Erin couldn’t remember where she was when she woke up, not at first. Her brain whirled with bears and cameras and dead bodies in a potent and unpleasant mix. Now she was blinking in the dim light of…the cave, that was it. From the angle of the light, it looked like most of the day had passed while she’d been asleep. Someone nearby was looking at something with a glowing screen. It reflected on the paintings above them, giving them an otherworldly gleam.
She rolled over onto her back, wincing as a not quite healed bruise met a small rock on the floor, and kept rolling until she lay on her side. A t-shirt with an ad for a local painting company lying on top of the small pile of women’s clothes caught her eye when she looked down. No wonder she could feel the rocks on the floor if all she was sleeping on was a pile of old t-shirts. They needed an air mattress or something up here if they were going to be using it as a hideout.
Or, maybe, they needed not to need to use it as a hideout. Of course, where did that leave her then? She’d come back here because she hoped they’d all be here, that it would be safe. Normal. But that clearly wasn’t going to be how things worked. Even waking up was weird.
She took a long minute to assess her dreams, turning them over for clues on what had happened to her, what might happen next. Ordinarily, it wasn’t something she would do, but then, nothing that had happened lately was. She gave the air a tentative sniff and closed her eyes, trying to decide if she was ready for company. Whoever it was that was reading nearby didn’t smell very familiar, but wasn’t a stranger, either.
And wasn’t Becca. A quiet ache filled her with that thought. She had encouraged Becca to move in, had been clear about her own feelings, then rejected the other woman’s overtures and then followed that up by confessing to murder without any warning. Then she’d gotten kidnapped by a werebear and his consort eager to expose the Pack on reality television for a profit and doom them all in the process. If there was some kind of manual on how to kick off a lesbian romance wrong, she was ticking off a bunch of boxes right now, even if it wasn’t all her fault. She smacked her hands over her eyes with a groan.
At least most of her cuts and bruises felt like they’d healed. She’d be all healthy and ready to tackle werebears soon. Or as healthy and ready as she’d been the last time. It wasn’t a thought that filled her with a ton of confidence. So choosing not to think about that just left the disaster that was the rest of her life. And her accounting business, if she still had one. This was not getting any better.
“How are you feeling? Do you want some water?” The voice was familiar, but pitched a little higher than she was used to hearing it. And considerably closer than they had been a minute ago. She sat up slowly and squinted at the other person, then took the water bottle they were offering and took a deep swig.
“I need to pee,” she croaked when she put the bottle back down. “Am I allowed to go outside on my own or do you need to come with me?” She scrambled to her feet, wincing a little at a few rediscovered bruises, and took a closer look at her companion. “Carl…? Hi. What’s up? No, wait, I think that’s a longer discussion than I have time for right now. Let me pee first. Got any food with you? And coffee? Yay. Back in a few.”
She wove her way unsteadily toward the entrance without giving her companion a chance to do more than wave a thermos, but they caught up with her just before she went outside. “Here.” They handed Erin a couple of clean pieces of cloth and a plastic bag. “Shelly said to use the next ledge up, behind the big rock, if you can make it up there. I can help you…if you like.”
Erin squinted outside, then nodded when the bright light felt like it was stabbing her brain. “If you wouldn’t mind. I’m still pretty loopy.”
Her companion guided her up to the next ledge, then turned away and walked back down a few paces to give her some privacy. “There’s a thermos of coffee and a cooler with food in the cave when you’re ready.”
“You are a magical being and I’m thrilled that you’re here,” Erin remarked as she pulled her pants back up and leaned against the boulder to make sure that she was ready to stand up. The other person’s ears turned very pink, which made her smile. She rubbed some sanitizer from the bag on her hands and cleaned up after herself before sliding down the trail a couple of steps. Then she put her hand on her companion’s shoulder. “Lead on.”
She glanced around as they walked carefully downhill. The woods around them were quiet but she could hear small animals and birds settling in for the night, or in some cases, waking up and beginning to search for food. She stretched her senses, but there was nothing nearby that smelled or sounded like a strange wolf or a bear of any variety, familiar or otherwise. Or like an employee of the Sheriff’s Department, so that was good, too. The question was: how long would this happy state of affairs last?
They went back into the cave and stashed Erin’s plastic bag in a bigger bag, then sat down to coffee and buttered rolls and fruit. There were a couple of pieces of jerky and some other miscellaneous edibles in the cooler and Erin tucked in like she hadn’t eaten in days. Between bites, she studied the person sitting across from her. She knew that some changes were probably coming, but she hadn’t known Carlos as well as she did Molly to begin with, so she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t being rude or obnoxious.
The short, muscular, dark-haired brown-skinned man had fallen away to reveal a medium-sized, well made-up and handsome middle-aged person. Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen a transformation or two in her time. She could certainly handle this one, especially since her only role in it was to try to not be a jerk.
