Page 3 of Guarded By the Bigfoot
“Well, shit,” I managed, just before everything went sideways. The Jeep spun like a carnival ride. I yanked the door handle, throwing myself clear as my faithful vehicle danced down the mountainside into a ravine. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, and I rolled through mud and what felt like every twig in a five-mile radius. Pretty sure I’ll be picking splinters out of my ass for a week.
When I finally stopped moving, I lay there, staring up at the wicked storm. Lightning painted eldritch patterns across the clouds.
“Okay, Parker,” I wheezed, taking inventory. “Good news: not dead. Bad news...”
I turned my head to watch Old Reliable complete her final performance, crashing through trees below.
“... Definitely walking from here.”
That’s when I heard it. A sound that cut through the storm’s rage. Something between a growl and the mountain itself shifting in its sleep.
I forced myself to my feet, mud and rain cascading off my jacket.
“Just keep moving,” I told myself. “The outpost can’t be that far.”
Lightning struck again, hitting a gigantic pine tree just ahead. The crack was deafening, like the sky had split open. The ancient tree groaned and began to fall directly in my path.
“No…!” I scrambled backward, boots slipping in the mud. The pine crashed down with earth-shaking force, bringing several of its friends with it. My escape route vanished under tons of timber and angry nature.
The temperature plummeted. Ice crystallized on my jacket, biting into the fabric like tiny needles. My fingers went numb, barely able to clutch my coat. Each breath became a struggle as the cold seemed determined to freeze me in place.
Trapped. Helpless.
Lights flashed in the distance.
Golden beams of light cut through the darkness.
Something massive moved behind those lights. The air grew heavy, charged with more than lightning.
My vision blurred. The chill seeped into my bones.
The lights flickered, steady and insistent.
And then... everything went black.
2
BROCK
The storm raged with fury, the wind howling like starving wolves as I patrolled the mountain’s perimeter. Rain lashed my face, the droplets swirling with an unnatural, malevolent purpose. I shouldn’t have been on this path, but something pulled me here, an insistent tugging I couldn’t ignore. A strange sensation rippled through my chest, faint at first but growing stronger with each step, like a half-forgotten melody calling me home.
It wasn’t the familiar electric crackle of my Guardian powers. No, this feeling was different. It was primal, ancient, resonating deep in my bones. The sensation intensified, sparks of energy crackling over my skin as my eyes began to glow with eerie light cutting through the rain.
“Hell,” I snarled, bracing against a tree as another wave slammed into me. Electricity danced over my body, drawn by an irresistible force yanking me east. Every instinct screamed to follow, a desperate need clawing at my guts.
Fear threaded through the wind. A human scent stirred my inner beast, recognizing something profound lurking beneath thefragile aroma. Before I could make sense of it, lightning forked through the sky, blasting an ancient pine. The massive tree groaned and toppled, crashing into a small figure floundering in the storm’s chaos.
“Shit!” I sprinted toward the fallen tree. As I reached it, a woman lay trapped beneath the branches, dark hair fanned across the ground like spilled ink.
I snarled and began ripping away the larger branches pinning her down. Splintered wood cut into me from all directions, but all that mattered was getting to her.
My breath seized as I finally cleared enough debris to reach her still form. She lay motionless on the ground, pale and small. When I turned her over, rain-darkened strands of hair snaked around my fingers, clinging like vines. She was beautiful. Her face, delicate and pale in the storm’s fury, stirred something primitive in my chest.
Too still. Too fragile. Too everything.
Her pulse fluttered against my fingertips, weak but defiant, each beat sending unfamiliar heat through my veins.
Lightning split the sky, thunder shaking the ground beneath us, but all I could focus on was how small she was, how wrong it was to see her broken like this. A growl built in my chest, whether from protectiveness or this strange new tension coursing through me, I couldn’t tell.
