Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (22 page)

I finally looked closer at where we were going, and saw that even though the landscape wasn't right, the mouth of the cave was familiar. We were headed to the Den. I'd spent countless hours in dream after dream with Darius in there, but with every step his face was growing more stern and his brown eyes were going cold.

“What's wrong?” I asked him.

“I’d tell you to wait here, but the Wolves will no doubt be on our trail. Walking in this direction felt right, but now that I'm here I’m worried. It isn’t the same place anymore. I thought we could retreat to a spot we both knew, but know it’s the place where my father died. The place where I failed him, and I think if I go into that cave I’m going to relive that all again.”

A lone, piercing howl tugged at the fabric of the oncoming night behind us. It wasn't dark enough to worry yet, but it would be soon.

“They’ve caught the scent,” Darius told me, using my hand to pull me along a little bit faster. “Come on.”

“All right, but listen,” I panted, trying desperately to keep pace with him. Even in the dream, I couldn't pretend to have the type of stamina that he did. Perception was reality, and I wasn't able to fool myself into thinking that I could keep up as he hurried. “Just slow down and hear my words, okay?”

“What is it?”

“If we do go in there, and you
do
see the same things you saw when your father died, you have to know you can't change it. It's like a movie, Darius. Like a haunting. The same scene is going to play out for you over and over until you can get beyond it. But you can't make the outcome any different than it already was.”

“Says who?”

I frowned. That kind of thinking was dangerous. I'd read stories and research papers about people who became obsessed with the same scene in their dreams. They went through them, over and over and over like a broken record, until the dream consumed them. It was easy to get fixated on this sort of thing, and I felt that if I didn't rein him in now, I really would lose him. “You can't change it because it already happened.”

“So what, it's just going to torture me?”

“It will if you let it. You can push through it, Darius. I know you can. We don't have to go in there, if you don't want to. We can stand right here and fight the Wolves off.”

“No way. If they got my Bear, what hope do we have? Next to none, especially with me being unable to shift?”

I didn't know the answer to that. Was it better to escape to the Den or plant our feet and go down swinging? Darius made that decision for me by tugging me into the mouth of the cave and looping his arm around my waist to guide me through the darkness that swallowed us as we entered the cavern. As I stepped forward, I worried that the place that had once been his home may soon become his prison.

I don't know what happened. Had I stumbled and accidentally let go of his hand out of reflex? One moment he was there and the next he wasn't. Maybe it doesn't matter how it happened. All that matters is that suddenly I was alone in the dark, and the only sound that reached my ears was Wolves.

The growl of an attack ahead of me tipped me off as the ambush that had taken Darius’s father began just around the darkened corner. A string of excited howls ripped through the night we’d just left as the four-legged hunters that had torn the Bear apart closed in from both ahead and behind us.

I was scared. Terrified. And worse than that, I was alone.

“Darius?”

Nothing.

“Darius!”

I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I reached out blindly with both hands for the cave wall and felt nothing ahead of me. It was so dark that I couldn't make out any details. It was too much like real life, since it felt like my eyes had been turned off, for as much use as they were to me. I started to sweat, and I could feel the
boom boom boom
of my heartbeat pick up as panic fought its way into my chest.

I froze. Going deeper into the cave seemed just as dangerous as leaving it, and now that I couldn't feel Darius next to me I was too petrified to have to make the decision on my own.

Get in there
, that little voice told me angrily,
he’s already spelled it out for you. The Wolves behind you may be able to do some real damage, whereas the ones in the Den are just ghosts of the past, just like you said earlier
.

I took my own advice and a few steps forward, expecting to stumble once more on the rocky ground and instead finding it smooth as glass. My heartbeat wouldn't calm down, no matter how much I tried to slow it. It got even louder too, roaring in my ears. Despite it, I heard another voice rush up from the Den at me.

There was someone screaming. Someone whose voice I should know, though it was totally out of place in the wilds of Alaska.

“Grace? Grace! Grace, I can see you. Open the door, Grace. Open the damn door!”

It had been pitch black in the cave, and when I woke and opened my eyes it didn’t get any brighter.

