Series: Lee Savino
Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63295 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
I drop to my knees beside him, trying to send healing energy. I only sense more rage.
And then the light changes, and I get a vision of Darius not as a man, but as a huge brown bear.
“There’s a bear inside Darius. I don’t know–that’s how it shows up.”
“That’s right, Wren. Darius has a bear side, and if he would let it out, it could save them. Can you tell him to let it out?” Teddy asks.
I study Darius. There’s something over him, isolating him from me and everyone, even Paloma.
The shadow over him solidifies into dark bars. Darius’ bear is in a cage.
I pace closer, and an angry paw swipes out, narrowly missing me. I jump back. The bear roars, a wounded, echoing sound.
“I know,” I tell it. “You’re not free.” I pace around the structure, but it’s solid. I can’t figure out how to break it open. The bear won't let me get close enough to comfort him.
I need someone to speak to the bear and calm him down. He doesn’t trust me. Who would he trust?
All at once, I’m back in my body in the guest bedroom.
I open my eyes and sit straight up, startling the others in the room. Matthias, Lana, and Teddy all peer at me.
“Are you all right?” Matthias leans in to check my vitals, and I hold up a hand. I don’t want him to touch me. I’m about to try something I’ve never done.
If it works, it could change everything. But if I fail, I could lose my sister.
It has to work.
I turn to Teddy. “I need your help.”
Darius
There are murmurs all around me. I strain to hear, but my ears fill with the bear’s roaring.
And then it all fades, and I hear Teddy calling my name. “Darius.”
I see him clearly, striding out of the darkness towards me.
“Brother? What’s happening?” The darkness dissipates. We’re both standing in a forest clearing. I recognize every rock and tree. “This is where we grew up.”
Am I dying? Is this what people mean when they say their life flashes before their eyes?
“We need to talk,” Teddy says. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to Paloma. She needs me.” I can feel the pain in the distance. Terrible things are happening while I’m asleep.
“She needs you.” He takes a step forward. “But you need your bear.”
“What?”
“Brother, listen.” He stares into my eyes. It’s like looking in a mirror, or would be if he shaved his bushy beard. “Embrace your bear.”
“I can’t.” I shake my head, retreating. “I can’t let him out.”
“You can. You must.”
“No. He’s too wild.” I turn around, and there it is, the trailer where we lived. The one that I destroyed. Its side is dented in. “He’ll ruin everything.”
“He can help. He can save you.”
“No. He can only cause destruction.” I can feel the hair growing on my chin, sprouting into a beard like Teddy’s. Maybe that’s why I shaved, to keep from looking too much like my twin. To keep from looking wild.
All for nothing. My bear is trying to break out.
“Look at this.” I wave a hand at our ruined trailer. “Look at what he did.”
“You have to embrace that side of yourself. You have to be who you were meant to be.”
“And Paloma? What if he hurts her? What if he scares her?”
“She’s strong, She won’t scare easily.”
“She’ll leave,” I shout.
He comes closer, and I push him away. “Like Winnie. Like mom.”
“No–” Teddy grabs me, wrapping his huge arms around me. Somehow, the bastard is stronger than me. I try to fight him, but he just holds me.
He holds me until I stop my struggle.
“She left because of me,” I say, and as the words leave my mouth, I hear them in a smaller, younger voice. I’ve shrunk to the size I used to be when I was young.
Teddy crouches to the level of my shorter self. “It wasn’t your fault our mother left. You can’t blame yourself.” He morphs and becomes younger Teddy. No tattoos, no beard. A mirror image of me.
“It wasn’t about us,” he says in his seven-year-old voice. “She made her own choices.”
“I’m all alone.” The clearing has grown dark.
“No, brother. I never left you.” Teddy throws his skinny, seven-year-old arms around me. “I never have, and I never will.”
And then we’re grown again, back in our adult bodies. “Neither will our brothers. We’re not going to leave you.”
The clearing has faded, and our childhood trailer is gone, replaced by the cabin on Bad Bear Mountain. My cabin. The home I rejected.
“Neither will Paloma. But she needs you now.”
There’s a shadow lurking behind the cabin. It’s too big to hide behind the cabin, so it hulks there, its spine bowed. Its eyes glow, and the light glints off its oversized claws.