by Zoe Chant
A breeze swirled over him and rattled the bushes. Come on, Derek thought impatiently. Blow over, you damn tree.
He'd told Gaby to leave in half an hour. Derek's time sense told him that only a few minutes had passed, but each additional minute crawled by at glacial speed as he crouched with twigs prickling his bare skin, tense as a coiled spring.
Then came the sound he'd been waiting for, the welcome crackle of branches breaking in the woods—he was so on edge by now that even expecting it, he still jumped—followed by the tremendous crash of a tree going over.
Derek jumped over the edge of the bank and dashed for the cabin.
He was only exposed for a few seconds, but every instant he expected to feel the hot graze of a bullet. None came. He reached the back of the cabin and ducked below the nearest windowsill.
The cupola offered a commanding view of the surrounding woods and the clearing surrounding the cabin, but its blind spot was straight down, where the roof blocked the view. Derek figured that he had a few feet around the cabin in every direction where he could move unseen.
He listened for a minute and, hearing nothing, straightened up enough to take a quick peek into the cabin. This was the window through which he'd watched Gaby and Sandy playing in the spring this morning. He caught a glimpse of the living room, looking just like it had when they'd left. No sign of Luisa, though she might be lying down on the couch, tied up and out of his view.
He ducked again and moved stealthily along the cabin wall to the next window, which belonged to one of the bedrooms. It was an opening window, cracked open a few inches to let in a breeze. Derek did the same maneuver, listening and then straightening up for a glance inside.
This time, he hit the jackpot. Luisa was tied up on the bed.
Anger surged through him. She was only an old woman with bad hips. Seeing her lying helpless on the bed, with her hands tied behind her and a handkerchief knotted around her mouth as a gag, sent his protective instincts towards Gaby's family surging into overdrive.
But she didn't look like she'd been hurt. He saw no bruises on her face. Her eyes were open, and she turned her head suddenly, having glimpsed Derek moving at the window.
Derek held his finger to his lips. Luisa nodded.
The window was the crank-opening kind, with a screen over it. Derek carefully and quietly popped the screen out of its frame and lowered it to the ground. Then he tried to work his hand inside to reach the crank. It wasn't open far enough; he couldn't get his hand that far inside.
As a bear, he could rip it right out of the wall, but that'd bring Ghost down in a hurry.
Movement on the bed made him look over at Luisa. She'd struggled to a sitting position, then swung her bound-together legs off the bed.
Derek shook his head at her. She'd not only risk getting hurt if she fell, but Ghost would hear it and come to investigate.
Luisa shook her head back at him, and very carefully, resting her back against the nightstand and then the wall, she shuffled over to the window.
Derek pointed to the crank and whispered, "Can you reach it?"
Luisa shuffled cautiously over to it. Immediately Derek could see that she wasn't going to be able to. She was short, and it was too high to reach with her hands bound at that awkward angle behind her back. When she tried to bend forward to get her hands higher, she nearly overbalanced and toppled on her face. Derek caught his breath and gripped the edge of the window, prepared to shift and rip it open in case he had to come in fighting, but Luisa managed to recover her balance and leaned against the wall, looking shaken.
Derek pointed to her hands and beckoned her to him.
She still looked shaky, but he saw her face firm up with determination—it was such a characteristic Gaby-like expression—and she shuffled over to the open corner of the window. Derek pushed his hand through the gap between the window and its frame, but again, he couldn't reach. Her hands were too far down to untie.
And his knife was back in the woods with his clothes.
Well, there was another option.
"Luisa," he whispered. "Close your eyes. Stand still. And whatever happens, don't make a sound."
The look she gave him over his shoulder was perplexed, but she obediently screwed her eyes shut.
Derek shifted.
The world seemed suddenly smaller, the window flimsier. His bear wanted to fight. It didn't understand all this sneaking around.
First we get the hostage out, Derek told it firmly. Then we fight.
