by Mia Taylor
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
Blaine was chewing on his lip so hard, a spot of blood appeared.
“We need you to move back to Milwaukee, Chloe.”
She laughed shortly.
“That is never going to happen,” she assured him. “But for the sake of argument, why the hell would I ever entertain something like that?”
Blaine lowered his eyes to stare at the floor.
“Dad is dying too.”
Chloe doubled over as she struggled to gain her breath.
“W-what?” she choked. She stared at her brother, looking for signs on his face that it was all a sick joke but there was no sign of anything but a deep sadness.
“He’s got stage four stomach cancer. I knew about it and Mom but they didn’t want to tell you and Maddy because they worried about how it would affect your schooling.”
Chloe gasped in disbelief.
“Our schooling?” she repeated. “They kept that from us because they were worried about our grades?”
“Maddy is in her last year of law school,” Blaine reminded her as if she could ever forget. “And you only just graduated. I think Mom was going to tell you but…”
“But what? But we had to wait until she died to know about this?”
Chloe was not sure how much more she could take, her nerves so taut, she was sure they would snap.
“I can’t speak to their reasoning,” Blaine sighed. “I thought you should know but you know how they are, Chloe.”
She shook her head, tears clouding her vision.
“What’s the prognosis?” she murmured. “He’s going to die?”
Blaine nodded slowly, his blue eyes clouded.
“Yes,” he replied bluntly. “He is.”
“How long?”
“Six months tops. Chemo and radiation have proved useless for him. All we can do is get him palliative care but he refuses to go to a hospice. He wants to die at home.”
Chloe took a deep breath.
“And you want me to watch him die while you guys live your lives,” she finished, swallowing the bile threatening to spill from her throat.
“After he dies, Chloe, you can go back to San Francisco. We’ll sell the house or I’ll buy you and Maddy out of it.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
He’s put a lot of thought into this. He probably had this all planned out well before Mom died. Mom probably had this all planned out. These people are weird and dysfunctional.
“Chloe?”
He was waiting for an answer.
But they are still my family and the only family I have.
She opened her eyes and stared at his face.
“What does Dad say about this? Does he want me to come home?”
Blaine sucked in some air between his teeth and she had a feeling she knew what the cold, emotionless answer was going to be.
“He wants to die in his own bed. This is the only way that’s going to happen. It’s the only way that makes sense.”
Bitter disappointment welled up in Chloe’s heart as she realized what her brother was saying.
Given the choice, Dennis would prefer Maddy or his only son to stay with him but Chloe was better than a hospice.
I will be giving up my life in San Francisco, my apartment with Holly. And any hope of reconciling with Cypher.
Maybe it was a sign from the gods, telling her that they were never really meant to be, that theirs was a whirlwind romance with the lifespan of a fruit fly.
“Chloe, I know this seems like it’s asking a lot but it’s really not that long.”
“Do you think I’m in a rush for our father to die?” she snapped, suddenly feeling like she was living a warped version of King Lear.
“No, of course not!” Blaine said quickly and he had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m just wondering what your hesitation is about. You’ll be taken care of financially…”
He droned on the merits of moving back but she had already tuned him out, her mind on Cypher again.
Her immediate reaction was to pick up the phone and call him, just as she had done when she’d gotten word of her mother’s death.
Why? So he can drop everything and run over here again and you can tell him you’re not sure about your future? No way. Lose his number. If you’re going to do this, you’re not dragging him into it.
“I need a couple weeks to get my affairs in order,” she told him numbly. “I’ll be back at the end of next week.”
Relief colored his face and Chloe watched as Blaine’s shoulders visibly sank.
“You’re a good daughter, Chloe. Dad appreciates this.”
No, he doesn’t, she thought miserably. No one in this family appreciates anything anyone else does because it’s filled with narcissists.
Idly, Chloe wondered if she was one too.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled, stumbling toward the door. She needed another drink and then to book a flight back home.
If I’m suffocating in this house now, what’s it going to be like when I come back?
“Chloe, there’s one more thing,” Blaine called after her. She paused but she didn’t turn.
“You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Like who?”
“Like anyone. Dad doesn’t want everyone to see him weak and dying. It’s his wish to go in peace.”
Chloe slowly turned her head and looked over her shoulder.
“Are you talking about Maddison? You want me to hide it from Maddy?”
“And your boyfriend… if that’s still a thing. Where is he, by the way?”
It was all Chloe could do to keep from screaming and she fought her way out into the hallway blindly.
It’s all control. That’s what it’s always been about. Control to the death.
“There you are!” Maddison breathed as Chloe reached for the bannister.
You will not scream. You will not scream. You will not scream, Chloe thought urgently but the resistance was faltering with each breath she took.
“I’m going to lie down, Maddy.”
“I just wanted to show you what your lover is doing while you’re sulking around and mourning the loss of your mother,” Maddison said, thrusting her iPhone in Chloe’s face.
