Page 64 of Coveted By the Bear

Dull moonlight threw lines across her face through the blinds, and I could see that Mira’s eyes had gone black like they used to. She was listening to the voice of her nightmares, and I wanted to kill him for scaring her like this.

“I won’t let him hurt you.”

“McCreedy!” Angus screamed.

“What do you want?” I yelled through the door. I opened the blinds and saw the silhouette of the man. His face was completely dark with the moon behind him, and he leaned heavily against an old, black sedan. Inside, a large dog barked relentlessly.

“What do you mean, what do I want? I want to lay eyes on my little girl I haven’t seen in all these years. I want to see if she’s still as pretty as I remember. Toss her out here, and you won’t get hurt.”

“Ain’t gonna happen, Angus.”

“Well,” he drawled slowly. “That’s what I ’spected you’d say, so I’m going to lay down a couple of ground rules. Don’t go trying to sneak out the back door ’cause I have it good and rigged. I’ll hear any attempt and throw this cigarette I’ve been draggin’ on at your house. I’ve doused it pretty good in lighter fluid so I ’spect it’ll go up pretty quick. Awful way to die, so I hear.”

I leaned my head against the window pane and ran through ten escape plans in a second. None would work. Mira’s nails dug into the palm of my hand.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him.

“Because that little bitch—” Angus cleared his throat and chuckled, a chilling sound. “Because my little girl and I have some unfinished business. Business that don’t involve you, McCreedy. Now hurry this up. I ain’t known for my patience, boy.”

“Caleb,” Mira said. “Can you change into your animal?”

Regret made me swallow hard. “I don’t control the changes. They always come at night, but I haven’t figured out a reason or a trigger for them.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want you getting hurt. I’ll be okay.”

“No. You aren’t going out there with that lunatic.”

“We’ll both burn alive in here. You heard him. He doesn’t bluff.”

“Stay here.” I pushed her gently back and opened the door before she could protest. “I’m coming out to talk.” I held my hands up in surrender.

I didn’t make it farther than the doorway before Angus flung a rifle up faster than I thought possible and pulled the trigger. A yelp of surprised pain burst from me as fire seared through my leg. I couldn’t hold weight on it anymore and fell forward like a stone.

“Caleb!” Mira shrieked.

Angus got to me before she could. “Sorry, boy,” he said through stale breath and cigarette smoke. I thought you were shorter. I was going for a gut shot. This one’ll be a little slower.” The apologies of a serial killer.

Mira had disappeared from the doorway for a second but returned with a knife raised high over her head. Her face said she meant it when she aimed the tip at Angus French’s face. He caught her hand and wrenched it until she cried out and dropped the blade. I took the distraction to pull my own knife, and with all of the force I could muster from my disadvantaged position, I thrust it into his leg and pulled down with one swift motion. “Run, Mira!”

Angus fell backward with a roar of pain. In a flash of anger, he swung his rifle like a baseball bat directly down onto my head.

Everything went black.

****

Mira

“No, no, no,” I chanted as grief washed over me. It mingled with my fear and created a cloud of horror, then somber acceptance. The sound of the butt of the gun as it connected with Caleb’s head was a noise that would haunt me for the last few minutes of my life. I knelt down and fluttered my fingers helplessly over his fallen body. The upper leg of his jeans looked black in the dim light from the blood that seeped out of him. Angus scuffled as he righted himself behind me, and the glint of the knife I had dropped gleamed from just out of my reach. Scrambling backward, I tried to kick the door closed before he could catch me, but Angus was fast. If anything, prison had only made him stronger.

He caught my hair and yanked it backward, bringing water to my eyes. He didn’t wait for me to stand to ease the pressure. Angus simply dragged me out of the house by the roots. From the puddle of crimson-colored liquid beside Caleb, my flailing legs made red arcs and circles across the wooden floorboards with my struggles.

Angus hoisted me up and put my face against the window of the black sedan. The dog inside was massive. Thickly muscled and gnashing his huge teeth at the window in desperation to get at me. A trained killer, just like Angus.

“You know what I missed the most while I was in prison, sugar? Coon hunts. There is nothing quite like the thrill of the chase when you are hunting down a big ol’ coon.”

I closed my eyes tightly against the vision of the dog mere millimeters away from my face and blocked out the barking. I had to get away. I had to get help for Caleb.

“I’ll give you five minutes head start.” Angus eased back and looked me in the eye. His wrinkles were deeper, but his black, bottomless eyes still held the same icy emptiness I remembered. The man had been born wicked. He’d apparently accepted that a long time ago, embraced it even. Now, there was no soul left in him at all. “I think that’s pretty generous, don’t you? Five minutes, and I let old Brutus here loose. He’s a bully, for sure, but he’s a good tracker, too. A Brutus of all trades.” Angus chuckled at his joke, and I held my breath against the stale rot that emanated from his mouth. “When he catches you, and he will, I’ll be right behind him to put you out of your misery. What was it your boyfriend said? Oh, yeah.” His grip in my hair loosened. “Run, Mira.”