Defender Cave Bear: Protection, Inc: Defenders # 1

by Chant, Zoe

  A door-slam and a thud made her whirl around. There on the porch was Tirzah, clutching an umbrella which she seemed to be using as a cane. “Caro? What’re you doing?”

  Chapter 17

  Caro leaped to her feet and whipped her hand behind her back. “Nothing! Nothing!”

  Well, that certainly wasn’t suspicious. Tirzah debated whether to ignore it—after all, Caro wasn’t her kid—and yet, she felt somehow responsible. Caro’s father and grandmother weren’t there, and Tirzah was. She didn’t care that Caro had to be up way past her bedtime, given that it was midnight, but she was obviously up to something more than just that. Tirzah vividly remembered being thirteen, and knew that kids that age did all sorts of wild and even dangerous things.

  On the other hand, thirteen-year-olds were also painfully sensitive and private. Caro was obviously going through a lot, and Tirzah didn’t want to be yet another adult getting all up in her business.

  Also, her leg was killing her. So was her hand that clutched the umbrella. Tirzah leaned against the porch railing and slid down until she was sitting on the wooden porch with her legs resting on the steps. “The stars are beautiful tonight.”

  Caro’s furtive expression melted into happiness. “They sure are.”

  Tirzah put down the umbrella and the purse that concealed the Ziploc bag of used newspaper, which had been easier to obtain to create a makeshift litter box than lawn clippings. She patted the step next to her. “Look at them with me?”

  “Um, I have to get back to my room.” Caro tried to sneak past Tirzah, still keeping her hand behind her back.

  Nope nope nope, Tirzah thought. She wasn’t letting the girl leave before she found out what she was hiding, even if she had to take shameless advantage of her disability to do it.

  She tried to stand, staggered, and grabbed Caro’s arm for support, yanking it out from behind her back. Caro was holding the beautiful pegasus figurine from her room, posed with one hoof upraised.

  “Sorry!” Tirzah exclaimed. “Oh, it’s your little pegasus. I love it! Where’d you get it?”

  Caro looked acutely uncomfortable and mumbled, “I don’t remember.”

  “If you help me sit down, I’ll show you something.”

  Caro helped Tirzah sit back down, then reluctantly sat, holding the pegasus well out of Tirzah’s reach. Tirzah pretended not to notice that. She slipped her hand into her purse, pulled out her phone, opened the album of dollhouse photos, and held them out to Caro. “These are in my bedroom.”

  “What?!” Caro looked from the dollhouses to Tirzah, amazed. “You have dollhouses?!”

  “Uh-huh. I play with them, too. See, here’s the Victorian dollhouse with all my ninjas living in it… And here’s the ninjas attacking it and the dogs defending it…” Tirzah was pleased to hear Caro’s delighted laugh.

  Caro turned adoring eyes up to Tirzah. “You’re so cool!”

  “That’s nice to hear. Most people think I’m a giant nerd.”

  Earnestly, Caro said, “Don’t let anyone peer-pressure you into being boring and ordinary. All the best people are non-conformists.”

  “I totally agree,” Tirzah replied. “Listen, I can’t say anything about any rules about how late you’re supposed to be up, because that’s up to your dad and grandma. But when you’re my age, you can stay up as late as you want. And if you still have that pegasus, I hope you take him out whenever you like, no matter what anyone else thinks. Like you say, all the best people are non-conformists.”

  “Like you!” Caro carefully put down the pegasus and took Tirzah’s phone, flipping through the dollhouse photos. “Now I want a dollhouse too. Or maybe a little barn.”

  “Ask your dad to build you one,” Tirzah suggested.

  To Tirzah’s dismay, Caro’s face unexpectedly crumpled. In a voice on the edge of tears, she said, “I can’t! Everything I do is wrong! Ever since he moved in, he’s acting weird and he’s gone all the time and he won’t talk to me and he won’t talk to Abuelita and he hates hugs! I don’t think he even likes me anymore!”

