by Walters, Abi
I didn’t have time to stay and tell her that love did guarantee forever. We came from the same stardust. Part of me existed inside of her, and she consumed every inch of my being. The fates lined up perfectly. I had no doubt that her name was carved into every bone inside my body, forever branding me with her ethereal magic. My love for her was white hot and scalding and the fire would never go out. If I lost Acacia it would be the end of me. She was my saving grace. I wasn’t going to let her go without a fight.
I wanted to let the river of tears flow. I wanted to show her how much I cared for her – how much she meant to me. I wanted to find a way to turn the clock back and erase every damn time I ever questioned her. I was angry with Acacia for being so quick to the row in the towel, but I was fucking furious with myself for making her feel like I would never trust her. I was fucking disgusted with myself. My skin scrawled with disgrace. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shift and run away until my bear took hold and ripped the last parts of my humanity to shreds.
Instead, I tried my damnedest to put up steel walls so I could face the hostile force that was working against my family. I tried to channel the tornado inside of me into something constructive. I leaned forward to kiss Acacia, but she jerked away and scooted backwards. Nearly swallowing my tongue, I spoke as I rose. “Hold on for me just a little longer, baby.” I paused near the door and bit the inside my cheek. I could spew the floweriest poetry about my feelings for her, but sometimes the simplest things hit the hardest. “I love you.”
I put on a suit of armor and hid behind a face of a man who didn’t care about anything or anyone and stalked outside with hatred sizzling beneath my skin. I was going to kill the son of a bitch who threatened my family and came between me and my mate. And then I was going to get on my knees and beg Acacia’s forgiveness.
Chapter Eighteen
Acacia
It was too quiet. I hated the silence that fell after Vex’s departure. I couldn’t even hear the erratic sound of my own heartbeat – the only indication that I was still alive. I held my breath and waited, but I couldn’t hear the thumping inside of my chest. Industrial sized earbuds took up permanent residence inside my head.
I felt nothing. I felt everything.
The heartbroken look on Vex’s face stared back at me every time I closed my eyes, and the vehemence in his voice was a constant loop in my head. I could barely choke out the words when I told him to leave. When I told him love wasn’t enough. Love was enough, but I was too damn chicken-shit to stay and work through my problems. My heart was damaged. Scarred and bruised. Vex somehow made it better and worse all at once, and I was terrified that one day he’d grow tired of trying to fix me.
But I wasn’t running just because of my own insecurities. I grew up being chastised for sharing stories about ghosts and goblins. My mother was embarrassed of me. My peers thought I was a laughing stock. I grew thicker skin, but even a dull knife will penetrate leather if it’s persistent. I thought Vex was different, but thinking back, I should’ve known he’d be just like the rest. Ashamed. Quick to judge. Branded me as a criminal. When we first met he tried to run me out of town. He made me feel so fucking little when I tried so hard to stand tall.
Between the small moments of apprehension and doubt I fell in love with Vex. I didn’t believe in soul mates, but I ate up every word he said about mating and shifters falling in love. I accepted it without hesitation because for the first time in a very long time, I felt loved. I felt wanted. I felt appreciated. Was I so starved for attention that I fell headfirst into a rabbit hole? I free fell and embraced my fate, but the bottom of the hole was approaching and my every part of my body tingled with pain.
I had a laundry list of flaws that Vex seemed to accept, even when I myself couldn’t handle them. I honestly believed him when he said he loved me. I could see it in his eyes. I could feel in in the way he made love to me. And in the early hours of the morning when our bodies were pressed together, I felt it in my heart. Those moments when our bodies were seamless and the sun barely peaked through the curtains created the stained glass mosaic that was my heart. Beautiful and fragile, they reminded me that even in the chaos that seemed to surround us there were moments of peace.
