Bear Trapped (Bear Creek Grizzlies #5)

34. Lauren

LAUREN

S he heard the gunshot and a loud grunt, and froze. She’d had enough of guns after having one pressed against the back of her neck by the bad guy Finn killed, and wasn’t about to go running out to look for more of them. Even if she still technically carried the shotgun. She wasn’t dumb enough to go out into the forest without it, but th3at didn’t mean she liked it.

Lauren swallowed the knot in her throat and strained to hear anything else going on, like maybe Finn cheering his victory of shooting the bad guys and eliminating the threat that kept him away. Or Kira and her pals showing up to cheerfully fix everything so Lauren didn’t have to. Loud voices rose up from the far side of the meadow, and if she squinted, she could make out the outlines of big, burly figures in bulky clothes. They could have been bears, maybe.

For a second she had to concentrate to figure out if they were bears after all. Finn turned into a bear. Everyone he lived with was also… Her eyes widened. Was Kira a bear? All those angry people headed her way who were going to find the cabin empty and her not there, like she’d promised, were probably bears. Just wonderful. Just another reason for her to get moving as fast as possible.

Lauren crept closer to the figures, knowing one had to be Finn. There weren’t that many people running around in the forest, not right after a blizzard. They all had to be connected. No one was out there just for camping. She froze when one of the voices became distinct, louder and more annoyed and too familiar.

“Why the fuck did you shoot me, Richardson?”

Finn . Her heart jumped to her throat. Finn was shot? One of those terrifyingly huge figures shot him? They stood over him, holding dark sticks that had to be rifles or shotguns. Why would someone he knew decide to shoot him?

The other figure shrugged. “You’re standing over a bunch of dead drug runners handling…yeah, bags of meth. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

“They’re not dead,” Finn said. He at least sounded irritated instead of in too much pain. “Shotgun is on his way, I’m fucking over this. Get the fuck…”

The dark figure raised his dark stick and fired three times, and Lauren clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming in terror. But he hadn’t shot Finn. He shot right next to Finn, although Finn definitely rolled and covered his own ears. He scrambled out of the way, getting some distance, and shouted a bunch of things that Lauren didn’t hear right. The echoes of the shots reverberated strangely through the meadow and bounced off the trees, leaving her uncertain she’d heard anything right.

“Like I said, dead drug runners.” The big stranger chuckled, too pleased with himself, as he toed what had to be bodies.

Finn breathed hard. “You just fucking murdered them.”

“Nah, pretty sure you shot them.” He swung around to the two other men, standing behind him. “You saw it too, right? Shotgun’ll be damn disappointed. Sad to see someone with such an honorable record as you go down this path. Retribution isn’t a good look.”

Lauren clenched her fist to keep from shrieking in fury. That man murdered three innocent—well, three criminals, but they didn’t deserve to be shot in cold blood—and blamed Finn? No way. No way. She knew what that it felt like to be blamed for something she didn’t do, and she damn well wasn’t going to stand for it happening to Finn.

Although… They didn’t mind killing criminals, so there wasn’t any reason to assume they would mind killing witnesses. Lauren swallowed hard. Shit. She wasn’t brave or smart enough to figure this out on her own. How could she possibly save him in time? There was no telling when Kira and Scary Simon would show up, and if they took too long, those guys and whoever Shotgun was would take Finn away and then she’d never be able to help him.

She had to be brave. She had to stand up and be brave and just not think about how terrifying all of it was. If they both survived, she was definitely going to hide in a room and not leave it for at least a month or two, just so there was no risk she’d run across anyone half as scary as the big guy who threatened Finn.

Lauren pushed to her feet and held on to the shotgun with one hand as she started toward where the men stood. She was not going to think about the dead and dying men on the ground, or the kind of damage a rifle did at close range. Absolutely not going to look at them. She didn’t want to have to see it again in her nightmares later.

She paused only to pull one of the trail cameras out of her pack, clipping it to the shoulder-strap so it would record as she walked up on them. Her heart pounded until she saw spots and everything tilted, and perspiration broke out across every inch of her until even her boobs and knees sweated in the freezing air. She really wasn’t brave enough for confronting armed strangers. She wasn’t strong enough to stand up to men like that, especially with Finn right there, hurt on the ground, and needing her to be brave. He’d be so disappointed when she couldn’t…

But he believed in her. He did. Finn believed her when she talked about school and everything that happened at the construction company, and he wanted to hear her thoughts. He never told her to shut up. He liked her. He told his friends he liked her, and he was excited for them to meet her. She’d never heard that in her life.

Lauren straightened her shoulders. She could be brave. She didn’t have a choice. The least she could do was try to save Finn’s life, since the scary dude stood over him with that rifle and looked threatening, even if his voice sounded semi-friendly and only slightly overbearing.

She tried not to think about how much she needed to pee and instead strode out of the trees and into the meadow right where they had to see her, and did her best to look like she was relieved to see them and not about to barf from nerves. “Finn? There you are!”

All of the men froze, the ones standing over Finn swinging their guns around like they meant to shoot her on the spot. Lauren ignored them other than a friendly smile and wave—though it took all her strength not to react to the weapons and the shadows that were dead bodies—and kept her focus on Finn. It would have been funny, how stunned he looked, if she hadn’t been distracted by a dark, wet spot on his chest that had to be another injury.

She didn’t wait for the men to speak and instead relied on her nerves and defective brain to fill the gaps. “I packed everything up but there are still some of the trail cameras out there. We’ll have to use the GPS to pick them up before Simon and Kira get here. They said they’re about ten minutes out.”

He stared at her in silence, for once at a loss, and Lauren really hoped he got it together long enough to save them both.