Page 66 of Cowboy Bear's Hope

“My name is Dante. Can I speak with you?”

“Sure,” the woman, Sybil, said.

Her eyebrows went sky high when she saw Mr. Dryden sprawled across the floor, and Principal Jefferson trying to stanch the flow of his bleeding nose.

I couldn’t hear what Dante was saying to the woman, and at that moment, I didn’t care.

“Rosie!” I said, crouching down and opening my arms for my daughter.

She came running into them, hiding her tear streaked face in the crook of my neck. She trembled from head to toe, and I lifted her off the floor and squeezed her tight to my chest.

“Oh, my sweet baby. Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry, Mama. Mr. Dryden said not to tell you about my fight with Lisa and Robbie.”

“Shh. It’s okay.”

“He said if I told you, I would have to go live somewhere else. He said you would send me away. But I don’t want to go, Mama! I don’t want to!” Rosie said and started sobbing and wailing.

Her tiny body was trembling in my arms, and I held her even tighter. She was hysterical and crying so hard it hurt my heart.

She was also getting hot. Like really hot.

“Rosie? Rosie, tell Mama what’s wrong?”

But she just kept on crying and squirming. Her skin was getting too hot for me to hold on to and I gasped. Dante turned to me, his eyes glittering and dark with his Bear.

“Shit. It’s happening already. Give her to me,” Dante said, reaching for Rosie.

Shock and fear or a combination of both had me handing my writhing, screaming child to him.

“What do you mean it’s happening, Dante? What is happening?”

He ignored me though and extended his arms. I looked down at Rosie. Her skin was turning colors, a mottled red and brown, and the sounds coming from her were hardly human.

Dante tossed me the keys and took her from my hands. I allowed it, not knowing what to do. Then he took off running.

“Come on, Honey. I need you to drive,” he ordered, and my feet started moving.

I met the gaze of the blue-haired woman, Sybil, and she nodded from her position crouched on the floor.

“Go on, I got this,” she said.

I thought I saw the air shimmering around her and swirls of glitter spinning, but I couldn’t bother with that right then. I was too busy chasing Dante with a grunting Rosie in his arms.

I jumped into the driver’s seat in time to see dark brown fur sprout across Rosie’s face, and her brown eyes bleed to black.

“Oh my God!” I cried out.

“Drive, Avery. Fast!” Dante grunted.

Rosie’s claw-tipped fingers raked across his forearms, and blood sprouted from his skin.

“Dante,” I muttered, tears streaming down my face as I burned rubber.

The roads grew icy the closer we got to the ranch, outside of town where the salt trucks traveled less.

“Shit. Stop here. Let us out of the truck, then drive to the cabin. We’ll meet you there,” he grunted, struggling to contain Rosalie, who seriously was not looking a whole lot like my daughter anymore.

---