My heart told me that those glimpses were worth it all. Our love would last forever; the hectic storm of our lives would not. It couldn’t. So why was my mind telling me to leave before it hurt even more than it already did? I was afraid of being broken. I hated that I put my happiness in someone else’s hands. But what I hated even more was the gnawing sensation in the bottom of my stomach that reminded me that Vex had more than just my happiness. He had my love. My heart. My soul. He had the power to destroy me.
It seemed easier in a tearful rage to denounce my feelings and tell myself it would be easier to break his heart before he broke mine. Sitting alone in an empty room void of things that bore his scent all of that pseudo-confidence went out the window. I was a shrew, hypocritical bitch if I thought I could toy with Vex’s heart.
I told him I’d protect him from the monsters, but I was the ugliest of all the beasts that went bump in the night.
I was lost in my head. The tables turned and the world spun on its axis and suddenly, I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong. I didn’t know the difference between up and down. I didn’t want to follow my head or my heart. I just wanted to follow Vex.
A noise in the distance pulled me out of the cacophony inside my head. I flattened my palms on the ground and steadied my breathing. Vex said someone was going to play bodyguard while he was gone, I reminded myself as anxious jitters sent butterflies throughout my nervous system. It felt like I was walking on pins and needles when I walked through the house. I was reminded of the eerie silence. Not even the cicadas were singing their song. I could finally hear the sound of my heart, but only because it was a steady song of fear that only grew louder as I walked through the still house.
Every horror movie I’d ever seen told me not to go outside.
But like the scream queens, I couldn’t help myself. A curious anxiety and a bile inducing feeling like something was about to go terribly wrong fueled each step. Haunting, foreboding music started up in the back of my mind but I kept walking. Caught between fight or flight, I chose to investigate.
There was a motionless lump on the dewy patch of grass between the trees and the driveway. Though the muted light spilling from the house barely reached beyond a few feet I easily identified the shape. It was a body. A fucking human body.
At a glacial pace, I inched forward. I moved closer and walked straight into the mouth of the lion. The trap was one I’d seen a hundred times in the films, but I didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late.
The man on the ground was massive. He was round and built solid with muscle. Based on his size alone I identified him as a shifter, but was he part of Vex’s clan or an outside force? The closer I drew it became apparent that the man was a friend and he had walked into something unexpected. His body was riddled with tiny, feather tipped darts.
Goosebumps prickled my skin, and once again, I felt as if I was being watched. Only this time I didn’t have the shelter of the house or Vex. I was exposed and distracted. My only hope was that whoever did this had been captured by the Enforcers, as Vex had mentioned, but the body showed up after his departure.
My nerves were so jumbled that I felt like vomiting. I didn’t want to get too close to the man on the ground in case he wasn’t a friendly shifter, but I wanted to help him. I turned to run back to the house and phone Vex when a quick movement along the trees made me stumble over my feet. The leaves rustled, but there wasn’t a breeze. In fact, the night was still deadly silent and void of any noise but my heavy, frantic breaths.
And then the thing that had been tormenting me – tormenting us – emerged from the woods and stepped into the glowing light from the house.
“No fucking way,” I muttered under my breath. I was too dumbfounded
to scream. Too baffled to move. Standing just a few yards away from me was a fucking Bigfoot.
Flashing lights and blaring sirens went off inside my head. I wholeheartedly believed in sasquatches, but I never thought I’d see one in person. The documentaries, books, and first-hand interviews didn’t prepare me for the initial wave of questions and total shock. It stood unmoving as it stared back it me. Was it assessing me as I was assessing it? But the longer the seconds stretched, the more nauseous I became. The equations in my head were coming out wrong. What about the guy on the ground or the dart guns? Or the shaking and destruction of my RV? Was this the Bigfoot responsible for, not even an hour ago, beating against Vex’s cabin? None of that behavior was typical of a Bigfoot, and some of it didn’t even seem plausible.
Years of blind belief crashed to the ground with a deafening thud when the arms on the beast slowly raised and began to tug at its head. A few seconds later it was removed and tossed aside. It was then that the true numbing horror and confusion began. I swallowed a lump of acid and stared at the person who had been parading around as a Bigfoot in the Montana mountainside.
