I woke up in the hazy night and climbed down the loft stairs to find the ink-black and silver bear sitting outside the window door.
Again.
Ravik’s bear. I knew it like I knew my own reflection by now.
He’d been bothering me off and on all summer. Always tapping. Always waiting to be let in. Persistent to a fault, his golden eyes glowing in the night of what was always a full moon.
My hand went to the latch.
Hovered there.
“I won’t let you in,” I whispered, bracing myself for another round of even louder tapping.
But this time, instead of resuming his tapping, like he always did, Ravik the Bear simply turned and lumbered away into the darkness.
Finally!
But there was no relief to be had as I watched him leave. Instead, a strange regret welled in my chest, like I’d lost something.
Oh, well. Everyone gave up on me eventually. Even bears who’d been tapping at my window all summer.
With a sigh, I turned back toward the loft.
And froze.
Dennis stood in the middle of the cottage’s front room. With the black gun in his hand.
“Hello, Belly.” He spat out the two words like a curse while pointing the lethal weapon at my chest.
The room thinned to a tunnel.
“No,” I cried out. “No, no, no!”
Dennis was back. He’d invaded the safe space I’d found, and he was going to kill me!
I was so scared. I wanted to run. But for some reason, I stood there paralyzed. Frozen in place and unable to breathe.
“You’re poison, not some kind of damn sugar cookie,” he said. “All I had to do was follow the smell of rot.”
He was right. I was poison. Everything I touched turned to rot. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to keep trying to be better.
“Go away!” I pleaded. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Leave me alone!”
Dennis just laughed. “You think you’ll ever be happy? That I won’t always come back and take everything you have? I’m going to kill you, kill those bears you’ve been lusting after, then I’m going to find Holly and Noelle?—”
“No!” I screamed, tears running down my face. “Don’t you dare!”
“Oh, Belly.” Dennis’s voice filled with faux pity. “You actually think you have any power here? You think a vacant, broken thing like you can protect anybody from me?”
No, I didn’t think that. I knew I was weak and broken. “Please, don’t!” I cried. “Leave them alone. They didn’t do anything.”
Except try to help me.
This was why. This was why I couldn’t surrender. Why I couldn’t let myself consider the romance the three bears had offered me.
It wasn’t safe. It would never be safe.
I sobbed with the knowledge that Dennis’s return was all my fault.