Unable to resist, Chloe looked down at the screen where Cypher and his bandmates were grinning wildly at the camera.
Her eyes scanned the article in disbelief.
“Yep, he’s off to Wales for the Green Man Festival. Must be nice, huh?” Maddy chirped. “I’m just saying, you’re wasting your tears on that man.”
He said that he was taking time off after the tour. Why did he lie?
There was only one reason that Chloe could think of—she was just a pastime to him after all. If she hadn’t sent him on his way, he would have dumped her anyway.
Chloe stood on the bottom step, dizziness sweeping over her as the stresses of the past days drowned her in a flood.
And then finally permitted herself to do what she had been supressing for days.
She screamed.
Chapter Ten
Eight Months Later
Cypher grabbed the mail off the island, eyeing them with little interest.
Nothing of worth came through the mail anymore. Everything was online.
It was the first time he’d been home in four months and it was like the San Francisco mansion was frozen in time, untouched, immaculate and empty.
I should get a dog, he thought and snorted at the thought. He was never home, even less so since returning from Wales and learning that Chloe had moved back to Wisconsin.
“I’m sorry, Cypher,” Holly told him and he could see she was genuinely torn apart by her own words. “She doesn’t want to see you. That’s why she changed her number and her email.”
“I don’t understand!” he protested. “She didn’t say anything about leaving California. Did something happen?”
“I really don’t know,” Holly insi
sted. “And I wish you wouldn’t put me in the middle of this.”
She closed the door to the apartment she’d once shared with Chloe and left him in the hallway, shaking his head.
He couldn’t understand why she would just shut him out completely after what they’d shared together.
His impulse had been to fly out to Milwaukee to see her but he remembered too vividly what had happened last time he’d been at her parents’ house.
Did she get offered a job there? Did she decide to be near her family?
Even if either of those things were possible, it didn’t explain why she had completely cut him out.
Cypher was left with the feeling that maybe he had been wrong, that maybe only pheromones and the Florence Nightingale Effect had been responsible for their seemingly perfect fit.
There was nothing left to do but respect her wishes and keep his number active in case she ever changed her mind.
Not a day went by when he didn’t think about Chloe and he Googled her name often to see if he could get a handle on where she might be working or living but it was as if she boarded a plane and went invisible.
And all Cypher could do was throw himself into his music and recording, scheduling another tour right away.
His bandmates were thrilled at his about-face in the matter.
“You’ve got your fire back!” Carter announced after a recording session one day. “That song is incredible. Where did you come up with it?”
Of course the answer was that all the music was about Chloe, that she continued to inspire him, even in heartbreak.
Their latest single, “Even When You’re Gone, You’re Here” was being overplayed to death on every rock, country, alternative and pop station from Staten Island to Seattle.
Does she still listen to my songs? Does she realize that she’s the muse behind them?
It was impossible for him to believe that she didn’t hear them and that she didn’t want to reach out to him, knowing that he still missed her.
The house phone rang and Cypher blinked at the unexpected sound.
It took him three rings to find the landline.
Why do I even pay for this? he wondered, snatching it up.
“Hello?”
“Cypher? It’s Berlin.”
“Berlin,” he gasped, shocked to hear her voice. “H-how long has it been? Ten years?”
“Twelve,” she replied lightly. “But who’s counting?”
Cypher sank onto a wing chair overlooking the kidney-shaped pool.
“Is everything all right? I mean, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch—”
“Cypher, I’m in the same place as you are, remember? You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“I’m just surprised to hear your voice,” he confessed.
“I need your help,” Berlin sighed. “Can you meet me tonight? It’s a full, a blood moon.”
Cypher tensed slightly. He didn’t much care for a hunt in the San Francisco Valley but it had to be important for Berlin to be calling.
“You’re in California?”
“I will be tonight. Marin Headlands? Near Kirby’s Cove?” she suggested. “Midnight?”
“All right,” he agreed. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she assured him. “See you then.”
The phone disconnected in his ear and he felt a rush of tension through his shoulders.
He had met Berlin by accident, many moons ago when he had still been hungry for answers about himself.
She had given him a few but not everything he needed. For a time, they’d maintained contact, but as his fame rose, so did his need to hide his true identity and he found himself associating with bears less and less until the few he’d found barely called.
But Berlin was more than just a shifter. She was a vigilante, a fighter against those who sought to capture the shifters and exploit their abilities.
If she’s killed another hunter, I am the last person she should be calling to help her.
Still, he knew he owed her a lot and refusing to help was not an option.
Whatever it is, I’ll find out tonight, he reasoned.
~ ~ ~
The red moon hung low in the sky and Cypher felt a well-known but almost forsaken sensation throbbing inside his marrow.
It had been years since his last kill, the urge subsiding considerably since his move to the city.
