Zara looks like she’s on the verge of collapsing with tiredness, so I drink my tea quickly and make my excuses to leave before immediately returning in my car to park across the street, watching her apartment block and waiting to see if anyone appears.
As I sit there, I picture the Reeves file, pushed to the corner of my desk behind the boxes from Beau, and feel guilty.
Am I giving up too? Could our perp really be following Zara? Was he really inside her home?
Just the thought gives me chills. I’d love to rule it out, but without knowing what the hell happened to Amber or why she was taken, I can’t ignore her sister’s concerns. But after an hour, when there’s no sign of anything or anyone suspicious, I decide to go back to the station to tackle some more of the Holloway files, conscious these despicable people are still working for the company, possibly planning their next fraud.
I'm trying to decide what to work on for the next few hours, when my phone rings and the radio squawks at the same time.The energy inside me shifts from slightly demoralised to alert like someone's flipped a switch.
Knowing something’s wrong, I answer straight away as Morrison repeats the All-Units bulletin he just got.
"Missing child. A seven-year-old girl wandered off from a rental cabin near Miller's Creek. Family's not from around here, she’s unfamiliar with the terrain and not dressed for the wilderness. She's been gone about four hours. Taylor’s set up command at the trail head."
“Shit. On my way.”
Pulling out into traffic, I put my head down and head straight for the hills visible in the distance, peering up at the grey sky above. It’s going to be dark soon. A young girl shouldn’t be out there on a cold night like this.
Every grievance I have, every frustration with my colleagues, and all thoughts of the Holloway case and Beau Lennox vanish.
Whatever else they are, when a kid goes missing, they move. We all do.
8
BEAU
The forest calls to me when I’m feeling like this.
Whether it’s the pull of nature or my bear trying to get his own way, something encourages me to return to my animal form and embrace my primitive self. It’s tempting me to run away from my problems, or to at least forget them for a while.
Desperate for some peace and quiet in my head, I let it lead me into the mountains.
Eagerness for solitude has me abandoning the truck at the end of a logging road about six miles north of town. It’s as remote as I can find without straying back into Lennox clan territory. There, I won’t have the alone time I desperately crave.
Careful to make sure the area really is deserted, I strip and shove my clothes under a tarp in the bed of my truck before tipping my head back and letting the blissful silence wash over me.
Fresh air in my lungs and a clear sky overhead encourages me to give in to the shift, letting the bear that’s always just below the surface of my skin take control. The change comes fast when I'm this wound up, my bear forcing his way through in seconds,bones cracking and reforming, muscles thickening, and skin splitting to make way for the dense brown fur that covers me, snout to tail.
The relief is instantaneous. In this form, the relentless noise in my head goes away. My tortured brain stops replaying the look on Lisa’s face when I told her to leave me alone at the precinct, or the scent of her desire when we met at Mrs. Holloway’s. I no longer hear her voice shake when she tried to apologise, or the way she begged me for more as I drove into her, over and over, hands pinned above her head with her lithe body stretched out beneath me.
My bear doesn't care about subtleties or regrets. His wants and desires are much simpler. The outdoors. Food. Space to run. To be left alone.
Except today, there’s a heaviness to his thoughts. He likes her a lot. More than a lot, it’s enough that I’m scared to consider what she might really be to us. There’s no point. She’s not going to change her mind.
But they say bears are stubborn for a reason. He’s simultaneously holding a grudge and determined to get her back at the same time, and it’s making my brain hurt.
So, I’m out here, giving him the next best thing by dropping to all fours and charging through the undergrowth. I crash through leafy ferns and saplings, my massive body tearing a path through dense vegetation, enjoying the snag of thorns on my long brown coat and the sting as they scrape my thick skin.
The ground is soft from last week's rain, and my claws sink deep with every stride, pads spreading, grounding me further with each thunderous step and hurling clods of earth behind me as I pick up speed. A fallen, rotting pine blocks my path, and I don't slow down, just barrel through it, the trunk crumbling with a satisfying crunch that echoes off the hillside.
It feels good, almost too good.
I find another impressive tree, raking my claws down the bark until it shreds, and the exposed wood underneath gleams pale and wet. Then another. The destruction is mindless yet satisfying, and every impact is a release valve for the pressure that's been building since Red walked into that hotel bar, and my bear whispered that she’s ours.
Spurred on by adrenaline, I attack another trunk, peeling the bark off in long strips that curl at my feet, before barrelling onward, breath puffing out in front of me in clouds of white steam. I cover miles without thinking about direction, letting instinct guide me deeper into the mountains where the trees grow closer together while the ground becomes rockier.
A creek appears, and I crash through it, the icy water shocking against my belly, but I keep going, lungs burning and muscles singing, until my frustration starts to ebb away and something calmer, more reasonable, takes its place.
Acceptance. Much as my bear might want to believe otherwise, Lisa’s not her. My fated mate would never cast me aside so callously.