Page 21 of Hexy Bear
But the damage was already done. Griff's bear, driven by instincts that predated rational thought, had committed to a course of action that felt like the only way to protect his territory and his cub. The fact that it was also the most emotionally devastating choice he could make was irrelevant compared to the possibility of keeping them safe.
"Mara, I need you to pack your things," he said, his voice steady despite the way his heart was breaking with every word. "I need you to go back to your place, back to your apothecary practice, back to the life you had before you got tangled up in our supernatural drama."
"I won't," Mara said, her chin lifting with stubborn determination. "I won't leave, and you can't make me. This is my home now, Griff. You and Tilly are my family. I'm not running away just because you're having a panic attack about hypothetical future threats."
"It's not hypothetical," Griff said, his bear finally breaking through his human control enough to color his voice with inhuman harmonics. "There are things out there that hunt people like us, that target families like ours. I've seen what they can do, what they did to Sarah. I won't watch it happen again."
"Sarah died in an accident," Mara said gently, recognition dawning in her eyes. "A magical accident at the clinic where she worked. That's not the same thing as being hunted by cosmic entities, Griff. That's just... life. Dangerous, unpredictable, magical life that doesn't come with guarantees but is still worth living."
"Sarah died because I wasn't strong enough to protect her," Griff said, the words torn from somewhere deep in his chest where he'd been hiding them for five years. "She died because I trusted that our love was enough to keep her safe, that being together made us stronger instead of just giving our enemies more targets."
Tilly's magic exploded outward in a wave of chaotic energy that shattered every piece of glass in the kitchen simultaneously. The six-year-old was crying now, tears streaming down her face as her power responded to the emotional devastation with the kind of uncontrolled surges that could level city blocks if left unchecked.
"Stop hurting each other," she sobbed, her young voice carrying anguish that children shouldn’t ever have to experience. "Stop saying mean things and stop making our family break. I need both of you. I need you to love me together, not separately."
But Griff's protective instincts had moved beyond reason, beyond emotional appeals, beyond everything except the desperate need to ensure his daughter's survival even if it meant destroying everything that made her life worth living.
"I'm sorry, baby girl," he said, crossing to where Tilly stood and pulling her into his arms despite the magical energy crackling around her small form. "Daddy has to make some very hard choices right now. But I promise you, everything I'm doing is because I love you more than anything in the world."
"Then why does it feel like you're throwing me away?" Tilly asked, her words hitting him like physical blows.
Before he could answer, Mara was gathering her belongings with movements that were too controlled, too precise, the kind of careful composure that meant she was holding herself together through sheer force of will. Her magical supplies went into their travel cases with efficient haste, while her clothes disappeared into the duffel bags she'd brought when she first moved in.
"This is a mistake," she choked. "You're making a mistake that's going to hurt all of us, and I don't know if we'll be able to come back from it."
"I know," Griff said simply. "But it's my mistake to make."
"And Tilly's mistake to live with," Mara pointed out. "And mine to survive. But you're right about one thing, Griff. You get to decide what kind of person you want to be. You get to choose between fear and love, between isolation and connection, between protecting your family and destroying it."
She paused in the kitchen doorway, her green eyes holding a mixture of love and disappointment that cut deeper than any anger could have. "I just hope you can live with the choice you're making."
After she left, the house felt like a tomb. The magical warmth that had filled every room since her arrival was gone, replaced by an emptiness that seemed to echo with the ghost of laughter and conversation and the simple domestic joy of being part of a real family.
Tilly sat at the kitchen table surrounded by broken glass and crayons that had lost their magical glow, her small shoulders shaking with silent sobs that broke Griff's heart into smaller and smaller pieces. Her magic was chaotic now, responding to emotional trauma with the kind of instability that made lightsflicker and appliances malfunction and the very air feel charged with dangerous potential.
"I hate you," she said without looking at him, her young voice holding the kind of devastation that only children could express with such devastating honesty. "I hate you for making Miss Mara go away. I hate you for breaking our family. And I hate you for pretending that any of this is about keeping me safe."
Before Griff could respond, shadows began gathering in the corners of the kitchen, not the friendly presences that had tried to warn them about the entity, but something darker and more aggressive.
ELEVEN
GRIFF
The shadow beings materialized in Aerin's research facility at precisely three in the afternoon, they were purposeful and more solid than she'd ever seen them before. Unlike their previous desperate attempts at communication, these entities moved with the coordinated precision of soldiers reporting for duty, their translucent figures arranging themselves around her workspace with military efficiency.
"Dr. Thorne," the lead figure called. "We need to talk."
Aerin looked up from the genealogical charts she'd been cross-referencing, her academic instincts immediately cataloging the changes in the entities' behavior and appearance. Where they had once flickered between visibility and nothingness, now they maintained consistent form and clear individual characteristics. The middle-aged man who had spoken wore what appeared to be the remnants of a sheriff's uniform, while the woman beside him carried herself with the bearing of someone who had once held academic authority.
"You're the Guardian Network," Aerin said, understanding flooding through her as pieces of Nico's research finally clicked into place. "The founder descendants who've been consumedover the past century, the ones who broke free when we disrupted the entity's collective consciousness."
"We are what remains of them," the former sheriff corrected. "Marcus Heinz, originally from the Seattle supernatural community. I died trying to protect my family from the entity that called itself Margaret Chen. This is Dr. Sarah Whitmore, who was consumed while researching cascade failures in the Portland founder network."
The implications hit Aerin like a physical blow. "You're all founder descendants. Every person the entity consumed, they were all connected to the original magical bloodlines."
"Not consumed," Dr. Whitmore said, her academic training evident in the precision of her language even in death. "Harvested. The entity didn't just want our power, Dr. Thorne. It wanted our knowledge, our connections to the founder network, our ability to access protective systems that were designed to respond only to legitimate bloodline signatures."
Leo materialized in the doorway of the research facility, his enhanced senses having detected the supernatural gathering from several blocks away. His golden eyes swept over the assembled spirits with the focused attention of someone assessing both threat and opportunity.
