by Kyrii Rayne
“He couldn't because he was never taught to. Hell, Mark, I had to explain to him that house pets aren't kept for meat. He was never really taught anything—”
“Except how to kill.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I don't get it. He tried to kill us. Why would you help Helga give him a second chance?”
She puffed out her cheeks and stared out the window at the darkened streets for a little while.
“I was saying things like that myself a month ago. We all were. Mark... he's not here to kill anyone. He's just confused. He needs our help getting back home so we can keep rehabilitating him.”
“He used to eat people. How do you know he doesn't still have a taste for it?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, reaching for control of her temper, and finally snapped, “Because he still has nightmares about it, and he wouldn't eat meat for weeks because he was afraid someone would try and trick him into eating human flesh again.”
“Nightmares.” he sounded incredulous. But something in what she had said seemed to sink in with him, because he went quiet for a while, his eyes on the road and his mouth grimly shut. “So why did he come to Jackson, then?”
“I can only go by what Jake and Darrin have found out. But it looks like he caught someone's scent and is investigating them.”
“What kind of someone?”
“A young woman.”
“Oh.” His brows knit, and then headed for his hairline. “...Oh! Oh, holy shit. Should we be finding this girl and guarding her?”
“No! Look, Mark, I know this doesn't make you very comfortable, but I need you to trust me on this one. I need you to find Gray for me, so I can try to talk him into going home.”
Mark blinked several times, shaking his head.
“Baby, I'm sorry, but you sound just like a crazy person. What did living with those damn bears do to you? You can't reason with the thing that almost tore Jake's heart out and tried to knock you out a plate glass window.”
“And if he's not that... thing... anymore?” she challenged softly.
He met her gaze for a second.
“I'll believe that's possible when I see it for myself.”
They went by the trailer just long enough for him to grab some equipment cases and his laptop, which he handed to her.
“You keep an eye out, let me know which camera numbers get movement hits, and then check the images. I've caught him clear on two of them so far. He seems to be heading for the southeast end of town.”
“Okay then.” She opened the laptop and started checking the movement hits as he drove. The trailcam feeds brought her the results one by one: deer, deer, moose, a boar — and then Graypaw, in bear form, placidly lumbering past the trailcam without even looking up. “I've got him. Number 28.”
“That puts him right outside one of the residential areas. There’re some tract houses... only kind of low-income housing they have out here besides the trailer park. Okay. Let's head that direction.”
His voice had a strange, hard undertone to it, and she wondered: what did he plan to do once they got there? Would he really cooperate? He had acted honorably ever since she had met him, but right now his eyes shifted around a lot and he seemed very, very tense.
“I'll run interference. If there's a problem I'll need you to get Helga. She can basically knock him on his ass with a word if she has to.”
“Anna, it's not safe for you to do that.”
‘You're so soft....’
“Yes, it is,” she murmured, shocking him even as she had trouble letting go of the memory of Gray's trembling, wonder-filled whisper. “He won't hurt me. But if he runs off again, we're in trouble, so if he starts to get agitated, yeah, I'll need you to wake Helga up and bring her here.” It would be best if they could just retrieve Gray on their own. But Helga had come along for a reason. Ultimately, she was the one who had chosen to take Gray in, and she was the one who needed to be their backup if reason did not work. Because what would they have besides her power if it didn't? Just violence, violence and cages. Anthony's methods. Things she never ever wanted to see done to Gray again.
She swallowed, her eyes stinging. Jake. I need you here now. I don't know if I can save your brother on my own, and Mark has so many doubts he may just bail on us. Please, just... get here soon. Somehow. Please.
“We need a better contingency than Helga,” he protested, and she turned a scowl on him that got her another startled look.
“Unless you have a tranquilizer that will work on a supernaturally powerful, regenerating creature, we're kind of down to Helga if reason doesn't work. Mark, please. Please, just trust me, let's just get this done, and then you can go home with a stack of Helga's cash and we can go home with Gray. And you won't have to deal with him ever again if you don't want to. Okay?”
He went quiet for too long a while, then finally rasped, “If that goddamned thing makes one single move to hurt you, I swear to God that I will put him down.”
She reddened at the vehemence in his words, in part because of frustration and in part because of what his protectiveness always made her feel.
“He's not a thing anymore, Mark. He's a person. Or he's... trying to be.”
“I'm still saying it. And I'll do it, if I have to.”
“You won't have to. He would never hurt me, not anymore.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence as he pulled onto a side road. “I guess we'll see.”
The tract houses were cheap imitations of ski chalets, with high-peaked metal roofs, generic paint jobs and painted on ‘wooden’ trim. They reminded her of something from a movie set. Anna sat quietly, watching the camera feeds, as Mark drove between the darkened rows of houses with his jaw set and his eyes flicking back to her face now and again.
“Picked him up on Camera 29,” she finally said quietly. Gray had stopped what he was doing and was perched on a hilltop overlooking a group of the tract houses.
“Got it, we're almost there.” Mark turned left and pulled up onto the fire road at the back of the property, then cut his lights and came to a stop. “Okay, here's the deal. If you really think you can talk him into going back with you, fine, but I'm covering you with my rifle in case he tries anything.”
