Page 24 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
“What?”
Carson doesn’t even glance over from his game. “The only person who saw it was Gunnar, and he just said that to be nice to the kid whose dad died. They’re all just being nice to you because they feel sorry for you.”
Max’s fists clench. “It wasn’t just Gunnar. Kendra saw something, and Lynn heard it running away—”
“Being nice to the poor little kid who was traumatized.” He sneers the last word, and that makes Max madder than anything. Tears fill his eyes.
“I’m not the one who saw Dad get shot,” Max says. “You are, and you keep acting like it’s no big deal—”
“Yeah, I’m the one who saw it. Because you were hiding in the closet.”
The tears stream down, hot with anger. “Mom told us to stay in the closet, and you didn’t listen, and you could have been shot, too, and you saw Dad die and you saw Mom get shot, and you had to be scared, but you act like—”
“Are you still here?” Carson waves a hand, gaze still on his game. “Go away, little boy. You’re scared of Bigfoot? Find a closet to hide in.”
* * *
Max hates his brother, and he doesn’t care if Mom says he should never say that. Carson hates him, so why shouldn’t he hate him back? Carson’s a jerk. An asshole, just like Gunnar said.
Mom keeps telling him to be patient, to give Carson time, to understand that he’s going through some stuff. But they’re all “going through some stuff.” The worst stuff. That’s what Isabel says. This is the worst kind of stuff, and it’s okay to admit it’s the worst, and it’s okay to admit you’re not fine.
Why can’t Carson say that? Admit he’s not fine instead of making Max feel like a baby for not being fine himself. Mocking Max and acting like he has no right to be “not fine” because he was hiding in the closet.
He was in the closet because Mom said to stay there. The men had broken in, and Mom said to get in the closet. They did at first, but then Carson left, and he saw Dad get shot and then Mom get shot, and then the police showed up before the men could shoot Carson, and maybe, just maybe, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have been shot if Carson hadn’t snuck out and been caught.
Did Carson ever think of that? He snuck out, and the men caught him and then they started shooting. It might be Carson’s fault, and still he goes around acting like it’s no big deal, like he’s fine.
Maybe Carson is fine. Maybe he’s such an asshole that he doesn’t care that Dad’s dead and Mom is hurt. Maybe the only reason Carson cares is because it means they ended up here, and he hates it, and otherwise, if they were still back home, he really would be fine.
Max has headed into the forest without realizing it. He just needed to get away before anyone saw him crying, and he didn’t want to be anywhere his mom might spot him, so he’d taken his secret path into the woods.
The path heads toward the medical clinic, so if anyone sees him they’ll think he just needs to talk to Dr. April. It’s the quiet edge of town, with storage buildings and stuff, and there’s hardly ever anyone there.
He walks into the woods and he just keeps going. He thinks he hears Deputy Will’s laugh, but they’re too far away to see him, and he’s not going to tell them about the bear-man. He’s not even going to try to see whether it is the bear-man. It wasn’t on this side of town. All Max wants is to walk for a while and be by himself. Mostly, he wants to be by himself.
He takes what Sheriff Dalton calls a game trail. It looks like a path made by people, but it’s from animals using the same route over and over. He’s following that and swiping at his tears and trying not to snivel when a twig cracks right behind him.
He spins—and a figure lunges from the forest and grabs him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Casey
We’re almost back to town when someone shouts, “Max!” Dalton glances at me. It’s dark now—after leaving Lilith’s cabin, we’d spent a few hours searching for our wild man before eating a quick dinner and heading back out. I check my watch. Past eight.
“Bedtime for the kiddos,” I say. “Max must be off visiting.”
Dalton grunts. We don’t have a curfew in town. In Rockton, we’d asked people not to be out past midnight, but only really enforced it when there was a problem. Even there, anyone out that late was usually returning from someone else’s bed. There’s less of that in Haven’s Rock, partly because there are fewer people, partly because there are fewer singles, and partly because, well, the housing is communal. Chances are that if you’re tiptoeing back to your bed, you’re not leaving the building.
We do ask for darkness after sunset. Of course you can have a light on, but your shutters and blinds must be closed. That minimizes the chance of the town being spotted at night. It also means that, by nightfall, people are already hunkering down. In Rockton, it’d be a mix of hunkering down at home and at the Roc. Again, fewer people means our new Roc is far less active.
All that combines to create a town that’s usually as silent at eight thirty as it will be at two in the morning. But even before we reach the outskirts, voices and boot clomps make it sound like midday.
Anders must spot our flashlight beam. He comes jogging out to meet us.
“Max is missing,” he says.
“Shit,” I say. “I figured Dana was just calling him in for the night.”
