of a relief to Elie, knowing he was gone forever.
Her relief was cut short as Jake the Bear swerved his blood-soaked muzzled up to regard her thoughtfully.
“Nice… Jake…” she muttered. It really would be stupid irony if Jake killed her now, after saving her from a rapist psychopath. Life and its nuances, never predictable.
Thankfully, Jake didn’t seem hungry enough to eat her, even seemed to recognize her in this form. The bear rumbled over to her side, then lowered down to the ground in an unmistakable entreaty. Elie laughed humorlessly.
“You want me to ride you? For real?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
Jake snuffled at her, encouraging.
What a strange day. Elie climbed onto the bear’s back (she’d never even ridden a horse, and had no idea how she was going to be staying on) and Jake got to his feet. Elie dug her hands in his fur and clamped her legs around him desperately.
As a bear, Jake was very wide, and for the most part round, but his back was flat enough for Elie to stay astride him, except for once, when he had to stop suddenly and she slipped off. Darkness was quite full by the time they reached the Framer’s back yard. Jake stopped under the cover of the trees.
Politely, Elie stepped down; this process looked painful enough without someone sitting on you. It was difficult to watch, even knowing what was coming. The sound of cracking bone and knitting muscle was almost sickening, and by the end of it, Jake was lying on the forest floor, panting.
“That looks painful,” Elie whispered.
Jake nodded. His body was very white, very pale, in the darkness. “It is.”
Elie knelt down next to him; she pulled off her sweater to drape it over his shoulders. Not that she wanted to cover any of him, but it just seemed correct. He was a lot of man to look at; even in the bare light glimmering from the Framer’s back porch, his biceps and shoulders bunched and his torso rippled. The most distracting thing by far was between his legs
—he was huge and half-hard already. Jake sat up and let her do as she liked, passively, watching her.
“Elie?”
“Hmm?”
“C’mere.”
Elie glanced down and back up before she could stop herself. More than half-hard, now.
If she wanted to stop, there had been better times. But now, finally, Elie admitted to herself that she didn’t want to dodge this one. Much of her life was running away. Too much. She leaned forward into Jake’s kiss, hot and firm against her lips.
It had been an evening a fear and adrenaline, one shot after another, and it all came out now for them both. Elie ran her hands over his chest and back; there wasn’t even a scar of the bullet wound. It was gone as if it had never happened. Jake pulled her closer, almost roughly.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I… All I can think of is puttin’ it in you, is that bad?” He chuckled, but his breath was coming short and his mouth had closed on her neck, her ear…
Elie’s heart squeezed. “Depends on where,” she whispered back.
Jake laughed and pulled her against his waist; he was kneeling, now, and had drug each of her legs to one side of his hips. Half-hard and escalated to fully erect, and he pressed against the groin of Elie’s jeans with impossible insistence.
“Anywhere you’ll let me,” he breathed. It had been meant as a joke, but a shiver ran through Elie. He ran his hands up her abdomen, bunching her shirt up around his fingers until her front was exposed. At the sight of her breasts, still cupped in her bra but large and round nonetheless, he growled appreciation. His thumbs kneaded her nipples through the bra; Elie gasped at the pleasure of it. Her own fingers were currently dug through his hair, holding on for support.
Jake’s stubbled chin grazed against her skin as he kissed a molten line from her collarbone downward. Along the lacey edge of the bra. Between her breasts. Elie pulled off her shirt and shivered.
“It’s cold,” she said absently. Jake hugged her tighter, still tracing his lips across her chest.
“I’ll keep you warm,” he rumbled.
He slipped Elie’s sweater off his shoulders and settled it, one-handed, on the ground. His hands tracked back to the closure of her jeans; Elie could feel his hands shaking, but she doubted it was nerves. The thought of his desire, that he wanted her so badly he was shaking, sent a fiery wave through her body, through her head.
Jake rolled her to the ground. He was over her; his torso seemed to cover the sky, seemed to fill her entire field of vision, until it disappeared and Jake slipped downward to drag her jeans off her legs. Her tennis shoes popped off whether on purpose or accident; Elie couldn’t be bothered to worry about her socks, as Jake rolled her panties down her legs and off into the night, as well.
She twisted, trying to get her bra off—she wanted it gone, wanted Jake to be able to touch her everywhere, everywhere… Elie had to arch her back to reach the clasps, and Jake helped her, lifting her easily by the waist. He lowered his mouth to her belly button and started moving up, his chin dragging along across her skin and setting it aflame.
With her bra discarded in the darkness, Elie moaned under Jake’s mouth, clutching at his shoulders. He’d been cool to the touch at first; he still was, this time of year, there wasn’t much to be done about that. But heat burned beneath his skin, just below the coolness; a thrumming source of it rested against Elie’s thigh, now, waiting for the time to be right.
Impatiently, Elie wanted that time to be now, and reached between Jake’s thighs. She gripped him, and squeezed lightly. She was rewarded with a shallow gasp from him, which turned into a deep groan as she dipped her hand down and up slowly, slowly, as if to hint at what Elie wanted to do next.
But Jake would not take hints, and instead flicked his tongue across her nipple. Elie’s back arched again, and Jake teased, first one and then the other, starting a tremor in Elie’s core that grew and spun wildly, like a spinning top losing balance.