“Mark, don't. He'll get scared if you're pointing a big damn gun at him.”
“Then he can be scared,” Mark growled as he went around to the back of his truck and pulled out one of the longer and narrower of his storage cases. “I'm plenty goddamn scared. This will make me less so. Should make you less so too.” He opened it and came out with a heavy caliber hunting rifle, which she stared at with a shudder.
“What it does is make me worry that this will turn violent when there's no need at all. Mark, I don't want to see either of your hurt.”
“And I don't want to see you hurt. I'm bringing the damn rifle, Anna, and that's final. If he doesn't do anything to deserve me using the rifle on him, I won't use it.”
She felt her stomach knot up, but it wasn't as if she could stop him. “If you start a fight when there's no need for one, Mark, I swear to God, you won't have to worry about how I'm doing anymore, because I won't go anywhere near you again.”
He fought the look of shock off his face and looked back at her with determination. “If that ends up being what's necessary. Though I hope you'll trust me a little more than that.”
“I do. But none of us have the best judgment when it comes to Graypaw, not after what Anthony made him do.”
He grunted acknowledgment and slung the rifle. “The camera is up on that hilltop,” he said, pointing to a spot maybe a hundred yards away. “You want to try to talk to him first, I'll hang back. But I'm keeping a bead on him until I know it's safe.
“If he spies you with the rifle on him, he'll run.”
He gave her an implacable look, and she sighed. There was simply no arguing with him. He wasn't exactly crazy, but he was very, very wary, and they didn't have the time to overcome that with Gray on the loos
e. So she squared her shoulders and strode off into the dark in the direction he had pointed, too worried about Gray to think too much about Mark's anger, or his feelings in general. It wasn't kind to him, but she was starting to wonder if she had to warn Gray to run when she caught up with him. It was all kinds of ironic, but right now Mark seemed the more dangerous and less stable of the two.
“Gray?” she called out. “Gray! Are you here?”
Rustlings in the brush up ahead. She sucked air and peered ahead, letting her eyes get accustomed to the darkness. “Gray?”
A tall figure rose from the brush suddenly, silhouetted against the faint light the town threw up against the clouds. She caught a glimpse of shaggy hair and a powerful body, and when he turned his face to her, she saw the animal gleams of light from the backs of his pupils. “Gray!” She hurried ahead, stumbling a little in the dark.
Huge hands caught her by the shoulders before she could pitch forward, and she looked up to see Gray staring quietly down at her. “Hello, Anna,” he rumbled softly. He sounded almost contrite.
“There you are! You scared the hell out of everyone! Why did you do that?” She hugged him tight before she thought about it, tears in her eyes.
He froze a moment, then settled his arms around her briefly, and almost shyly. It was such a different experience from the desperate embrace that had left her so breathless and troubled. The heat was out of it, and she didn't understand why until he spoke.
“I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare anyone. But I had to find her. I had to.”
“Find who? Gray, you need to come back with us. You're not ready to fit in in town yet.”
“I know,” he mumbled ruefully into her hair. She wondered how in the world he could give off that much heat, running around bare-chested in the snow. His body felt like sun-warmed stone against her. “But this was important. I had no goddess to ask, Anna. I had to go myself, and hope....”
She stepped away from him gently, looking up at his face. “Show me.”
He led her up the hill a little way, and over it, to a patch of brush overlooking some of the back yards of the tract houses. He pointed down to the yard, to where a pair of Malamutes played and wrestled in the snow. “There. Down there....”
She watched, while his hand stayed on her shoulder as if to steady himself. After a little while, a small figure stepped out of the back door with a couple of steel dog bowls which gave off steam. Anna heard her call to the dogs, and they bounded over, wagging happily.
Muffled in a parka, she wasn't very visible, but Anna saw glimpses of pale blonde hair, and heard a soft, cheerful voice talk to the dogs as they ate their dinner. Beside her, Graypaw shivered and made a soft, longing noise. He reached out, as if he could cross the distance between them with a massive arm, and then turned a look of desperate confusion on Anna.
“I couldn't sleep or eat until I saw her.”
Oh, poor Gray. Tears filled Anna's eyes. “I understand,” she whispered gently.
They watched quietly until the young lady let her dogs back inside and went in herself, locking up. As she was turning off the lights, she paused, looking up the ridge, as if she sensed something. But then she turned and went back inside, and the backyard lights went off.
Anna turned to Gray, painfully aware of Mark being off in the darkness somewhere. “Look, Gray... you need to come back with us. Your being here has upset some people already, and we need to go home now and let things calm down. Once that happens, I will help you meet her. I promise. But right now—”
Gray made that little desperate sound again and she sighed, but he was already shaking his head. “No, Anna, I can't... I... I must be with her.”
“Gray... you need to learn how to act first, or you'll scare her off. Right now, you're okay around the other bears and around me, but she's an ordinary human. She doesn't understand about your kind or about you. You have to be ready to make her think you're human for a while.”
“But... that's a lie,” he replied in confusion.
