“Boone.” Hissing, the man addressed him again and I touched Warren’s arm, muscles taught and surprisingly...hairy? Caught off guard, I looked at his forearm, which was sporting a lot more body hair than I recalled earlier tonight.
“Warren?” Confused, Reagan pulled harder and panicked, but I didn’t budge.
“I thought we had a truce, Stefano.” I was afraid to look up because this evening had quickly become the stuff of puzzled nightmares and the pieces didn’t yet fit together.
“Tsk, tsk. But you’ve come so close to the border, how could I not drop in to say hello and meet your…human…friend. Hmm?” The way he said human made it sound like it was a disgusting thing to be and I wanted to run away.
“She’s under my protection. She belongs to me.” Warren’s muscles under my fingertips vibrated and my head buzzed with white noise from fear and what he’d just said.
“Reagan, take her,” Jase growled and my flight instinct switched on, my paralyzed feet ready to move.
“Go. Go now, Kerri.” The danger was palatable in the air and I turned, running back toward the truck. Reagan was on my heels, following me. I was brought up short by three adolescent kids I recognized from the high school I student taught at. The senior football players were not much older than myself. The boys, Colin, Levi, and Gage stood before me. The white leather sleeves of their varsity jackets glowed against the moonlight, making them look broader in the shoulders.
“Hey, Ms. Harper,” Colin greeted me with a friendly smile. The boys then looked past me, beyond my shoulder. In the semi-dark, I saw their faces change and expressions turned from welcome to anger.
Torn between protecting my students and running for my life that felt precariously in danger, I stood frozen in place. “Boys, it’s not safe here. Go back. Turn around and go home.”
“Ms. Harper, we should make sure you get back to your vehicle.” The middle one, Levi, held a hand out toward me and I reached to take it when the voice spoke again, stopping me.
“Oh look, the carebears have decided to join us.” The hissing voice sounded amused and much closer now, maybe even directly behind me. Too fearful to look back, I was surrounded by Jase, Reagan, and Warren.
“We won’t let anything happen to you.” Gage, the smallest of the boys, stepped forward. Looking back at my students, I watched them hunch over. Grunting, they started to change shape before my eyes, clothing ripping and popping to stand up as three large black bears.
Watching, I told myself that none of what I was thinking could be possible. None of that could be real, at least not there, not in small town Woodland Creek, Indiana. I turned my head toward Warren. I once saw him as my safe and strong rescuer, who now looked more like a large hairy wolf with very big teeth and sad eyes. His arms were open to me, but I staggered backward, afraid and trying to keep them all in my sight. I didn’t know why Jase and Reagan were just calmly standing there doing nothing. Sounds ripped from my throat as I sank to my knees, screaming into swirling faces...faces that looked shockingly like the moving mural painting in Lupin Hall.
Chapter Twelve
“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” Jamais Cascio
WARREN
“Can you drive the fucking truck faster!” I sat hunched over Kerri protectively in the back of the super cab of my truck with Reagan. Her students, apparently bear shifters, intercepted Creighton and Stefano while we took Kerri safely to the truck. She’d passed out screaming, hyperventilating and shouting that none of that was real.
“You just asked me to drive slower, make up your friggin’ mind here!” Jase yelled and accelerated the truck down the park road back into town.
“Should we take her to the clinic? Her heart is beating really fast.” Crammed in the backseat, Reagan had been holding Kerri’s hand from the moment she passed out. The gentle flutter of her heart each time I touched her made me wonder if she realized how much more wolf than man I really was inside.
“Let’s take her to the house and call Eden over.” Jase seemed to be the only voice of reason as I banged my head back against the glass partition of my truck. I was pissed with myself for putting her in any danger.
“Fuck!” Cursing didn’t make me feel better like I hoped it would.
“She’s going to be fine, Warren.”
“Fine? She just saw a snake and spider shifter for the first time, three of her students shift into bears, and my partial shifting into a wolf. What part of this evening was fucking fine?”
“It’s not like shifting is a total secret, just think of your dad and mom.” Jase was right, but it didn’t feel right when I recalled her shocked face. It was like I had broken something within her by revealing our second nature to her at the cliffs.
“This is a nightmare.” I rested my head against hers and prayed she didn’t wake up confined as we were in the back of the truck. I couldn’t imagine how freaked out she’d become then with nowhere to escape to.
“On the bright side…she didn’t see me shift and I’m her roommate.”
“Or me,” Jase chimed in.
“I mean, think about how traumatic that would be for her. I really like her.”
“We can figure this out, Warren. I’ll call Eden and she’ll be able to help us through this.” Jase made the turn down the main street of town and called Eden’s cell phone on the truck’s Bluetooth.
“Please don’t get all freaky about this.” Reagan patted my leg and I blew out the air clogging my chest with frustration.