Slug. Fucking Slug.
“Surprised?” He chuckled sardonically. His arms reached back, presumably to unzip the rest of the suit. “You should see your face right now, Acacia. Pure gold.”
“What… what are you doing? Why are you here?” I formulated the two most important questions. I never thought that I’d encounter my former best friend and partner hours from home on a private chunk of land while he was in a Bigfoot costume.
The furry suit fell to the ground with a slight body shake and Slug squatted to unstrap the tall stilt like crutches that his legs rested in to give him the height of the supernatural being. “Those are the million dollar questions right?” He clicked his tongue. When he stood back up, both feet firmly planted on the ground, he drew a gun out of thin air and pointed it at me. My blood ran cold. “We have plenty of time to talk. Your boyfriend is a little occupied at the moment.”
“What did you do to Vex? What the hell is this about, Slug? I swear if you’ve hurt him I’ll –”
He cut me off with a sneer. “You’ll do what? I’m the one with the gun, Acacia. And I fucking told you; my name is Simon, not Slug.”
“Slug,” I spat. “You’ll always be a filthy slug. You can change your hair and parade around in fancy clothes and drive your fancy car but at the end of the day you’re still the petty, jealous little rat you always were. I can’t believe I ever thought you were my friend.”
“I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with a trashy bitch like you,” He countered with a shrug. He took a few steps closer and waved his weapon in the air as he rattled on with his story. “Year after year I had to watch you with men who didn’t appreciate you. I sacrificed for you, Acacia. I was giving you your dreams, and you cast me aside. When you got locked up it was a blessing. It helped me see through your spell.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Slug. You never told me you had any feelings for me. How was I supposed to know?” There was a gun aimed at me, but I wanted to pummel him to the ground. “Loving someone means you don’t want to hurt them, but that’s all you’ve done to me. You’re fucking crazy. How did you even find me? What are you doing here?”
“We’re going to go inside and have a nice talk why I’m here. You’re going to tell me all about the people that your boyfriend knows – the ones that turn into bears.” He must have seen the panic in my eyes because a menacing smile stretched across his thin face. “Oh yes, Acacia, I know all about them. Who do you think set up all those cameras?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said in a voice that I hoped portrayed confidence and ridicule. “People don’t turn into animals.”
“Bullshit! You told me you were following a lead about a werebear. You’ve told that damn story about your childhood a dozen times. Don’t deny it. I have photographic proof, and once I squeeze every last piece of information out of you I’m going to put together the best pilot episode that has ever graced America’s television screens.”
“This is about your show?” I took a step towards him but he shoved the gun against my chest. I felt the barrel through the worn fabric of my shirt. My life was in his hands, but something propelled me to keep talking. “You’re crazier than I thought if you think I’d tell you anything.” I would rather die than expose shifters – than to hurt the man I loved and his family.
He pulled the gun away from me and I took a shaky breath. I was so wrapped up in trying to process his motives that I didn’t even think to fight for the gun. Seconds later the butt was coming down on my head. The last thing I heard before I was swallowed by darkness was Slug’s hopeful voice. “We’ll see about that.”
“Time to wake up. I don’t want you to die before I have my big reveal, Acacia. Isn’t how they do it in the horror movies? Bad guy spills his guts before the pretty girl gets gutted.”
“Bad guy spills his guts before the pretty girl kicks his nuts into his throat.” I tried to keep the strain out of my voice as I came to. I had a splitting headache, the kind that came after a weeklong bender, and the light was only making it worse. I could feel right away that there were ropes binding me to a chair. “C’mon Slug. We marathoned our way through high school. None of that stuck? This ends badly for you in every scenario.”
“You and I were watching very different movies.”
“Maybe if you were possessed by a demon or had a tragic backstory that immortalized you with some weird mojo, but you’re just an asshole and the assholes always lose.”
