“Hello, Belly,” a familiar voice said from above where I was handcuffed to the bed.
Dennis stood there with the black gun in his hand and an evil grin on his face.
“Did you really think you’d ever be able to get away from me?”
18/
polar bear
BELL
Dennis raised the gun, pointing it straight at my forehead. “Time to die now, Belly.”
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. “No… no… Please don’t!”
This wasn’t like the morning after his last beating, when he’d held the gun to my head and I’d felt nothing. The apartment was freezing cold. And the numbness that had come with just wanting this hell to be over had abandoned me. Even if the happiness I’d experienced over the last few days had only been an illusion, it now felt like I had everything to lose. Like my life was actually worth something.
Dennis did not agree.
“Thought you could get away. Thought you could actually build your own life and be happy. Stupid bitch.” Dennis practically spat those last two words. “I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to go to Canada myself and kill Noelle and Holly. They don’t deserve to be happy. None of you do!”
“Please, no!” I choked out the words, tears streaming down my face. I could barely breathe. This was all my fault! I’d opened the door to Dennis, and now my girls would suffer because of it. Because of me.
I had to stop him. But all I managed to do was whimper out my pitiful pleas. “Don’t hurt them. Please…”
I was completely paralyzed for some reason. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t… couldn’t…
“Fuck, Bell, it’s okay! It’s okay! I’m coming!”
Those words sounded from somewhere in the distance. Right before a huge claw appeared out of nowhere, black paw pads surrounded by white fur.
The claw slashed through Dennis, and the ex who’d come into the room to torment me fell away in ribbons, dissipating into the ether to reveal…
A polar bear!
What was a polar bear doing here in my apartment?
“I’m right here. You don’t got nothing to be scared of,” the strong voice said in the distance, as if answering my question.
Meanwhile, the polar bear bit through the handcuffs’ chain.
The paralysis lifted, and my wrists were freed in the next instant. Then I was being pulled into the polar bear’s warm embrace. “I’m here. You’re alright. C’mere.”
The polar bear curled up around me, blanketing me in warmth. I sighed into his fur.
“Sssh,” the distant voice soothed. “That’s right. You’re safe. You’re protected. Go back to sleep.”
For some reason, I believed the voice, and that made it easy to follow his instructions.
“Thank you.” I burrowed my face into the polar bear’s chest as a beautiful black sleep stole over me.
The next time I woke up, it was still dark outside.
But this dark felt different.
This dark radiated heat like a furnace.
It was textured with coarse sprigs of hair.