But outside in the dense forest, the sound of nocturnal animals and crickets guiding him toward the moon-lit beach, he couldn’t deny that the desire was real and overwhelming.
A low growl at his back caused Cypher to fall onto his back paws and his gray eyes shone through the darkness to meet a set of startling blue ones.
She has eyes like Chloe, he realized as she bowed her dark head to nuzzle a piece of bloodied flesh toward him.
Cypher eyed it, baring his teeth slightly as he considered it.
“It’s deer,” Berlin laughed, shifting into her human form and nudging the raw flesh with the toe of her black Skecher. “And it’s not mine so I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.”
Grunting, Cypher followed suit and transformed from his bear shape into his muscular body and Berlin nodded at him approvingly.
“You clean up all right for a scrawny bag of bones,” Berlin teased, throwing her arms around him in a hug.
He returned her embrace, somewhat stunned at how pleased he was to see her.
In some ways, he felt like she was some long-lost sister.
“And you look all right for a pimply-faced nerd,” Cypher countered, staring at her face appreciatively.
They both laughed, knowing they were exaggerating their past flaws.
“You’re doing really well for yourself, Cypher. Although, I’m a little surprised. I thought I explained to you that bears don’t fare well in the public eye. The last thing you want is added scrutiny.”
“And yet here I am, going strong. I haven’t run into one hunter yet.”
Berlin’s mouth pursed into a line.
“That’s because I’ve been keeping them at bay for you—for all of us.”
Cypher held back a smart retort, knowing that Berlin genuinely believed she was saving the world from the hunters.
Even if her belief hinges on paranoia.
“Berlin, you know I would never do anything to put us all in danger,” he said gently. “Why are you here?”
She smiled tightly.
“Because you screwed up and put us in danger, my friend,” she replied tersely.
He stared at her blankly.
“How? When?” he denied, shaking his head. “Never!”
She smirked at him and reached into her canvas tote to pull out a tablet.
“Let me show you something, shall I?”
It was a rhetorical question and Cypher waited, wondering why they couldn’t have just met like two normal people that night if all she wanted was to give him a lecture.
“Look at this.”
He peered down at the screen, his brow furrowing as he tried to figure out what he was seeing.
At first he saw nothing but an alleyway but suddenly he realized what it was he was looking at as a figure burst out a fire door and stood alone.
“Where did you get this?” he demanded, his face flushing as another person appeared in the shot, smoking a cigarette.
“Ah, so you know what this is?”
“Of course I do!” he growled, pressing his face closer to the screen, hoping to get a clearer picture of Chloe’s face.
It was from the night he had met her, the night he had confronted the other bear trying to rob her.
“What did you do?” Berlin snapped. “You shifted, in front of a civilian!”
Slowly, he raised his eyes to look at her.
“He shifted in front of a civilian,” Cypher corrected. “I intervened.”
“He is ready to kill you,” Berlin explained. “But not before he kills her.”
The information made his blood run co
ld.
“This is from months ago. Why is this becoming an issue now?”
“Because I only found out about it now,” Berlin sighed. “He’s still looking for her, Cypher. Do you know who she is or where she is?”
“Never mind her!” he growled back. “Where is he?”
“Ammon has gone AWOL but he’s been after the girl since this night. If he sees her, he will finish her,” Berlin said with some regret. “I would prefer it doesn’t come to that but it is what it is.”
“If he touches her, I will rip him limb from limb and let him live,” Cypher swore.
Berlin seemed taken aback by his declaration.
“You know her!”
“I know her,” he replied. “And I know that bastard too. I should have killed him that night.”
Berlin made a clucking noise with her tongue.
“You know you can’t do that,” she replied softly. “It goes against the code.”
Cypher snorted.
“I don’t abide by the code,” he retorted. “I’m not like you and the others.”
Berlin’s eyes shone dangerously against the black of night.
“Whether you like it or not, you’re a shifter like us. You will abide by the code, even if you choose not to live within the crew.”
“I’ll skin him alive if he touches Chloe,” Cypher insisted, anger fueling his words to a razor’s edge. “Mark my words.”
“You have only one recourse here,” she sighed. “And killing him isn’t it, not if you want to save the girl.”
He blinked.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll have to find and protect her yourself.”
Cypher stared at her dumbly.
“What recourse is that?” he demanded. “I can’t stalk her for the rest of her life while that madman goes free.”
“He won’t go free,” Berlin promised. “If you see him, you will tell me and the crew will deal with him as we deal with all rogue bears who fail to follow the code.”
“And how is that?” he asked skeptically. “If bears can’t kill one another with intent?”
Berlin’s mouth curved into a sardonic smile.
“I thought you were an artist. Have you no imagination at all?”
Cypher suddenly didn’t want any more details.
“I’d go find the girl if you value her life,” Berlin said urgently. “But do not handle Ammon. That’s for the crew.”