Page 58 of Choose the Bears

“Gonna need some more sauce,” she said, filling the squeezy bottle.

“I’ll put it on the list.”

I scribbled that down on a piece of paper we were using to record the details for the next order, but as soon as the pencil was between my fingers, it moved of its own accord. To recordthe fact we needed sauce in looping script, but then… My hand moved down the page.

I used to draw eyes in the margins of my exercise books all the time. There was something about the shapes, the details, and my growing proficiency that had me repeating the exercise. Because each time I recorded one, I felt like I connected with them, some nebulous character that existed only inside my head. And each time I drew one, two, ten, I created an audience inside my book, one that saw me, each gaze soft, kind.

I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and it wasn’t some anonymous eye I drew right now. It was those bright blue ones I saw in my dreams. I stuffed it up several times, my pencil slashing through one attempt, then the next, rejecting them until I began again. This, this was right, my hand making the shapes my mind’s eye saw. His eyes, Asher’s eyes, I realised, but also the bear’s… Ursula finished with the sauce, putting the big bottle back into the pantry before looking down at my drawing.

I wanted to hide it from her, but that wasn’t anything new. Mike always sneered at my artwork, only allowing that old painting to be hung in the lounge room because it conformed to his personal taste. She reached out and pulled the piece of paper closer, nodding at what she saw before grabbing another pencil.‘More sauce bottles’was written at the bottom of my list.

“Did you feel like coming back to the barbeque?” she asked.

No, no I did not. I wanted to hunker down in my borrowed room, or find the art room and steal some paper, drawing that eye over and over again. Because when I stared into it, I felt like I could do what I didn’t dare in the hallway. To interrogate that eye, the bear, the man, ask it all the questions I kept down. Instead, I swallowed hard and smiled.

“Sure. I better start the clean up.”

Chapter 31

Lucas

I stared at the gear Asher had given us with incomprehension, the two sides of me at war. Human me was really good at black ops. I slunk around video game maps, sniping my enemies, my kill ratio legendary amongst the guys I played with, but this wasn’t a game.

“You strip down and put them on,” Kyle told me, halfway through the process right now.

“I know that,” I snapped.

“You don’t have to.” I hated the measured look Asher gave me. Nothing, I mean nothing fazed him, and why would it? He’d killed a man before he was even in his teens, was a hero in the bear community, whereas all I did was sit in front of my computer and pretend to be one. “You don’t have to do this, Luc.”

“You think you’re the only one that cares about Imogen’s safety?”

I was squaring up to my sleuth mate, like he was the one that pissed on her stuff, not fucking Phil. My heart had fallen through the floor when I saw the damage. I had a stash ofcomics I’d kept for ages, now preserved perfectly, and I know how I’d felt if someone damaged them so wantonly. The search for replacements was all that I could hold onto to keep my bear under control, even though I knew.

There was a reason why e-comics never worked for me. That digital paper didn’t hold traces of me, flipping electronic pages didn’t evoke the feeling of the paper stock’s texture, I couldn’t hear the sound of it moving. The emotions I felt the first time I read about larger-than-life men that dared to go out and do good in the world soaked into the paper along with ink. I wasn’t sure what Imogen felt when she read her books, but she lost it–those memories, those feelings–the moment that fuck trashed each one.

And if Asher was going to make Phil pay for that, he’d do so with me by his side.

I said as much and Asher nodded, the three of us pulling on the dark-blue track pants and long-sleeve t-shirts, balaclavas shoved into our pockets as we strode out of the building. Towards one of the black SUVs we rarely used, the facade slightly worn, nondescript, every bit of chrome remade in matte black. It was made to be unobtrusive and get us to where we needed to go, so we all climbed in, ready to go.

“What’s the plan?” I felt like a kid watching his parents talk from the backseat. Kyle turned to Asher but he didn’t get a reply until Asher was out of the car park and driving down the road.

“Go to Phil’s place.”

“You have his address?”

Asher shot me a steady look in the rear vision mirror, making clear how stupid that question was.

“If we’re lucky, he’s gone back home. If we’re not, we look for clues, take fur and see what trail the bears can uncover.”

I sat back against the seat, trying to ignore the rapid thud of my heart. I didn’t go on missions for a reason, but this one? Icouldn’t stay away, not when I saw Imogen’s pain, her anguish so clear inside my head.

This was where Mary lived?

I stared at the dingy street, then the run down house. She was always so meticulous, asking for an iron on the first morning she spent with us to ensure hers and the kids’ clothes were all perfectly pressed before she was introduced to everyone else. The garden full of weeds, the rusty fence, just didn’t seem to mesh with what I knew of the woman.

“Lights are off.” Asher pulled out his pistol, checking that it was loaded before jumping out of the car. We were parked a house down to try to deflect attention away from us, but waving a weapon around wouldn’t achieve that. Before I could say anything, he had it tucked into the back of his pants. “We’ll go around the side, see if we can get in through the back door.”

“Quietly.” Kyle added that for my benefit, something that had my eyes rolling.

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