His bear was okay with that. It wanted Luisa safe, too.
Derek hooked the edge of his massive paw into the gap between the window and its frame. The window groaned in protest as he carefully snagged the rope with two huge, scimitar-curved claws. It took a couple of tugs and he winced as he saw the rope bite into Luisa's wrists, but then the rope snapped under his claws' sharp edge.
Better than a knife ... at least for some things.
Derek shifted back, his claws shrinking to human fingers curled over the window's edge. He looked up—and straight into Luisa's startled, dark eyes as she looked over her shoulder at him.
"I told you not to look!" he whispered. If she panicked, he'd not only have Ghost to deal with, but also a civilian who would be equally terrified of both of them.
Luisa flexed her hands and untied the gag, making a face as she pulled it out of her mouth. "Ugh. Much better. Are you a bear who turns into a man, or a man who turns into a bear?"
"Uh ... the second one."
"I'm glad to hear that. Much better for my daughter." She cranked the window, opening it as wide as it would go. Derek climbed inside. "Are Gaby and Alejo all right?"
"They're fine. They're waiting in my car, down the road a ways."
"Oh, thank God." She looked at him thoughtfully. "I assume that it is easier to turn into a bear with no clothes on."
"Right," he said, and before that line of discussion could go any further: "Where's Ghost?"
"Upstairs." Luisa pointed to the ceiling.
"Does he have a gun?"
She nodded. "A very large rifle."
As expected. Ghost's sniper skills had always been sharp. "Okay, what you need to do is get to the car, while I distract Ghost. I'm guessing you can't run."
Luisa sighed. "When I was a girl, I won every footrace. Now, I can't even walk down the street without my daughter nagging me about using my walker."
"Look at it this way: you couldn't outrun a bear anyway." Or a bullet.
Her eyes went wide. "This Ghost is like you? A bear-man?"
"Yes. He's the polar bear you saw earlier, at your apartment building." As she sucked in her breath to speak, Derek shook his head. "Save it for later. Right now we need to get out. Do you think you can make it from the cabin to the edge of the woods without using your walker? On this uneven ground, it'd probably slow you down."
"I will," Luisa said.
And she would, too. He was definitely seeing where Gaby got her grit from.
"Okay," he said softly. "Stay with me."
Gun in hand, with Luisa limping at his heels, he ventured out into the living room to the point where he could get a look up into the loft. There was no sign of Ghost. He had to be up in the cupola.
Leaning close to Luisa, Derek murmured, "As soon as I start up the stairs, go out the door onto the porch, wait for a count of ten, then head for the woods. Gaby is waiting for you in the driveway, right around the corner. Don't stop or turn back for anything."
Luisa nodded without speaking.
Once he'd seen Luisa start for the door, Derek went up the stairs, stealthy in his bare feet, counting under his breath. At ten, Luisa would head across the yard. At ten, Ghost needed to be distracted.
Nine ...
Derek threw the door open and flung himself into the upstairs bedroom. "Hey! Asshole!"
The rifle crashed.
Chapter Thirteen: Gaby
"I spy, with my little eye ..."
"Mom," Sandy whined, squir
ming in the backseat. "This game sucks. I don't want to be here."
Me neither, honey, she thought. "Why don't you play with your game for awhile?" she asked, twisting around in the seat to hand him the electronic game she'd shoved into the backpack, back at the apartment.
Sandy kicked at her seat instead. By now they'd been sitting around long enough that his anxiety, caught like contagion from the adults, had faded into the fractious boredom of an energetic five-year-old forced to sit in a car with nothing to do. At least trying to keep him entertained gave Gaby something to do. Otherwise she'd be going out of her mind.
Mom ... Derek ...
But she couldn't show her fear. She had to stay calm for Sandy.
"Do you want to draw? I bet I have a pencil in my purse. Let's see if we can find something for you draw on."
"I don't want to draw." Sandy slid down in his seat until he was nearly horizontal and halfway out of the seatbelt. "I want to go home."
