Page 125 of Grin and Bear It

“Fuck,” Nash gasped, sliding into a chair. “Fuck…”

I knew I was supposed to stay with them, try to work out a way forward. That’s what Adam and Sharney and the rest of the sleuth would’ve done. Instead I made two hot chocolates, grabbing the brimming mugs and carrying them down the hall.

“Lin,” Cole called as I walked off. “Lin! We need to sort this shit out and now. The cops will be here any minute!”

But they weren’t here yet, that’s what I thought, so I moved towards the people that needed us the most. I was conscious I was walking through the remains of a natural disaster, and the extent of the damage that it had left in its wake we still needed to establish, but right now I followed the only advice I’d ever been given by my dads. Listen to your mother, their mate, they’d told me over and over. Well, Ellie was my mate. If this was what she thought was the right way of dealing with things, then I was with her, one hundred percent.

Chapter62

My heart raced, my head was spinning and there was this high pitched noise in my ear, as if hearing Knox’s roar had somehow impaired my hearing. But I couldn’t focus on that, on all the… stuff that wanted to rise up and swallow me, like a wave of shit, dragging me down. I had too shivering teenage boys standing in front of me, their eyes wide and staring.

“We need to get you warm,” I said.

That’s it, focus on the immediate problem.

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to do after a shift…”

Holy shit, what the fuck do you think you’re doing! that voice screamed inside my head. You’re out of your depth, out of your—

“Hey.” The door pushed open and Lin walked in, handing each boy a hot drink. Their hands went around the mugs automatically, but they just cradled them in their palms. “Drink up,” he said. “Sugar, a hot drink, some protein? It’ll help settle you back down. Just take a big breath and have a drink.”

I watched him in wonder, something lightening inside me when Lin took over. The boys took a sip of their drinks, a small shudder going through Knox. But they took another and another and, somehow, seeing them doing something so normal was what comforted me.

“They need to warm up,” I told Lin. “If they’re going into shock—”

“Probably not as bad as all that, but they’re shaky for sure,” he replied with a small smile. “I’ll run downstairs and grab some clothes for them.”

I nodded, not wanting him to go. Part of me wanted to cling to Lin, have him hold me through… whatever this was. He looked big enough, strong enough to wade through the fires of hell, let alone this. But he left the room and the boys settled down on the edge of the bed, water still dripping from their hair, when I felt the familiar buzz of a call coming through. When I pulled my phone out, I saw I’d missed a few already, as well as texts. My social media notifications seemed to have blown up as well. I felt a compulsion to look at them, answer the call, read the texts, but it was met by an equally intense desire not to.

That second instinct was what won out. I shoved the phone back in my pocket, just as Lin returned with an armful of clothes. I stepped out of the room then, to allow the boys to get dressed, but then, when I closed the door behind me, I felt it.

Shame, red hot and burning seared through me, setting everything inside me alight. The recognition that I’d stopped Knox and Maddox from rampaging through the school in bear form? That burned to a crisp, ashes scattering everywhere. The fact I’d gotten Nash and his sleuth to the school to get the boys out? That was incinerated too. The painting… That it was a consensual act between three adults, that it was kept away from young eyes and under lock and key. That I had a right as an adult to explore my sexuality, as long as I wasn’t doing so anywhere near school or minors? Yeah, that burned up so damn fast, I could feel the heat of it on my cheeks.

Because there was no coming back from this.

No matter what I did or what I’d achieved, my career was over. I could never teach at Greenbank again, at any school in the city. My reputation as naked painting lady would travel far further than anything I’d ever achieved in the classroom. When I looked at my notification on my phone I saw the missed call was from June, I knew exactly what she’d have to say.

No need for a performance review. I was done. They’d forward the information of the incident onto the department, in so doing making sure anytime I sought a reference for a new job, the details would come out. I blinked, blinked, couldn’t stop blinking, trying to make sense of how I’d woken up to another day of facing the challenges of being a teacher, with no idea that this day would be my last as one. The door opened and I felt another rush of shame as Lin poked his head out.

“They’re dressed and bundled up in the bed,” he told me and as I walked in, I saw they were.

“Don’t try and reason with a traumatised child when they are in a heightened state”,a speaker had told us during a professional development day. “The parts of the brain that deal with language, with reason, are offline right now. As much as you might want to ram home the message when they’re vulnerable, all you’re going to do is compound the trauma.”

I thought of that as I walked back into the room, the boys eyeing me warily from where they were tucked up in the bed. You couldn’t see the bears in them now, because for a couple of big lads, they just looked small, broken and vulnerable.

“What do we do now?” I asked Lin in a whisper, those golden eyes holding mine. “What did you do after your first shift?”

“We had a party.” We both snorted at that. “It’s as scary a thing for a shifter as it is a human seeing it, so we tend to have this whole big celebration thing, to help us get past that, but I don’t think that’s our solution right now. The boys are warm, safe, for now, so I think…” He slid down the wall, then held out a hand for me to take, dragging me down beside him. “I think we just have to wait this out.”

I nodded then, my brain grabbing onto his directive and focussing just on that. Waiting them out, we could do that. We just needed to wait…

Chapter63

Nash

How the fuck did we end up here? Last night I was sure Ellie was ready to make the jump with us and now… I just stared at the hallway, long after Ellie and the boys had gone, making shapes out of the shadows, shapes of them. Sharney, Adam and the rest of the guys, watching this, watching me fuck up.

“Ellie’s gonna leave us,” Cole said, breaking the silence, even if I wished he’d keep his fucking mouth shut.

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