My heart sank, and my head roared with a dull pain that threatened to overwhelm me. I tried to get up off of the ground, but even though I couldn't see it I knew the room was spinning as I almost fell over once again. I settled for crawling to the door on my hands and knees before reaching up and undoing the lock for Lupe.

She rushed in, and I pushed myself to my feet so that I could stand to greet her. I was hoping to blackout again, but I didn't have that sort of luck.

Darius was stuck back there without me, and there wasn't anything I could do about.

“Are you all right?” she asked, clearly trying to keep it together. “What happened?”

I wasn't quite ready to answer Lupe yet, not after she’d wrenched me back to the real world before I was ready to return to it. Everything in the dream had been so bright and vivid, and even though the things I'd seen hadn't all been rainbows and gumdrops it was even harder to cope with not seeing anything at all once more.

I was angry with her, if I was honest with myself. It was stupid, I know. But that didn't mean it changed anything.

“We had an earthquake,” Lupe told me. I heard her step past me, her high heels clicking on the linoleum near the front door. “Oh my God. There’s blood all over the ground over there.”

“Sorry,” I said, even though it was my own house.

“Turn around here and let me see you,” she scolded. The next thing I knew her hands were on my shoulders and she was angling my face, presumably turning me toward the light. I felt her brush my hair away from the side of my head, and as she did so I felt the dry, stiff sensation of blood matted in my locks.

“It could be worse,” she said grudgingly. “You're probably not going to need stitches, so you're lucky. Did the earthquake knock you down the stairs?”

I nodded, and immediately regretted it. I didn't know how much damage I’d done to myself, but it felt like there was glass shards rolling around against my brain.

“That was more than half an hour ago, Grace. I called you from work to try and see if you were okay, and when you didn't answer the phone I rushed over here as fast as I could. Have you been out this whole time?”

“I think so.”

She sighed. “Well, let's get you upstairs and clean you up a little bit. After that we can decide if you need to see a doctor. Sound good?”

This time I was smart enough not to nod. “It does. Can you just help me up the stairs? I don't want to traipse through the blood and get it all over the carpet.”

“Of course,” Lupe said. “I'll make sure not to get stains anywhere. If I do, every time you see it you can say to yourself, Goddamn that Lupe, why can't she do anything right?”

I froze as she turned me gently in the direction of the stairs, and she realized what she'd said.

“Shit, I'm sorry honey. I wasn't thinking. I was just trying to be funny, and I forgot…”

I bit my tongue, even though my earlier anger at her was stoked even higher. There wasn't anything more painful to me than being reminded that once I could see and now I couldn't, and her little quip about me being mad every time I saw the bloodstains felt like one straw too many for this tired camel.

“I'm fine,” I told her. “Yes, I fell down the stairs when the earthquake made me lose my footing. Could've happened to anyone. And I hit my head, but I think I'm okay now. I appreciate you caring about me, but you can go now.”

“There's no way in hell I'm leaving,” she said. “I'll get you into the shower and then come wait down here until you’re finished. After that, we'll see how you're feeling. I'm not even going to ask you if that's okay, because I'm not taking no for an answer. Now let’s go.”

I didn't want to argue. As badly as I wanted her leave me alone, I knew she never would. If the roles had been reversed I'd be the same way. I'd been knocked out cold no less than three minutes ago, and who knew if I’d have woken up if she hadn’t been banging on the door like that. No, she had a vested interest in keeping me around. Like she said earlier, that sort of thing was the job of a best friend.

“I'll just have a quick shower,” I conceded. “Wash the blood out of my hair and see how I feel.”

I felt Lupe nod. “That's right. Now come on.” I let her guide me around where the blood was on the ground and up the stairs. Once we were at the bathroom, she made sure my hand connected with the doorknob and then backed away.

“Like I said, I'll just be downstairs. Yell out if you need anything, and I'll be listening for the thump when your uncoordinated ass falls over again, because I'm worried about you. Got it?”

“Got it,” I answered.

I waited for her to go back downstairs, but when it became clear that she was only going to do that after I went into the bathroom and turned on the water, that's just what I did.

Once I was in, the warm water washed away my blood and my tears as if they were nothing. After I’d stood under the water for a few minutes and began to feel more human, I finished scrubbing myself clean and carefully got out. I wrapped a towel around my hair and stepped into my robe before exiting the bathroom and carefully picking my way down the stairs.