After a few minutes of chewing, she cleared her throat. “So,” she gestured with a roll, “I like what you did with your makeup. I was always terrible with that. Now, just so I’ve got this right, what do you want me to call you and what pronouns should I use?”
They cleared their throat and took a sip from the water bottle. “I’m going by Carla, which I know will be a challenge with my old name and whenever Carli is around, but I’ve always liked it. I’d like it if you used she and her, but I’m okay with they or them and…maybe I should have talked to you and Becca more about this last time you were over?” She paused and looked worried, like she wasn’t sure how Erin was going to react.
Erin started to tell her that everything was fine when Carla’s phone broke into a few bars of a lively pop song, making them both jump. Carla glanced down and grabbed the phone. “It’s the boss. Hi, Shelly. She just woke up. Right, here she is.”
Erin took the phone, despite a wave of trepidation that made her want to run out of the cave, never to be seen again. What had gone wrong now? “Hey. Yep, I’m feeling better. Just finished eating and Carla and I were getting caught up. What’s happening?” She frowned at what Shelly said next, cursed softly, protested, then finally, reluctantly, agreed. She turned the phone off when they were done and handed it back to Carla. Then she dug her fingers into her short-cropped hair, making it stand on end. Memories of Becca smoothing it down when it got like this make her choke a little. But now wasn’t the time for this. She had her orders and Carla was waiting to hear them too.
“Well, the sheriff apparently likes me and Annie and Jim and Kari, all working together, for Leroy’s killing. Says maybe it was some kind of revenge pact or a sex thing, which tells you how well he knows me. Annie, you already know. Kari and Jim are our new neighbors and Jim just happens to be a werebear, which you probably don’t know. Leroy, you met and had a gun battle with.”
Carla’s dark eyes were very wide. “Wait, go back to the werebear thing. No, wait, on second thought, I thought Annie died when the paintings did their thing?”
“Nope. The magic sort of blended her halves together and now she’s running around the mountains as a human-wolf hybrid. Shelly and Becca found her here at the cave yesterday. The werebear is a bonus of sorts, unless Becca’s ex sold the house to him and his partner on purpose, which seems somewhat unlikely. Ed’s not a big believer in the supernatural. I don’t know if she turns into anything too, but I’m hoping not. This is already one hell of a week without that happening too.”
“I’ll say. You gals always know how to put anything I’m going through in perspective. Not that I’m comparing or anything.” Carla shook her head in amazement. “So does Shelly want us to do anything right now or should we stay put and wait for more news?”
“She wants us to go werebear hunting.” Erin grimaced, then noticed Carla’s expression. “No, not like going head-to-head with it, but if we can figure out where he is now and where his partner is, we can try and check out what else they might be up to. Shelly doesn’t want me in town for obvious reasons, so if you’re up for it, you get to come with while we follow my trail back through the woods to where they were holding me and see what we can find. Think you’re up for that?”
Carla’s eyes shone. “You mean I can go on a Pack mission? I’d love to! I’ve been kind of jealous of Molly since she told Jonas and me about all this.” She waved a hand at the cave walls and gave Erin a smile that practically glowed. “I know it doesn’t mean I’ll be called to join or anything, but just being closer to you all like this is something I’ve wanted for ages now.” She gave the paintings a dreamy stare, then blinked and got up and grabbed her pack.
“Huh. Well, don’t get all fangirl on me. There are some downsides too, as you know. But we can talk more while we’re tracking. We just have to be quiet and careful about it. And if I tell you to run or hide, you do it right away. Understand?”
Carla nodded solemnly. She opened her pack and showed Erin the gun inside. “Just in case something goes very wrong. I’m licensed to carry and I’m a decent shot. No silver bullets though, so we’ll have to hope we don’t run into anything really interesting.” She pulled out some pants and hiking shoes and changed into them while Erin grabbed a couple of water bottles and a pack of her own from the Pack’s stash.
In a few minutes, they were ready to head out into the twilight. Erin was fully alert now, the fogginess that had been slowing her down since she woke up finally fading. Now she noticed the scents and sounds around them, each one clearer and sharper than they had been an hour before. Her better-than-human night vision had kicked in, and soon she was guiding Carla in the darker patches of woods, finding a broken branch here, a pawprint there that told her where the Pack had been. It took some looking around to find her trail in all that.
Carla was studying the woods around them like she was looking for a bear. Erin gave her a small smile and went back to studying the ground. After a few minutes, she found a lone wolf’s trail, and a quick breath told even her human senses that it was hers. “This way.” She pointed toward the valley and they started following her tracks.
“How did they catch you anyway?”
“They came to the jail with something, a drug, maybe. I don’t know how they fooled the guards and the deputies, maybe some kind of hypnosis thing? Or they drugged them first? I gather they think I just vanished and Lizzie thinks that the Pack helped.” Erin kept her voice pitched low and soft, just enough to be heard.