“Yes. But humans can't handle the truth all the time. It's not easy for me to admit, but a lot of us can't deal with the world as it is. We tell ourselves lies about it instead, just to make us feel better. And one of those lies is that humans are alone in the world, and that we control the world, and don't share it with other creatures that are just as intelligent.” She touched his arm soothingly, and felt his tension.
“I don't want to scare her off. But I have to be where she is. I don't know what to do.” A shudder went through him, pure anguish in his tone. “I didn't want to leave Grandmother or the Lodge. But I can't leave this woman....”
“Grandmother is here, now. She was very tired, but she came anyway to help us find you. She's very worried.”
He stiffened. “Grandmother came here? But she's sick, she shouldn't come to the town.”
“Well, neither should you yet. But she's responsible for you. And where you go, she goes. It's the same for me, Jake and Darrin. We came looking for you because we're worried. We want to help you, but if you just keep stalking around after her like that, we won't be able to.”
He had gone quiet and still, and she looked up at him, then around. “What is it?”
“The man. The human. Your friend, the one who shot me in the face with a flare. I can smell him. Why is he here?”
Damn it. “He lives here, and we needed his help to find you. But there's a problem. His last memory of you is you trying to kill us all. He doesn't trust you yet.”
“I don't trust him yet. He shot me in the face with a flare!”
“Well, what do you expect? You were trying to run me down and kill me at the time.” Her voice was gentle, but had a little edge to it, and his massive shoulders sagged.
“I... guess... that is true. But I don't... I don't want him here, Anna.”
“He doesn't want you here either, Gray. Look... please... just come back with me.”
He twitched, shifting agitatedly. “No. I can't. If he's here he could do something bad. He hates us. He even hated Jake.”
Oh no, come on, we don't need this now.
“Gray, please. We need you back. Everyone's frightened that something bad will happen if you don't—”
Tears gleamed in his black eyes and he reached forward to seize her roughly by the shoulders. It only hurt a little, but the contact jolted her. “I can't leave her! She's the only one who will love me even with what I was! Even with what Father made me do! She won't be scared of me like Jake is, and Darrin is and even you are sometimes! She will just love me! She won't care! I can't live without that anymore!”
Anna stiffened. “Gray, let me go, Mark has a gun and he's watching. If he thinks you're hurting me—”
A ragged red hole appeared in Gray's forearm, and he jolted back away from her, grabbing the wound and staring in shock. A rifle report rolled through the dark, and Anna gasped.
“Oh God. Mark, no! Stop it!” she called out — but the second shot tore chunks out of a tree at head level a split second after Gray took a step back from it. Tears blurred her eyes, her heartbeat went crazy — and she turned to Gray. “Run!”
He bounded off into the brush and away, and she buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Mark, you panicky asshole.
Seconds later, Mark came running down the fire road toward her, rifle slung. “I saw that thing grab you, are you all right?”
She turned on him, tears cold on her cheeks as she stomped up the street with her feet slipping a little in the inch or so of snow.
“You didn't have to do that!” She struck out at him, knowing she didn't have a prayer of connecting but unable to stop herself.
He caught her hand.
“Hey, hey, whoah, what the Hell—”
“I had him! I was this close to convincing him to come home, and then you went and tried to blow his head off! If he hadn't moved—”
“Yeah, too bad that he did. I saw how he grabbed you—”
“That's crap, he was panicked. It
didn't even hurt!” She shoved at his chest and pushed herself back instead, vision blurring with tears. “I don't even know what he'll do now!”
“If he gets violent—”
“You are the one who got violent! He was doing okay! We were going to go home! I—” She wished again, vehemently this time, that Jake was around and could punch this guy for her. She wasn't a violent person normally, but this... “Just get away from me, Mark! Go away! You're so full of hate these days that I can't deal with you!”
Confusion and disgust mixed on his face as he spread his hands.
“What the Hell? Have you gone completely crazy? Two months ago, that creature tried to kill us all. Now he's loose in an urban neighborhood. What am I supposed to do, take it on your word that the damn thing's safe? He's stalking some girl now!”
“He's not stalking her. He's doing the exact same thing he did with us at first.” Oh, how she hated him right now, but she still struggled to explain, struggled to reach the man behind the reactionary rage, who had saved her life twice. “He doesn't know how to approach her—”
“I don't really give a goddamn.” He stepped back, nose wrinkling in disgust. “I can't believe you, standing up for that thing when not even a season ago we were teaming up to fight for our lives against it.”
“He got brainwashed. It could happen to anyone. You, me... he's like a child soldier, Mark. He was raised to kill and only started figuring out a little while ago that there's a whole life outside that for him. And you... you... oh God, you just messed up everything!”
Maybe she was being a little unfair to him, a tiny voice warned in the back of her head. But her anger and pain drowned that out quickly.
“That's bullshit!” He started stalking away down the road. “I'm out. You want to spend your life running around in the woods with the goddamn Bears and keeping company with a man-eater, you go ahead, but don't expect me to have any part in it!”
She stood on the hillside and watched him walk away. Tears of anger and regret blurred her vision, but in the end, he had chosen this path weeks ago. If he hadn't, they wouldn't have worried so much about his finding out about Graypaw being in town. Now, though, he knew everything, and she had to worry about what he would do with the information.