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It was the narrow, dead-end variety lined by four- or five-story buildings and a few dumpsters here and there.
Tavish wasn’t running to the end. His boots pounded over slushy wet pavement and then stopped. He didn’t turn. He just rocked abruptly on the balls of his feet like he’d slammed face first into an invisible wall.
January heard the noise before she saw anything change.
The snap and crunch that sounded like dry twigs being stepped on in the woods. Pops and crunches and strange sucking sounds that those rotisserie chickens sometimes made when she picked the meat off them and pulled off the wings or drums to get at the rest.
She didn’t know a human body could do that.
She didn’t know a human body could shred clothes, the seams bursting apart down the center with a fraying rip that split into the cool early evening air. She didn’t know that a human body could sprout fur, or that it could go from smooth skin to a glistening sheen of dark brown in only a few seconds. She didn’t know that a human body could turn into an animal body.
That a man could become a bear.
Shit. What was happening?
She was sure that she was witnessing wasn’t real and at the same time that it was, and that it was forbidden. She was sure that she shouldn’t be here. That what she was seeing was a highly classified secret. Or if she’d gone completely crazy. It was like two worlds colliding together.
And then a set of big, brown eyes, not at all human but completely those of the animal they belonged to, brown and deep and bearlike, turned on her.
A chill crept over her skin and wild fear ate at her insides.
Run. Hide.
That was a bear. Tavish had been here a second ago and then his clothes had ripped off and his body changed and there was a bear here now. She’d blame the chicken and some wicked indigestion on what she was seeing, but she hadn’t eaten. Hunger pangs? No, she’d had lunch. Could a grilled cheese cause hallucinations? Was it June’s idea of a joke to shove mushrooms in there and she was tripping?
June didn’t do mushrooms. She hadn’t even ever smoked a cigarette.
The only thing in that sandwich was cheese. The bread wasn’t mouldy. There was nothing that could explain what was happening unless it was happening in her head.
It must be all in her head because despite her flight response going out of control and her slamming heart, her feet stayed rooted in her boots. She felt her eyes close and her body sway. Was she going to pass out? Was this what fainting dead away felt like? And then what? That bear would trample her, gore her, eat her body?
When she tore her eyes open, it was gone.
No way. No fucking way.
No, it wasn’t gone. The bear had just moved over to one of the dumpsters. It hid there in the shadows thrown by the fading sunlight. If they hadn’t had more of an afternoon date, it would have been pitch black out. Would she have even found Tavish? Would he have wanted her to? She’d just seen him change into a bear, because as unthinkable and incredible as that was, she was sure it was real. The bear was right there. It wasn’t charging at her or acting aggressive. It washiding.Cowering. Like it wasn’t the threat at all, like maybe she was.
She could see the huge animal shaking from where she stood. The dumpster was inadequate coverage in comparison to the animal’s large size.
There was no way she was going to run. She kept her shocked gaze trained on that dumpster and she knew the exact second the bear turned and met her eyes with his own. She stared back, a strange music starting in her head and bleeding into her chest. Something swelled there, so many sensations that she rocked back onto her heels and then forward onto her toes again.
“P-please,” she whispered. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
Right. She was the one telling a thousand-pound or maybe two-thousand-pound animal that she wasn’t a threat when she was clearly shocked, confused, and unarmed. That made so much sense. But she produced her hands anyway, palms first, and kept them low. She lowered her gaze too, not wanting to stare the bear down in case that was something they did to challenge each other, or when they wanted to fuck each other up in a big bear fight.
She seriously didn’t want to participate in one of those.
Those deep brown eyes closed when she dared to glance back up. The bear gave a huge shuddering sigh and then the snapping of bones echoed from deep in the alley.
January moved towards the dumpster. Her blood felt so hot in her veins. She was boiling from the inside out, a storm of fear in her belly, but she still kept moving forward.
And there, by the dumpster, there was no bear. It was just Tavish again.
She could almost believe that the whole thing truly had been a bad trip of some sort, but he was naked. Just a few feet away, there were shredded scraps of what had been a shirt. Jeans. The rubber and black of his boots now torn to pieces.
He stared up at her from the ground where he was hunched over, not to hide himself, but as if he needed to protect all the places he could be hurt from a well-aimed kick or blow. Was he hiding from her, fearing her, or the whole world?
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered again. “I would never hurt you. Let me go find you some clothes.”