  Tirzah gave Caro a hug herself. The girl buried her face in Tirzah’s shoulder and sniffled, then pulled back, muttering, “Sorry.”

  “What’s to be sorry about? Being a person who has feelings?” Tirzah tried to choose her next words carefully. This was a far more difficult situation than she’d realized when she’d thought Caro was just embarrassed to be a teenager who still loved playing with her little animals. “Look, I haven’t known your dad for very long. And you’re right, he has a real problem with talking sometimes. But there’s one thing I’m sure about, and that’s that he loves you. He’s been through a lot—”

  “And war changes people, I know.” Caro sounded like she was quoting something she’d heard a lot. “But he was a Marine before. And now he’s different.”

  Tirzah chose her words carefully. “Maybe something happened to him this time that hadn’t happened before. But I promise you, he loves you more than anything on this Earth. If you and he had a talk—”

  “Yeah, right!”

  “If you and he had a talk,” Tirzah repeated, “Would you tell him how you felt?”

  “Of course I would.” Caro gave a bravado-filled shrug, but Tirzah saw the uncertainty beneath it.

  “Would you mind if I asked him to talk to you?”

  “Abuelita’s asked him to talk to me,” Caro sighed.

  “Sometimes things come across differently when someone who’s not your mom asks you,” Tirzah pointed out, carefully not mentioning the even more important factor, which was that they might come across differently when the person asking already knew about certain pertinent facts such as cave bears and wizard-scientists. “So, would you mind?”

  “What’re you going to tell him?”

  “Whatever you want me to. If you like, I could repeat this conversation—sometimes it’s easier to start talking when you know the other person already knows about the stuff that’s hard for you to say. But if you don’t want me to, I won’t say a word about it. I’ll just say I think the two of you need to have a heart-to-heart.”

  Caro took a moment to think about it, then nodded decisively. “Tell him everything I said, please. And thanks for asking me what I want instead of treating me like a little kid. And for showing me your ninja house. And—Uh-oh, Moo—uh, I’m tired! Goodnight!”

  She snatched up her pegasus statuette and fled, her long black hair whipping out behind her.

  Tirzah waited until she was sure Caro wouldn’t come back, then hobbled around the side of the house and dumped the baggie of used newspaper in the trash. The umbrella-cane was both painful and precarious, but there was no way she could get her wheelchair to the trash can without someone volunteering to throw out her trash for her.

  Once she was back inside, she gratefully sat down in the chair she’d left by the door, then went to Pete’s room. She opened the door slowly, not wanting to risk waking him with a knock, and peered in. The bathroom door was safely shut, and all was quiet within. All she could see of Pete was the shape of his body under the covers and his head on the pillow. He lay so still that she couldn’t see him breathing.

  He’s fine, Tirzah told herself. His own mother thought it was safe to leave him alone in his room.

  Of course, Pete had gone to great lengths to make sure his own mother believed there was nothing wrong with him but an upset stomach. And Tirzah hadn’t figured out any way to suggest that she keep an eye on him without either wrecking his cover story or outright saying they were involved. She wished she could do the latter, since Lola obviously suspected as much anyway. But there was no way she was going to drop a bomb like that on Caro without Pete’s consent, which she already knew he’d never give, so that was that. Lola had made up the sofa bed in the living room for Tirzah, and Pete was in his room with no one there if he needed something or got worse or...

  Tirzah went into his room. The thick carpet made her sweat just turning the wheels, but it also muffled the so
und of her entrance. She closed the door behind her, then went up to his bed. By the time she got there, her eyes had adjusted to the light and she could see the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  On the one hand, he didn’t seem to be having any trouble breathing. On the other hand, she’d never been able to sneak up on him when he’d slept in her apartment. He was always, always awake by the time she got into the living room, even when she went in at 3:00 AM on the pretext of getting a midnight snack, but actually to see if he was a light sleeper or just an early riser. And the carpet didn’t muffle all sounds. Based on her previous experience, he should’ve woken up just from her turning the doorknob.