Slug gave a humorless laugh. “Remarkable. I am going to kill you, Acacia. Murder. Finito.” He made a popping noise with his mouth. “So can you be serious for twenty minutes?”
“Enlighten me, then, oh great one.”
His hand collided with my face so hard that the chair inched across the floor. “Shut the hell up!”
Syrupy blood started to fill my mouth. “I thought you wanted me to talk? Which is it?”
“That attitude is what got you here in the first place. You walk around thinking you’re better than everyone else when you’re really just a laughingstock. You’re entitled. I kicked you out of the only thing that mattered in your life and what did you do? You smiled and told me you’ll break a story all on your own. You want the truth, sweetheart? I’m going to tell you everything because when I’m done with you they won’t be able to identify your body.”
“Vex will be back. He’ll come for me.” I fucking hope he did. I was putting on a strong front but inside I was scared shitless. Slug was certifiably crazy and he had a gun. I didn’t see myself coming out on the other side, despite what I told him. I had all but kicked Vex out of his own home for the night and told him I was giving up on our relationship. Maybe it would be best if I died. He could get rid of me for good.
“Yeah, no. I told you he’s a little preoccupied. Your boyfriend thinks he has the guy who has been sneaking around in the trees setting up cameras and terrorizing everyone. Don’t get me wrong – he does. The dutiful production assistant I sent out to set up those pesky little cameras is most definitely tied up with your bear and his friends. I take full responsibility for the whole Bigfoot getup though. Thought it would rile you up.” He lifted his hands and did a jazzy little movement. “Guess I was right. You should’ve seen the look on your face! Newsflash, Acacia. Bigfoot ain’t real. But men who turn into bears? That’s real. That’s news. And it’s gonna make me millions.”
“What makes you think you’re any different than the dozens of other people who go to the press with blurry photoshopped pictures and crazy ideas? You think I’m a laughingstock, Slug? What makes you think Discovery is going to drop everything and give you a gold metal?”
“Because what I have isn’t photoshopped and with your extensive and flowery recantation of werebears and the coordinates I’ll provide them, the company will be on top of the world and I’ll be right ther
e with them. I’m going to escape Miles City forever. I’m going to have it all.”
“This isn’t going to work, Slug. You know that, right?” I lowered my voice. “Let me go and I’ll make sure Vex doesn’t kill you.”
He whooped out a laugh. “That’s rich. He seems like the type of guy who would skin me for putting too much milk in his coffee. I have his friend out there doped up with a half dozen horse tranquilizers. Even if I didn’t have all my footage synced to the cloud he’d probably assume I did and pull my teeth out until I gave him the password. That’s two strikes. I have you tied down and I beat you with my gun. I’m planning on murdering you, for fuck’s sake. Three strikes. I’m out. So no, sweetheart, I don’t think I’m going to let you go.” He squatted in front of me and tapped my knee lightly. I wanted to peel off my own skin and burn it under his touch. “How about a deal, though. Tell me everything you know and I’ll make it quick. A bullet to the back of the head. But if you try to keep secrets from me I will make this nice and slow.”
I’d rather be stuck in Purgatory for the rest of my life than tell Slug a single thing. Dying after shaming myself by revealing even one thing about shifters would be worse than any torture he would bestow upon me. I hadn’t betrayed Vex, though I certainly felt like I did. I was the one who led Slug to the Valley even if it was unintentional. I was the one who ran when things got murky. Now I wouldn’t run even if I had the chance. I promised Vex forever. I promised him I’d keep the monsters away. Slug was a dirty rat, not a monster, but if I died it would be protecting the people I loved. “Come here and I’ll tell you all my dirty little secrets, Simon.”
His eyebrows rose cautiously. “What game are you playing at?”
I waited until he was close before I gave a mocking grin. I gathered a ball of saliva in my mouth and aimed it for his eye. “You’re dirt, Slug. Killing me won’t change that. So have your fun and when I come back to haunt your ass you better be prepared.”