Page 118 of Choose the Bears

We keep everything that is precious to us safe, he said, gazing down at Imogen’s now sleeping form, as if that was all it took.

Whatever it takes, Lucas added.Whatever it fucking takes.

Chapter 61

Jesse

“Jesse, love…”

The next morning I was sitting on the same shitty bed, listening to the metal springs creak and Mum go on. I closed my eyes, as if that would block it all out, but only this would. My thumb hit delete message, and for just a moment there was blessed quiet.

And a little more.

When I was a teenager, there were moments that felt like they were supposed to be more than they were. I’d walk into a party or the school corridors and feel… something. That the body I’d lived in my entire life didn’t fit quite right, wasn’t the correct one, and yet when I looked down I just saw brown skin and blunt nails like I always did.

So that’s what I saw then, right?

That white-blond arm hair was back, or was that just the harsh light of the desert sun peeking in through the crumpled Venetian blinds? I turned my arm back and forth, flexing the muscles and felt… What? I shook my head, forcing myself to myfeet. The room felt extra small when I did so, the window no longer at eye level. What the…?

“Bear boy. Getting real sick of waking you up each morning.” Greg’s voice cut through my fanciful thoughts, bringing me right back to Earth. The room was the same. I was the same: fucked. “Get your arse out here.”

So I did.He was the last mechanic in the whole state who was willing to teach me what I needed to finish my apprenticeship at an embarrassingly advanced age. The least I could do was fucking show up. I shrugged on a clean pair of overalls and then walked out into the garage to find everyone else had already started.

“You can help Andrei today,” Greg said, gesturing to one of the other foxes who was currently bent over an engine bay. The man in question stared at me balefully, then turned back to what he was doing. No further instruction, no explanation, that was the MO here. I learned by watching closely and trying not to fuck up.

“We’re getting this engine out today,” Andrei told me when I came close, eyeing my hands when I rested them on the front panel. His eyes narrowed until I snatched them back, and that’s when I saw… What? Blunt nails that needed a good clean.

“You got that keyring?” Greg called out across the crowded floor.

“What? Yeah.” I fished them out, the green stone on the bear keyring flashing for a second. “You want it back?”

“Just keep them on you,” he told me before turning to deal with something else.

“Right. Right…”

“You finished fluttering your eyelashes at the boss, bear boy?” Andrei sneered. I shook my head, focussing on the job athand. “You look like a big cunt. I’ll undo all the bolts and bullshit holding this motor in and you’ll hoist it up.”

Something I’d never done. A familiar feeling rushed through me, of shame, of inadequacy, because that was the beast I’d ended up instead of a bear. A black dog that ate my soul in great gulps every day I walked the earth, ready to devour me whole if I didn’t keep going. I reached over and grabbed the chain of the block and tackle and then nodded.

Andrei moved near silently, only cursing to himself, not sharing any information with me until now.

“Hold it firm, boy!”

His sharp bark, the epithet of boy when I was a fucking man, that would’ve been enough to tip me over the edge before, but not now. Because I’d developed some kind of iron control after leaving home? No fucking hope of that. The need to snap, snarl, bite his fucking head off for disrespecting me like that rose, the black dog inside incensed by the insult, but he wasn’t the one in control.

I was.

My biceps popped then strained as all the supports that held the engine in place were removed one by one.

“Andrei…”

The foxes were cunning pricks, nasty ones too, and that was evident in Ivan’s expression as he came over.

“Yeah?” Andrei looked up in irritation, but when he caught the other fox’s smile, he followed Ivan’s gaze as they both stared at me.

“I was thinking of getting a beer after work this arvo.”

You mean the same thing we did every single day because there was fuck all to be done here but go to the pub? I wanted to snap that, but this was the game he was playing. It was already way too hot, the steel slippery in my hands. I couldn’t hold the engine suspended forever, and that was the whole point.Andrei leaned against the front panel of the car and so did Ivan, chattering like he was in a mother’s meeting, not midway through a job.

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