  She sat and watched him until she started falling asleep in the chair. Tirzah didn’t want to end up suddenly crashing to the floor of Lola Valdez’s house again. She considered the sofa bed, then Pete’s bed. Her whole body flushed with heat at the thought of Pete waking up to find her climbing into bed with him. That was a whole world of nope. And the carpet was thick.

  Tirzah slithered out of her chair and on to the floor. She’d just take a tiny nap, to refresh herself enough to watch Pete until she could plausibly claim that she’d woken up in the morning and gone to check on him.

  Her eyes closed.

  Chapter 18

  She needs you.

  The rumbling voice of the cave bear awoke Pete as instantly as if a gun had gone off next to his head. He sat up before he could decide to do so. His half-healed cuts screamed in protest, but he ignored them, searching for the source of the alert.

  His room was dark, but he could make out the glitter of metal beside his bed. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was Tirzah’s wheelchair. Empty. What in the world…?

  Then he heard the sound of breathing from beside his bed. He leaned over, adrenaline coursing through his veins, and saw Tirzah curled up on the floor.

  For a terrible moment, he thought she’d somehow fallen from her chair and was unconscious. Then he realized that she was asleep and dreaming. Sweat gleamed on her face, her muscles were tensed, and she was breathing in ragged gasps. Pete had seen enough people having nightmares, from Caro when she was a little girl who’d seen a poster for a horror movie to Marines dreaming of combat, to recognize the signs.

  He also knew that waking up from a nightmare could be almost as terrifying and disorienting as being in one. He had to make the transition as gentle as possible.

  Pete turned on the reading lamp by his bed, casting a golden light across the room. He hoped that would wake her, but if it penetrated into her nightmare, all it did was make it worse. She gave a stifled moan that made his heart twist with sympathy—and guilt. She had to be dreaming about the gargoyle.

  Or, worse, his cave bear.

  Pete sat down on the floor beside her, praying that she wouldn’t recoil in fear from him, as she had from his bear. Much as he longed to touch her, to hold her safe in his arms, he held himself back. He’d nearly gotten his nose broken by a Marine whom he’d tried to shake awake once. And though he didn’t care if she hit him, he didn’t want to scare her even more.

  “Tirzah?”

  She woke with a strangled gasp, her eyes flying open and her hands flailing at nothing.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Pete said. “You’re safe. Everything’s all right. You were just dreaming.”

  She stared at him, wild-eyed, breathing so fast that he was afraid she was going to hyperventilate and pass out. He could tell that she was having a panic attack and wasn’t taking in a word he was saying.

  You need to touch her, rumbled his cave bear.

  Pete wanted to touch her, but it was 50-50 whether doing so would just scare her more. The terror in her eyes made his heart hurt. Hoping he was doing the right thing, he leaned over and gathered her into his arms.

  The touch of her skin to his came as a staggering shock, as intense as when they’d touched for the very first time. He’d seen and heard and understood that she was terrified and confused and overwhelmed, but now he felt it. Her emotions were as open to him as if he could physically touch them, all razor-sharp edges and sandpaper roughness.

  And not just emotions, but sensations: some remembered, some happening now.

  He was falling through open space, his body tensed for the impact that would kill him.

  He was dragging himself upward, his lower body in agony, his fingers raw, his muscles on fire.

  He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe!

  Pete forced himself not to flinch away from her. Still holding Tirzah close in his arms, he visualized a pane of bullet-proof glass between him and her feelings. At that, the onslaught stopped. But then he couldn’t do anything to help her. And while he didn’t really understand what was happening, he had an instinctive sense that he could help.

  Hold her, rumbled his cave bear.

  I am holding… Pete began, then realized what the bear meant.

  He dissolved the glass and stood fast against the storm. Pete found Tirzah in the middle of it. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel the essence of her: strong and brave and funny, smart and sensual and quirky, a lover of justice, a defender of the defenseless, her own unique self and unafraid to just be herself.

  He felt her, and he loved her. There, in that inward realm of emotion, he could no longer deny his own heart.

