Chapter 12 Weston
WESTON
I felt so much better after talking to Asher.
After I woke up to an empty bed, I’d allowed myself to spiral.
I talked myself into believing that he didn’t want me and that I was a bang-and-go.
But I wasn’t. Asher did want me, he did care, and he went so far as to offer to support me in my project if my funding fell through like I had a feeling it would.
I hated that Asher had to leave. It wasn’t as if he was going for a week, or even overnight. He was going to be back soon enough, but I already missed him. It was a different kind of missing than when I woke up and he was gone.
I missed seeing his face, hearing his voice, and feeling his touch without the fear that he was gone forever.
You’d think that would be easier. He was coming back to me, after all.
But in a way it was harder, because without those nerves controlling me, I allowed myself to feel the loss, to sit with those emotions instead of actively trying to push them aside.
Longing to stay with him, just being in his arms for days, for years, for decades, anchored me in a way I hadn’t expected.
I’d known a lot of married people throughout my life, and when they talked about growing old together, it always sounded forced.
I got it now. If anything, they were understating the intensity of that pull.
When Asher left, I tried to keep busy. Instead of focusing on my watch and wondering how soon until he returned, I went to a general store to pick up a couple of items. I organized my room. I folded my laundry again, as if it hadn’t been nicely folded as it was.
But the entire time, I kept getting this pull, a compulsion to go back and face the fear I’d felt at that flash of fur.
If Asher was going to support me in following my dream, I owed it to him to be able to not run away every time there was a bear sighting.
I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t too afraid to go all the way to the end.
Not wanting to have him come back to an empty room, I gave myself an hour total to get this done.
I could always go back another day. I got my gear, drove down to the same spot as before, put my snowshoes on, and found the tracks.
They were less defined than before thanks to the wind, but they were clear enough to follow.
As I walked the path, I kept telling myself over and over again, I can do this. I worked hard to get here. I’m afraid. The bears aren’t going to hurt me.
But this time, it felt different. There was something in the air that didn’t smell like winter, not like snow and ice, not like an animal even. Maybe a snowmobile had traveled close by and this was its exhaust? It definitely had an oily quality to its scent.
I wasn’t sure why I was paying so much attention to my nose, but maybe it had to do with being in a place where the cold hurt my face.
Maybe it changed your senses. That wasn’t something I’d ever read about before, but I decided it was worth looking into.
I reached into my pocket for my recorder where I kept random ideas I had, only to find it empty.
Crap. I must’ve left it at the B&B. At least it wasn’t something research imperative I needed to record.
I stilled as a noise louder than a bird, but probably an animal smaller than a bear caught me off guard. It shouldn’t have. I was in the woods, but it felt off, and I stood absolutely still.
When a man stepped out from behind a cluster of trees.
He wasn’t wearing winter gear, just jeans and a shirt, and didn’t look like he even pretended to be cold.
I’d been right to be on edge. A human out here without any protection from the cold looking at me like I was the enemy was far more terrifying than any bear.
“Weston,” he said. “You should never have come.”
My jaw dropped. How could he possibly know my name? Sure, this was a small town, but if I’d run into him, I’d have remembered, especially with his attitude toward me.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know everything about you. I know why you’re in town, the color of your suitcase, and the brand of your toothpaste.”
Unless he’d been in my room, how could… Fuck, he’d been in my room.
“I know this isn’t your first time in our territory, and I know you came to destroy the bears.”
“No, no, I’m absolutely not.” I understood locals being protective, but this? This went beyond that. He was trying to intimidate me, and it was working.
“Then why are you scouting den territory?”
“Scouting? No, I’m just getting a feel for things before the crew comes.”
“Crew? You’re bringing more humans?”
Who else would I bring?
“Scientists, yes. But they are collecting data, nothing more. You’re making this sound so much more invasive than it is.”
“You’re going to come here, tag their ears, move them to other places, and take samples. We know how scientists work.”
We? There were more than just him out here? I looked around and didn’t see anyone, but then again, I hadn’t seen him in the first place. Not until he let me.
“You’re probably going to ‘relocate’ some to zoos. Don’t think I don’t know what your kind is like.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing any of that. We’re going to observe and take notes and, if possible, try to figure out why the bears are moving this far south, so that maybe the scientists who are involved in… scientists who work… scientists who—”
“You expect me to believe a single word from someone who can't get their words out.”