And that was what it really came down to, she thought. He'd been having fun on this new adventure, but now he was ready for it to stop.
Me too, kid. Me too.
"How about—" she began, and broke off abruptly at the distant crack of a rifle shot.
"Mama?" Sandy asked. He didn't seem to have noticed it. He was used to a lot of background noise, cars backfiring and distant sirens, the music of the city. The only thing he noticed was her alarm. "Mama, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, baby," she said through stiff lips, struggling to control her fear. "Everything's okay." She undid her own seatbelt and leaned over the back of the seat to pull the straps of Sandy's belt back into alignment. "Sit up straight, okay? We might have to leave in a minute. You know you have to sit up straight when you're wearing a big-boy seatbelt."
Derek ... Mama ... please, God, please keep them safe ...
She'd just dropped back into her seat and was reaching for her own belt when a movement up ahead caught her attention. She jerked her hand away from the belt and dropped it to the gearshift. The engine was still rumbling as it idled. All she had to do was throw it into reverse.
No, wait ...
"Mama," she gasped, threw the door open. "Sandy, stay in the car!"
Luisa was limping badly, but moving fast. Gaby met her halfway, throwing her arms around her mother and squeezing her desperately. "Mama, thank God, thank God." She looked behind Luisa, but saw no one. Then another distant gunshot made her jump, followed by the quick snap of several more.
"He's back at the cabin," her mother said. "He saved me. He is a good man, Gabriella."
She knew that; oh, she knew that. And now he was fighting Ghost alone.
In that instant, Gaby knew what she had to do. She needed to get her family to safety, but she couldn't leave him alone. She couldn't.
"Mama, do you think you can drive Derek's car, with your hips the way they are?"
"When I was pregnant with you, dear heart, I walked two miles to the bus stop every day, and spent sixteen hours a day on my feet, cleaning houses and taking my secretary classes in the evening—"
"So, yes, then. Mama, take the car. Sandy's in the backseat. Drive to town, and call Lieutenant Keegan. His number is in my phone."
"I can't leave you—"
"Yes, you can, you must. Keep Sandy safe. I have to help Derek."
Luisa cupped Gaby's face briefly in her cool hands. "My brave girl. I will not fight you on this. I know how it is with you and Derek. So it was with your father and me. I would have walked through fire for him." She kissed Gaby on the cheek. "Go, quickly."
Gaby helped her mother into the car and then backed away. Luisa hesitated. Gaby waved both arms in a "Go!" gesture. Her mother blew her a kiss through the windshield, and reversed the car carefully down the driveway.
Gaby watched until it was out of sight.
They were safe. Now she had to make sure that Derek was.
She walked swiftly up the driveway, clenching and unclenching her empty hands. If only she'd thought to check the car for weapons. A tire iron, maybe?
As if a tire iron would do anything against a bear.
As if you could do anything against a bear.
But ... maybe she could help. She had an advantage: Ghost wouldn't know she was there.
As soon as she turned the corner up ahead, she could see the cabin in front of her, across an expanse of lawn. She hadn't realized they were this close to it.
There was movement up in the cupola. Gaby remembered being up there with Derek last night. In the dark, there was nothing much to see, but by daylight, you'd be able to see the driveway and anyone coming down it.
That's probably where he is.
Gaby's whole body was knotted with fear, her hands clutched into fists. She jumped when the rifle boomed again, and then twice more, coming from inside the cabin. The fight was still going on. She wasn't too late. Still, self-doubt beat at her. What if she wasn't a help, only a liability?
But no matter what Derek told her to do, she couldn't run off and leave him in danger. They were a team now. He'd stepped up to help fight her battles. She wasn't going to abandon him to fight his battles alone.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and ran across the lawn.
At any moment, she expected to be shot, but no one shot at her. Derek must be keeping Ghost distracted inside. Gaby reached the porch and relaxed a little now that the porch roof shielded her from being seen. She crept up the steps and cautiously peeked inside the half-open cabin door.