  It was the most natural thing in the world to reach out and enfold her in his love and caring, loaning her his own strength and calm.

  You can have everything, he thought. Whatever you need from me. I’m yours.

  A roar sounded from deep within his heart and soul, from the most primal part of his being. The voice of his cave bear shook him like an earthquake as it said, MINE.

  And then Pete was out of that inner realm and back in his body, holding Tirzah in his arms. Her breathing slowed and steadied, and she looked up at him without fear.

  “I was having a nightmare,” she said. “When I woke up, it was like I was half awake and half still there, and that was just as awful and scary as the nightmare was. And then you… What did you do?”

  “I don’t know.” Pete hesitated, knowing that what he was going to say would sound bizarre… but then again, no more bizarre than getting your cell phone turned to stone. “I could feel your emotions. And I… I did something. What did it feel like to you?”

  She tilted her head, and her curly hair brushed against his throat. “Like you gave me a shoulder to lean on. Like you were holding me, but inside my mind. Thanks, Pete. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I really appreciate… whatever it was.”

  She doesn’t know, Pete realized, his heart sinking. His realization that he was in love with her hadn’t been shared, but had occurred only in his own mind. He’d stopped her panic attack, but that was it. She was grateful, but that was all. She didn’t love him back.

  Why would she? Pete asked himself fiercely. Who are you to her, anyway? You’re her bodyguard who turns into a terrifying, out of control, prehistoric animal. You’re the guy who is that animal.

  And as if that wasn’t enough, he was a single dad with a daughter—who lived with his mom, no less. He already had a family and responsibilities.

  Tirzah was a world-class hacker, and even thirteen-year-old Caro, who was barely surviving her computer science class, understood computers better than Pete did.

  When you really got down to it, Pete had to be the opposite of what Tirzah wanted in a man.

  No, growled his cave bear. She is ours. Our mate!

  What does that even mean? Pete asked silently.

  She’s the one we love and protect and rip the heads off anyone who tries to harm her. His bear sounded distinctly satisfied.

  “Hey. Earth to Pete.” Tirzah snapped her fingers.

  “Sorry, what?” Pete asked.

  “I said, did you know you could do that?”

  “No. No idea. But Jerry did say that I had two powers, and I hadn’t figured out the other one yet. I guess that’s it. I’m
not even sure what to call it.”

  “Emotional comforting?” Tirzah suggested. “Man, what a great power!”

  “Really?” Pete asked doubtfully. “It doesn’t sound very… uh…”

  “You could call it the Shoulder of Strength if you want it to sound more like some manly, manly superhero in spandex,” Tirzah teased. Then, with a self-deprecating edge in her voice that he didn’t like at all, she said, “I’m sure you’ve never had a panic attack, but trust me, they’re horrible.”

  “I haven’t, but I’ve had… other things.”

  “Oh?”

  Pete saw that Override gleam in her eyes, and rushed to satisfy it before she could dig any deeper. “Nightmares. Comes with being in combat. Hey, how’d you end up on the floor? You’re not hurt, are you? I mean physically.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Casting her gaze down, she said, “I was worried about you. I thought you should have someone keep an eye on you. How are you feeling?”

  Pete had completely forgotten about his injuries. Now that she mentioned them, he did feel battered and bruised, but no more than that. “A lot better. I told you, I just needed a little rest. And soup. So what did happen? You fell out of your chair?”

  “I don’t fall out of my chair any more than you’d fall out of yours,” Tirzah said with great dignity. “I just didn’t want to risk falling asleep in it in case I…”

  “Fell out?”

  “Okay, fine. Anyway, I decided to take a nap on the floor. I guess I was more tired than I realized.”

  “Didn’t Mom make up a bed for you?!”

  “Of course she did! But it’s in the living room. Like I said, I was worried about you.”

  That when Pete finally understood what had actually happened: Tirzah had sat by his side for so long that she’d started falling asleep, and slept on the floor rather than leave him. He knew how sweet and caring she was, but it was still hard for him to believe that she’d do that for a man she didn’t even love. That she’d do that for him.