Before I could think of a response that might not get me run out of town, he crossed over to me and threw me on the ground. I was face first, and when I struggled to get up, he grabbed both my hands and tied them behind my back. I didn’t see with what.
“Come!” He yanked me up and pushed me forward, and I nearly tumbled to the ground again. I had a feeling he would be even rougher if I did.
I’d been scared of a bear when I came out here. I should’ve been afraid of the humans. It was always the freaking humans.
He brought me near the cabin I saw before. Only this time, it didn’t appear vacant like the first time I was here. There was a group of people clustered out front, and all of them looked pissed.
My first thought was that I’d stumbled into a cult.
Maybe I’d been watching too many documentaries, but that was the only thing that came to mind.
It wasn’t like we were in the center of town and people came out of their houses and businesses to watch the drama. No one accidentally congregated here.
I heard mumbles of “threatening their lifestyle,” “ruining the environment,” “destroying the animals,” and “not respecting the law of the land.” That only fostered my initial belief that it was a cult.
The man who dragged me there held up a small recording device that I kept in my pocket, the one I’d looked for earlier. “Is this yours?”
“Yes.” It was pretty clear he was asking for their benefit and not because he didn’t know the answer. There was no point in denying it. Any chance I had against one guy, which in this case was none, was even smaller with all the people here.
“He’s been here before. He’s surveilling us in the name of science.”
“No! I came here for the bears.”
There were a couple of snickers from the group and a growl. What kind of a person growled?
“This human is a danger to us,” the man declared. “He’s an outsider. He’s a spy. He’s a threat to everything.”
The people cried out their agreement. All they had was a probably broken recorder and his word, and they were acting like I was the enemy.
“He cannot be allowed to leave.”
I still didn’t know who he was or who any of them were, but this wasn’t a cocktail party. I couldn’t exactly ask them to go around the group and tell me their name and one fun fact about themselves.
“What do you mean, I’m not leaving here? You can’t just throw me in jail because you don’t like that I’m a scientist.”
His eyes changed. Had I not been watching him the entire time, I’d have sworn he put in contacts. They were inhuman. Please let me have fallen asleep at the B&B and have this be a nightmare.
“Jail? What made you think you’d get off that easily?” the man said. “Your last breath will be taken here.”
There were so many things I regretted not saying to Asher. He was going to think I just disappeared. It wasn’t like I told anybody where I was going today or what I was doing. And with this many people, they’d take care of the car very quickly, leaving no trail.
I’d finally found my special person and we didn’t even get the chance to spend a week together, much less our lives.
The man threw me in the snow, and everyone’s eyes were glued to me. I kept waiting for him to reach for a weapon. He didn’t. Instead of taking more rope or pulling out a gun or maybe a log to whack me in the head, he started to get naked.
Two seconds later, where he had been standing, was a polar bear. A real, live polar bear. They weren’t just protecting bears. They were the bears. How was that possible?
The beast started toward me. I scrambled to get up, but failed miserably. Between my hands still being bound and my winter gear limiting my mobility, I was a sitting duck. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I dreamed of polar bears as a child, it was never about being their dinner, and yet here I was.
The bear’s nose came in close, I could feel his breath on me.
I braced myself for the impact. None came.
He was smelling me. Then he snarled before circling me and smelling every inch.
I’d never felt so exposed, so vulnerable.
Then he took his huge head and raised it to the sky and let out a roar like I’d never heard before.
It was pure rage, and I shook from the force of it.
Then the bear was gone and the naked man was in his place. “Why do you scent like him?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I stammered. “And... weren’t you just a bear?”
“Wait,” he turned to the others. “I have a better idea. Prepare the clearing. There won’t be one bleeding today, there will be two.”
He turned to two men standing just behind him. “Make sure his mate knows we have his human. Don’t be subtle. Trash his room and be sure to leave your scents everywhere. I want all the credit for what’s about to happen. He’s staying at Bobby’s.”
“On it, Kipp.”
Kipp, the bear man’s name was Kipp.
“And you three,” he pointed to people behind me, “make sure the clearing is ready. We don’t have a lot of time. If I’m right, he’ll be here soon.”
Who was he? Did he mean Asher? Please don’t let him mean Asher. He didn’t deserve to be part of a mess I accidentally created.