Chapter 7
Becca woke to the sound of muted voices—one male and one female—arguing in heated whispers nearby. Her first thought was that neither one of them was Theo or Carl. The second was that they were arguing over her. Something about it not making sense.
Thank you Ms. Obvious. Nothing about her last twenty-four hours made sense. As she scrolled through her memory, she ticked off all the ridiculously impossible things.
Theo disappearing—possible, but improbable. He was not a boy to run away, not when he knew how freaked she’d get.
Grizzly bear shifters—impossible. No explanation needed.
Theo returning to Gladwin State Park like a salmon swimming upstream—impossible. His home was in Kalamazoo and always had been.
Kissing Carl—completely and totally impossible, except that statistically speaking…
nope. Still impossible. She did not fool around with people in Theo’s life.
It was just too awkward and Mr. Max was firmly in Theo’s life.
And yet of all the impossible things in her brain, that was the one that made her heart race and her stomach clench.
Why did she pick now of all times to suddenly discover her hormones? Idiotic!
People on motorcycles shooting at her—impossible. She just wasn’t a person people shot at. She made castle cakes for little girls’ birthday parties. She lived in central Michigan, where nothing happened to anybody except maybe frostbite.
So there it was. Everything was impossible, and yet she remembered every gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, erotic moment. So either she was impossible or the rest of the world was. End of discussion.
She sat up, belatedly realizing that she should have opened her eyes and oriented herself a bit first. Especially since the world began to spin the moment she moved her head.
She slammed her eyes shut. It was the only thing to do when Carl’s man-cabin living room spun like a theme park ride.
Fortunately, it was enough to tell her where she was, if not why.
“You’re awake.” Female voice. Tonya. The police officer she’d met before.
“Take it slow. You’ve had a rough go lately.” Mr. Obvious, aka Carl’s brother, Alan.
She swallowed and forced out the word. “Theo?”
“Still missing.” Officer Tonya. “But we’ve got people looking for him everywhere.”
“You had people looking before. What’s different now?”
“We’ve got more people looking. And these people have guns.”
Becca winced, not sure if that was a good thing or not. “I need to call home. Maybe he’s gone back there.”
“I just talked to Amy. He’s not there, and none of his friends have seen him.”
A warm mug was pressed into her hands. “It’s ginger tea,” said Alan gently. “It’ll settle your stomach and then we can work up to broth.”
“Thanks,” she said as she finally opened her eyes. Alan looked like shit. His face was pale, which didn’t do any favors to the lean cut of his jaw. He looked haggard, though his expression was kind.
Officer Gorgeous still looked gorgeous, even with her lips pressed tightly together. Becca looked away rather than feel unequal at a time when she needed all her resources. A glance outside showed early dawn and she frowned. “What time is it?”
“Almost five,” Alan answered. “You got hit by a tranquilizer dart. The doctor’s been here and will come back in an hour. But if you’re having any pain or discomfort, I can call him now.”
She processed that slowly as she sipped her ginger tea. Not bad. “Why aren’t I in a hospital?” That would be the usual procedure, right?
“Because you’re fine,” Bitch Officer said. “And because the paperwork is…inconvenient.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your paperwork.”
“Fine, then tell me why guys on motorcycles snuck up on Carl.”
Becca frowned, then slowly turned her head to stare at the officer. Sure, the woman had looks, a badge, and attitude to spare, but that didn’t mean Becca had to take shit from her. “I don’t know. Maybe you could ask them.”
“I’m asking you.”
“They’re in the wind,” Alan answered.
Of course they were. Too much to ask that they had caught one of them. “How is the boy?” Becca asked. “Was that Justin? Marty’s son?”
“He’s fine,” said Alan as he brought over a box of Ritz crackers. “Just sleeping it off. That’s normal after a First Change.”
Becca nodded and ventured another sip of tea. “Where’s my cell? I need to call Theo.”
“Right here.” Alan handed it to her, then everyone waited in taut silence while she dialed. Straight to voice mail. She sighed, then flipped through her email and texts, hoping for some news. Nothing.
She sighed, then turned to the officer, forcing herself to give the woman some respect, if only because she carried a badge and seemed to have been awake all night, presumably looking for Theo. “Tell me what to do to help.”