The living room and kitchen still looked just the same as when they'd left, the sink with its drying rack of breakfast dishes, the living room with a few scattered books pulled off the shelves. The doors to both downstairs bedrooms stood open, as did the upstairs bedroom door. With the loft-style upstairs, anyone who emerged from that door would be able to see Gaby in the living room.
She wished desperately that she had a gun.
The uncluttered living room offered few options for weapons. The best thing Gaby could see was a poker hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. It was that or a frying pan from the kitchen. She gripped the poker and tried a test swing. In her hands, the poker that had looked so long and heavy on the wall seemed impossibly flimsy.
Hitting a bear that size with this is going to be about as useful as trying to beat him up with a Nerf bat.
But she was committed now. She refused to leave Derek to fight alone.
Cautiously, gripping the poker, she began to climb the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen: Derek
Ghost's first shot blew a hole in the door, inches from Derek's shoulder. The polar-bear shifter was leaning down through the trap door, awkwardly trying to shoot through the opening.
Ghost fired again, missing in the other direction this time because of the difficult angle, and Derek snapped off a couple of quick shots at him. Ghost jerked back with a hoarse yelp. Derek couldn't tell if he'd hit him or not.
He needed to keep Ghost's attention on him, not on whatever was happening in the yard, where he could only hope Luisa had managed to make it to the shelter of the trees.
Aiming in the general direction of where he thought Ghost was, he fired a couple of shots into the ceiling. The bullets weren't high-powered enough to penetrate the thick wooden ceiling all the way through to Ghost, but there was another startled yelp from above.
"Come down here and fight like a bear, asshole!"
"I prefer having the high ground," Ghost's taunting voice came down through the trap door. "Seem to recall that worked out pretty well for me before."
They'd fought on a mountainside. Derek remembered Ghost leaping onto him from a boulder, huge claws scoring his side, leaving trails of fiery pain ...
"Fine, you can stay up there 'til the cops get here. You know they're on their way, right?"
"I'll just pick them off as they arrive."
"You're trapped, man. If you turn yourself in, all you have to deal with is a rap sheet for assault and attempted murder. Kill a
cop, and you're never seeing the light of day."
"Trapped, am I?" Ghost fired through the trap door, again and again, until the rifle clicked empty. There was the sudden click and clatter of reloading.
Derek shifted to his grizzly immediately, dropping his gun, and swatted the ladder to the loft with one tremendous paw, knocking it down. Now Ghost really was trapped.
Derek's bear snarled inside him. It didn't want Ghost to surrender. It wanted a rematch for their fight. Growling, Derek reared on his back legs and clawed at the edge of the framed-in cupola entrance. As he thrust his head and shoulders through the opening, he glimpsed Ghost (still human-shaped) aiming the rifle at his face, and dropped quickly to all fours. The rifle boomed, ripping a hole in the bedroom floor, next to Derek's paw.
They were really wrecking Keegan's cabin. Derek himself had gouged huge slashes in the wood around the opening to the cupola.
But he could no longer hear the distant rumble of the Mustang's engine, which meant Luisa and Gaby had made their getaway. It was just him and Ghost now.
He heard scuffling noises from above. There was a pause and a sudden crash, followed by more scuffling which gave way to an ominous silence.
What the hell was that bastard up to now?
The cupola was completely silent. Derek gripped his gun in his teeth and reared up on his back legs.
The cupola was silent because it was empty. Ghost had smashed out one of the windows; the afternoon breeze washed over Derek's bear nose, bringing him Ghost's scent very strongly.
Bastard's on the roof!
But he couldn't get more than his bear's head through the opening. He couldn't see much, other than a floor's-eye view of the cupola.
Derek hooked a giant paw over each side of the opening, and shifted. Now he was dangling from his hands. He pulled himself up and quickly crouched, looking around.