I knew that Lupe would be watching me, and if I wobbled or made even the slightest hint that I may be losing my balance she'd stuff me into her car and cart me off to the hospital before I could even say the word ‘concussion’.

Once I got to the bottom of the stairs, Lupe said, “I've already cleaned the blood up. No need to try and work your way around it.”

“Thank you. It’d be a real pain in the ass if I had to do that myself. And listen, I'm sorry if I was snappy earlier. It was just such a shock, you know?”

“I know.”

But she didn't. Just about no one did. It wasn't her fault, and I know that she meant well, but that didn't mean that she was able to put herself in my shoes. Hell, most people couldn't even walk across the room with their eyes closed, and now I was forced to live the rest of my life like that.

It wasn't fair, but I hated myself for dwelling on it. Maybe I wasn't able to move beyond it, but thinking about it like this, over and over, was just making the wound deeper.

There's no healing in self-loathing
, I told myself.

“I think I'm feeling a little better,” I said to Lupe.

“You look better. You were pretty ashen when you answered the door.”

I could tell by where her voice was coming from that she was sitting on the couch, and I went to sit beside her. I was confident in the layout of my house, and I strode to my spot on the sofa without even the slightest hint of hesitation. It was a show; mere theatre. A performance for an audience of one, but I thought that it worked.

As I sat, I sensed in her voice that she was more relaxed as well. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Are we agreed that I don't have to go to the hospital?” I asked.

“So far. I ordered us a pizza and it should be here soon. Once we get some food into you, we can reevaluate.”

“But don't you have to get back to work?”

“I rang them right before the pizza guy. Told them I wouldn't be back until tomorrow. You're stuck with me, babe.”

“It must be getting late,” I said. “It's hardly lunch anymore.”

“Then it’s an early dinner. Stop trying to get out of it. There's a pepperoni pizza with your name on it not ten minutes from your front door. If you turn that down, I really
am
taking you to the hospital.”

I couldn't help but chuckle. She and I had shared countless pizzas over the years, and my mouth watered at the thought. When had I eaten last? It felt like a lifetime ago. My whole body hurt, and even though my muscles were trying to tell me that it was from the hike with Darius and all the physical exertion in the dream, some of it much more pleasurable than others, my mind knew that the aches and pains were from my tumble down the stairs.

“And I promise to let you have a couple of slices in peace,” Lupe continued. “But after that, you and I are going to have a talk.”

That didn't sound good at all. “About what?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

“About you.”

“I'm fine, I promise,” I told her, reaching up and gingerly touching the wound on my head. It throbbed, but the pain was down to a dull roar now. Nothing I couldn't live with.

“You're not fine.”

“No,” I snapped, as that old anger came rushing back. “I'm fucking blind.”

“That's got nothing to do with it. So what if you can't see? Just shut up about it, why don't you? You got an amazing life, and you’re gorgeous and smart and funny and you're my best friend. I can't take you wallowing in your own pity party anymore. I’ve tried to be nice. Tried to give you time and space to cope. But this is fair warning, Grace. I’m not going to stand idly by and watch you stop living your life just because you can't see.”

Blind or not, I lowered my head and stared with sightless eyes down at my folded hands in my lap. I knew deep down that she was right. Being blind had defined me these last six months, and it made me sick to my stomach to think of how much time had gotten away from me. “You're right,” I said at last. “I know you're right. It's just so hard…”

“You know what my grandfather used to say to me?”

“No.”

Lupe took a deep breath, and let out a long sigh. “He said ‘nothing worth doing is easy’. That’s just about the wisest thing one person has ever told another, I figure. Nothing worth doing is easy.”

I nodded, and this time the movement didn't make my head hurt worse than it already did. I was clearly on the mend, and I was glad of that. “Thanks,” I told her. “I needed to hear that. I really did. I know I've been a first-class bitch these past few months, but I'm just struggling to find my footing.”

Lupe reached out and patted my knee just as the pizza man knocked on the door. “That's why I'm here,” she said. “To call you on your bullshit.”

“The job of the best friend?”

“Sure is,” she said as she got up off the couch to answer the door. “And it's a full-time job, if you ask me.”