The woman seemed to unbend a bit as she stepped forward. Then, as if consciously trying to force herself to be personable, she sat down on the coffee table so she could be more level with Becca. “Tell me what you remember, from the beginning.”
Becca nodded, closing her eyes as she forced herself to remember.
She relayed everything as methodically as possible, but damn it, guys with motorcycles and guns had been shooting at her.
It was like a bad Mad Max movie in a park.
And when she finished, she gulped down the last of her tea and tried her best not to freak out.
“You’re doing fine,” said Alan.
She nodded, but knew the real critic was Officer Tonya. The woman sat rigidly straight as she studied Becca’s face. Then she slowly leaned forward.
“Let me explain some simple facts to you,” she said, each word crisply distinct.
“Carl is our alpha. As Maximus, he’s our best warrior.
He’s big, he’s smart, and he’s careful. You’re saying that the first you noticed Justin, he was lying on the ground.
That’s not possible. Carl would have seen him walking up either in bear or human form.
Plus, there’s the sound of motorcycles. Any shifter can tell the sound, especially since there’s no good reason for them to be in the park at that time of night.
Carl would have heard it and called it in long before any attack. ”
Becca frowned, thinking back. Oh, she remembered why Carl hadn’t seen Justin before or reacted to the motorcycles.
She knew what they’d been doing, but she hadn’t thought it important for Officer Bitch to know.
What she was trying to think of was when the sounds had first come into her awareness.
Had they been there long before Carl went grizzly?
She couldn’t remember. She’d been too absorbed in letting her hormones get their first fix in years.
“Miss Weitz, what really happened? And this time, try telling the truth.”
“That is the truth!” she snapped, pissed that she would have to confess this private detail. It was bad enough that she’d been sucking face while Theo was missing, but to tell it to Tonya was beyond humiliating.
And then a voice came from the other room, the rumble deep and gravelly, but Becca would know it anywhere. It was Carl, his voice rough in a totally sexy way.
“I was distracted.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I was… we…”
Stunned silence filled the room. And in that moment, Becca’s gaze caught and held Carl’s.
In his eyes, she saw guilt and embarrassment.
Probably an exact echo of her own. But more than that, she saw a quiet longing in the way his eyes never wavered from hers.
His hands clutched the doorframe to his bedroom; he was clearly swaying on his feet, but his eyes—damn, his eyes—were locked on her.
“How are you?” he rasped.
“I’m fine. I didn’t get a half dozen tranq darts in me.
” She scanned his body for wounds. He was in sweat pants and without his shirt.
Except for the few bandages that dotted his torso, she could see every carved hill and valley of his chest and abdominals.
Stunningly beautiful and covered in scars.
A zillion of them, some very old. If anything told her exactly what kind of bizarro world she’d landed in, it was his body.
Raw and powerful, but also carrying the memory of wounds she could barely comprehend.
She wanted to shy away from it. All those scars were like a sign saying Danger! But she couldn’t. He mesmerized her.
“I’m fine,” he repeated when she finally looked back into his eyes. “Bears can take a lot.”
Which is when the other two seemed to unfreeze. Alan was on his feet, crossing to where his brother sagged against the doorframe. “A tyrannosaurus rex can’t take that much,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Carl’s bare trunk. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
“No. The couch. And I can walk.”
“Sure you can. But humor me and let me help.”
“I spend my life humoring you,” Carl groused and his brother grinned in response.
“Because I’m the only one who tolerates your pissy moods.”
The two bickered as only brothers can while Becca cleared a space on the couch. Tonya just watched everything with her coldly assessing gaze. She didn’t comment or help while Alan asked his medical questions.
“Any pain?”
“Yes. You.”
“What about headache, nausea?”
“I’m fine.”
“What day is it?”
“The day you tell me what the fuck happened after I passed out.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“Yes. Have we heard from Theo? Is Justin okay? What are we doing to find them?”
Which is when the officer took over, reporting as she might to a commanding officer.
It was mostly names and locations rolled out with variations on the phrase “they haven’t seen anything unusual.
” And while Carl got up to speed, Becca had a chance to look closer at his injuries.
His torso was a mass of bruises and small cuts, but one bandage on the top of his arm stood out.
It was small by comparison, but it had a dark red spot in the middle.
“What happened here?” she said as she touched the bandage.