“Jake,” she breathed. “Jake, please…”
He moaned pleasantly. “Say it again. The sound of you saying those words—I didn’t think I could get any harder—but you always manage—to surprise me.” He tried to sound casual, but his breath was deep and panting. When Elie put her hands over his chest, she could feel the thunderous pound of his great heart, beating away under her fingers.
“Please,” she smiled, hooking her arms around his shoulders. “Please—oh, Jake—” Her words were interrupted as he just brushed her with his tip, startling her heart into an alarming trip of hyper-speed beats. “Jake—put it in—please—”
“I can’t—keep a lady waiting,” Jake rasped.
In thrill and rapture, Elie cried out as Jake delved into her, filling her, overfilling her, pumping briefly to wet his shaft until each motion was smooth and without resistance. He covered her mouth with his, devouring her with his kiss. His skin was feverish now, burning with sweat in the cool of the night as the trees whispered overhead.
Around his tongue Elie murmured pleas—short, one-word entreaties, things like ‘harder’, ‘faster’. Jake was always prompt to accommodate. The muscles of his arms stood out like cords—his chest and torso were rigid with tension as he thrust relentlessly, desperately, even as Elie spasmed and rocked and came in a hot rush beneath his frantic motion.
Whether he meant to or not, Jake’s pace, the feeling of his size forcing its way inside her, had Elie’s body humming in orgasm for what seemed like minutes—her hands and feet felt numb. Her head was reeling; breathlessly, she whispered in his ear.
“Jake… I don’t know if I can take… much more…”
In response, Jake reared back. He didn’t stop. Grasping her hips in both large hands, he kept thudding into her, ramming it into every niche of space she had. He looked down at her, and his eyes were amber. Elie shivered—he was admiring her body in the darkness, watching as she jiggled and jolted with each thrust, how her breasts bounced with it, how her hair splayed out across the forest floor.
With a raw cry, Jake finished hard, and his movements slowed little by little. He leaned over her, taking deep breaths.
Soon, he lay next to her on her sweater and gathered Elie into his arms. She inhaled his scent from the safety of his embrace. Maybe it was just the events of the night, but he smelled like forest and musk, familiar and irreplaceable.
“Elie?”
She hummed a response, keeping her face buried in his neck.
“Elie… I killed that bastard. Broke his neck like it was nothing and clawed him open. That doesn’t bother you?”
Elie opened her eyes. She pulled back and looked into Jake’s face; she could just barely see it in the light from the house.
“No,” she answered evenly. “He got what he deserved.”
Jake studied her curiously. “You don’t care that I killed him?”
Elie shook her head. “The world is a better place with one less asshole.”
It was hard to guess whether her reply reassured or unnerved him; Jake pulled her back into an embrace and held her tightly.
The moment Elie shivered with cold, Jake noticed. “Let’s get inside,” he murmured. “You’ll freeze.”
They gathered their clothes and walked across the grass of the yard barefoot and naked. Jake dug through his pants’ pockets until he found the house keys, and they crawled into his bed together, warm and muffled in the lonely sheets his parents had left here when they died.
Elie didn’t notice; she was asleep too quickly, and she had never had to spend a silent night under this roof, listening to the roar of all that was absent. But Jake lay awake for as long as he could, resisting the exhaustion that pulled him. There hadn’t been another person in this house for years. He’d almost forgotten what the sound of someone else’s footsteps on the floor was. How voices other than his own bounced into the corners and brought life into his space.
Gingerly, he tucked an arm around her as she slept; Elie flattened herself against his side without waking, mutte
ring with a smile on her face.
He was too tired to think any more on the subject. Jake wrapped his strong arms around her and cuddled Elie, finally, after all these years, and drifted into dreams of running through the forest, beneath the moon.
Chapter Ten
She’d definitely forgotten something. Elie frowned and tried to go back to sleep. Whatever it was, she could deal with it later. Unless something was on fire, more sleep was more important.
There was that buzzing again. Elia realized through her sleepy delirium that it was her phone, and reached for it on the nightstand. Her hand floundered through the air, because her nightstand was back in her apartment in Denver, and she was neither there nor in her parent’s guest bedroom with the lacy white curtains.
A smile spread across her face, even as the phone continued to buzz through her jeans’ pocket on the floor. She was in Jake’s bed.
The smile withered as she recalled the events of the previous night, extraordinary and terrible though they were. She’d almost been raped. She’d almost been killed. In her drowsy little hometown of Hemford, of all the damn places.
Jake was missing, so Elie sat up and reached toward the floor for the phone. It had stopped ringing, but since she’d been out mysteriously all night (with a flash of panic she remembered Jasper, but he’d probably run home after the bear had appeared) Elie had a feeling she knew who’d been calling.
Hemford, of all places. Elie sat up, naked, in bed and opened her phone screen. She’d always expected danger in Denver. Don’t walk down dark alleys, stay in sight of people, don’t leave your drink unattended, all that and more had been standard routine in the city. No wonder scum like Bryan Mosley lurked here, where people were good and neighbors trusting. It made for easier hunting.
Thirteen missed calls from Alison Barner. There was something immediately uneasy—ominous, even—about seeing such a number of missed calls from your mother. In France, Elie’s friend Rachel had checked her phone at the end of a Saturday night to find twenty-two missed rings from her parents. They’d been trying to tell her that Rachel’s sister had died in an auto accident.