“You know they would have, given the chance. They had a couple of different plans, depending on how things turned out. Molly couldn’t tell us the details, but I figured some of it out by seeing what she was prepping and who was calling the house. I know that it’s not really any of my business unless she tells me about it, but I worry about her. The rest of you, too. So I try to be prepared, you know? In case I’m needed.”
Erin gave her a long, considering look. Not for the first time, she wished the magic that changed them and made them what they were would let the Pack make nominations or, at least, suggestions. She had kept a mental list of preferred candidates since she first started to change, but who changed and who didn’t was never all that predictable. Still, one could hope. She added another name to her list and smiled at Carla. “You’ve been a huge help and I’m so glad that Molly has folks watching her back. And ours too.”
Carla looked relieved and grinned back at her. “Thanks! So…are we looking for paw prints or footprints or anything in particular? Please tell me that we’re not looking for an actual bear?”
“Not yet, though we’ll have to get to some version of that soon. Right now, we just want to go back to where they held me and check it out if it’s not occupied. Shelly wants more intel on our new adversaries.” And she wants me out of the way, away from Becca, the Pack and the cave, for a bunch of reasons. She kept that thought to herself. There were plenty of good reasons for Shelly to want those things, even if she didn’t like the results.
But she had seen what Shelly saw, seen a whole parade of emotions cross Becca’s face, seen the traces of Annie in the cave. If Annie or Lizzie was going to turn up there, it was better that she was away. As for Erin, the sooner they proved that she hadn’t killed Leroy, the better off they were all going to be. She rubbed a hand across her cheek and pointed northward. “That seems vaguely familiar. Let’s start over there.”
They walked quietly, following a nearly invisible trail looking for broken branches and crushed leaves. It was a bit of a challenge in the twilight, but they were relying on Erin’s sense of smell as much as what they could see. But after a mile or so of trekking through the woods, Erin could see that Carla was getting restless. She kept looking off to the woods on their left, then away, then back again.
“What is it?” she asked softly, pausing to study the same set of trees that was holding her companion’s attention.
“I’m not sure. I thought I saw something move up there. Could just be a deer or something. But it’s being kinda sneaky for prey. I would have thought it would take off by now. We’re not that quiet.”
Erin took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Wind’s in the wrong direction. I’m getting a mix of scents, but nothing from that direction.” She wasn’t hearing anything either, which suggested that whatever they were looking at was staying very still. Or was a figment of Carla’s imagination. The woods were shadowy and full of bird noise and leaf movements. It would be easy to think that you had seen something that wasn’t there.
But best to be cautious. “Let’s go up there,” she whispered as she pointed a few yards ahead of them, “to those trees with the bushes around them. We can see if we can see more from a good hiding spot than we can out here.”
Carla bit her lip, as if there was something else she wanted to say, but she was silent and nodded. They walked on as if they had just paused for a rest and Carla started some quiet chitchat about the new café in Wolf’s Point. Much as they all loved Millie’s, it was nice to have another place to go. That topic was enough to carry them into the trees that Erin had selected.
She nodded and Carla slipped quietly behind a tree and looked back the way they had come. Erin walked a few paces further, then ducked into the bushes around another tree. Belatedly, she wondered if any of them were poisonous, but it was a bit late to worry about that now. Still, a werewolf with poison ivy or poison oak was a grim picture, and even grimmer if that werewolf was her. But she’d worry about that later.
Time to stop moving and see what their watcher did, if indeed they had one. She wondered how long Carla could wait, standing quietly in the woods watching for someone or something that might not be there, waiting for it to move. Erin sucked in a slow, deep breath then let it out gradually, letting her body relax into a martial arts stance. If she had to, she could stand like this for an hour or more, back straight, knees apart and gently bent. But truth be told, it had been a hard couple of days and she hoped she wouldn’t have to.
It took about ten minutes. There was a slight movement in the branches toward the bottom of the trees, as if something small or travelling low to the ground was moving through them. Whatever it was followed the cover for a few yards, then made a quick dash for the concealment of a boulder. There in the moonlight, Erin saw Annie and snarled, the sound barely audible, but more than audible to more than human ears.
The creature that was Shelly’s cousin tilted her head as if she could hear the noise, then bolted into the rocks, scrambling away from them. Whatever she was up, she didn’t seem to be a threat tonight. But Erin still wanted to follow her, wanted to see where she went and what she was doing. Maybe find out if she had any of Leroy’s blood under her claws.
Erin straightened up silently, but her body creaked a little. After a moment of studying the distant stand of trees, she turned back to Carla with a sigh. Tonight wasn’t the night for that kind of pursuit and she had a different set of instructions to follow. She blew out a breath she’d been holding and motioned to Carla. “She’s gone now. Since she’s not on our list of things to deal with tonight, I think we better stick with Shelly’s plan. Let’s get back to it.”