Page 108 of Bears Behaving Badly
And Annette.
His safety Net was terrifying. Not just big. Enormous, the biggest he’d ever seen; well over a thousand pounds. Even slumped on the floor like she was, David was only a head taller, andhewas standing upright. Her coloring was odd, too, the fur a deep russet with blond tips that were so fair they were nearly white. She had the characteristic hump of a grizzly, but with a long neck, long body, and a leaner head. He didn’t know what subspecies she was; he couldn’t imagine the bears that made her; he wasn’t even sure, now, that he really knew anything about her. Only that he was ferociously glad she was on their side.
He managed to stop staring long enough to take another look at the
(yep, definitely the word of the day)
carnage. Blood and guts everywhere, like a movie set where the prop and makeup guys went a little crazy. The smell of blood and adrenaline was simultaneously making him gag and his mouth water. And from beneath the stairs, where there was another door he hadn’t noticed, something with gleaming green eyes and a bloody muzzle came loping out, andthat’swhere Oz had gotten to, he’d chomped the periphery guard, mystery solved, and—shit, was that pile of flesh and Ugg boots Taryn? Judge Gomph’s clerk?
Oh.
Oh.
That’s when he noticed the cages. And the stale smell of juvenile terror, and pee, and more blood, older blood. It was every horror-movie basement he’d seen on the big screen, only a hundred times worse because it was real. “We are gonna be so traumatized by this,” he decided, looking around corpse valley. “Possibly. Doncha think, Caro? Maybe not. We’ve led pretty eventful lives so far.”
To his surprise, Caro was still frozen by the doorway. He thought she’d get in there quicker than anything; he thought she’d shift and bite and bite and bite until all those bad guys were down or she was. He’d even made a mental note to keep out of her way when it happened. Unless she needed help. Then he’d get in the way, just watch.
But she wasn’t, she hadn’t done any of that, hadn’t shifted, hadn’t even moved. Just stood there breathing it all in, the smells and the blood and the shit, her home for two nightmare years. She was stuck, frozen, like someone pulled back into their worst nightmare, only it was real and she wouldn’t wake up because shewasawake.
And then Caro was running straight to Annette, throwing herself at 1,200 pounds of injured werebear, sobbing into bloody fur, and Annette’s growls began to taper off like someone was slowly turning down the volume and David sat down quick, like he was worried his legs weren’t gonna do the job much longer, and Dev got another whiff and realized a lot of the blood on DavidwasDavid’s.
What do I do? They’re the adults, they’re supposed to… I dunno. Call for help? ShouldIcall?That’s what an upside-down week this had turned into; people called the police on Dev, it was never the other way around. But his Net and David were hurt, and Caro was kind of in the middle of a breakdown and Pat was calmly reloading the shotgun while watching the exit, like he was focused on getting ready for a whole bunch of new bad guys and blocking out anything else, and Oz was prowling the interior, dead silent but eyes glaring like he’dloveto get his teeth into another bad guy and everybody kept bleeding, so…I guess it’s up to me?Any other day, that would have made him feel cool and grown-up.
That was when Nadia appeared out of nowhere—well, through the loading door Pat had been watching, he must’ve smelled them coming—with Judge Gomph and a bunch of cops in tow. And Nadia took one look around the carnage and declared, “I’ve brought the cavalry, darlings. Feel free to make an embarrassing amount of fuss over me.”
Chapter 35
Annette slept but she didn’t mean to, not sleep, not really, but she was so tired and her eyes closed by themselves but not for long and then strangers were coming strangers weretouchingher and she didn’t know she couldn’t remember if
(Dev? Caro?)
her cubs were safe, something had happened something deeply terrible hadjust happenedand she hurt all over but here were new threats new wolves and a big stomper
(?judge?)
and she had to get up but she couldn’t, she couldn’t make her legs work and she couldn’t see out of one eye so she swatted at the strangers, heard a curse, heard something smash, smelt fresh blood
(not her own though so good that’s good)
and showed them bloody teeth
(I can still hurt you I can I can and and and where are Caro and Dev where where)
and turned toward faint voices
“…s’okay, honey, they’re here to help us…”
lovely familiar voices but one she could hardly hear there were too many too many voices and smells and too many things hurt
“Wow, Net, you gotta stop clawing up the EMT guys…”
and oh oh oheverythinghurt but she would get up again and again and again and AGAIN WHERE ARE MY
but before she could complete the thought a shrill fearsome voice cut through her cloudy confusion like claws through honeycomb
“Annette Garsea! You hirsute brute, you will shift back immediately,immediately, and let these paramedics help you or I will get Mama Mac down here tomakeyou!”
(!!!!!!!!!!)
