As the bear prepared to make the final lunge, something equally enormous crashed into it with all the force of a freight train, sending it sprawling over the ground. Charlie felt only a moment of relief before she realized what her unexpected savior was.
If there was one thing that could make a bear attack worse, it was the addition of a second bear. One equally as large as the first bear, and with equally enormous teeth and claws. She was convinced, for a few moments, that she was not only going to be eaten, but fought over and ripped apart.
And then she realized that the second bear seemed far more interested in the first bear than in her. In fact, it seemed to be trying rather hard to keep the first bear away from her. As the first bear got back to its feet and surged forward, the second bear stayed in its path, bodily blocking its way.
The first bear paced back and forth for a moment, and the second bear watched it carefully. They were sizing each other up in a manner rather more intelligent than most wild animals were capable of.
With a low growl, the initial bear backed away a few steps, evidently deciding that whatever damage it might potentially inflict would not be worth the damage it would acquire in turn. It growled once more, as if for good measure, before it turned and loped away in the direction it had originally come from.
Charlie sank to her knees slowly, staring blankly down at her lap and blinking slowly. Hands moving on autopilot, she reached for her dropped purse and began to shove the scattered items back into it.
She drew in a sharp breath, letting it out as a tiny, terrified squeak as a long muzzle was abruptly two inches from her face. It huffed a breath over her cheek, but otherwise it simply stood there.
Slowly, Charlie looked up at it, and found herself looking into a pair of green eyes. She was pretty sure bears weren’t supposed to have green eyes.
It huffed another breath at her and then jerked its head to the side, presumably pointing at something. With stiff, mechanical motions, Charlie got to her feet and stumbled in the direction it had pointed. She found a pile of men’s clothing on the ground. Glancing over her shoulder, she asked faintly, “You want me to grab this?”
The bear’s head dipped once. It nodded. A fucking bear actually nodded at her. She was pretty sure she was dreaming, or maybe the first bear had actually killed her and this was just what her brain was showing her as she died. Either way, that didn’t seem like a great reason to annoy the second bear, so she gathered up the pile of clothing.
Nothing got any closer to normal after that. It took a moment for Charlie to get her legs to work well enough to actually start walking, and once she did, the bear trailed a few paces behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at it every few seconds, but it seemed more interested in escorting her than eating her.
Once they were standing in front of her duplex, the words, “Please don’t wake up my neighbor,” fell out of Charlie’s mouth automatically. The bear didn’t seem to think much of it.
It was looking around carefully, and it took Charlie a few slow seconds to realize it was trying to see if anyone was looking.
“You, uh—” she paused and cleared her throat, and began to carry the pile of clothing around the side of her half of the duplex. “No one can really see the side yard,” she mumbled down at the grass, before she peeked over her shoulder to be sure that the bear was still following her. Cautiously, she ventured closer to its side and set the pile of clothes down on its back. Worryingly, the creature was massive enough that just reaching its back was a bit of a stretch.
With that accomplished, she hurried back to her front door, as if that was safer than any other part of the yard. She hugged her arms around herself as the bear lumbered towards the side of the duplex. She supposed she would just… keep watch. In the incredibly unlikely event that anyone showed up. It was a blatant excuse and she was one hundred percent alright with that.
When she heard much more human footsteps coming around the side of the building, she cautiously looked up, and she sort of froze in place. She wasn’t sure if she was surprised or not to see that the man slowly walking towards her was Zeke. Of course, she was still surprised about the entire bear thing as a whole, but… well, he had pretty blatantly informed her that he was a bear. He was from a family of bears. He had been very upfront about that. She just… hadn’t believed him, as most rational human beings would not have believed him.
She was engaged to a bear. Into a family of bears. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth as a tiny, slightly hysterical titter escaped.
And finally, her mouth opened and she asked unsteadily, “Do you, uh… do you want to come in? Inside?” She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb, to the door right behind her, as if he would somehow not know what she was talking about. But if there was something specific she was supposed to say or do with her hands, then she didn’t know what. In fact, she didn’t think she knew anyone who would know what to do in such a situation. It was yet another way public schooling had failed her.
“If you don’t mind,” Zeke agreed. It was a bit surreal to see him with his hair loose (it was longer than she thought it was) and his clothing rumpled.
She took a deep breath, sighed it out slowly, and led the way inside. She didn’t have a guestroom, but Zeke seemed content to take the couch. Charlie handed him a blanket and a pillow, told him where the bathroom was, and then practically fled to her bedroom.
It had been… a day. That seemed like the only way to describe it. She was sort of hoping she would wake up in the morning and discover that none of it had actually happened. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe she was hallucinating. Honestly, at that point, either one seemed like an okay option.
She dreamed, surprisingly, about a lot of “not much.” Typical nonsense about catering a wedding between a dragon and a centaur while her boss (who was, for some reason, a sheep) bleated instructions at her every three minutes.
It was better than dreaming about bears.
*
Never before had Charlie been more grateful to wake up and realize that it was her day off. She didn’t have to work. Not that morning. Not that afternoon. Not that evening. If she wanted to, she could just lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling fan for the entire day.
Except that no, she supposed she couldn’t. She remembered the night before very clearly. Much too clearly for it to have been a dream. Which meant she had a guest waiting for her downstairs.
With a slow sigh, she levered herself upright and pulled on the first clean clothes she laid hands on out of her laundry basket. Once she was dressed, she made her way down the stairs. She could smell food in the kitchen, so that was the direction she went in.
Zeke was dressed in the same clothing as the night before, obviously, and his hair was still loose, but his clothing was much neater, at least. He handed Charlie a plate with two slices of toast and two fried eggs.
They sat at the table and ate in silence, and it was only once they were finished eating that Zeke folded his arms on the table and stated, “That—last night—that was my cousin. You remember Richard.”
“The patronizing asshole,” Charlie summed up, because she was in approximately no mood for being diplomatic.
“Right,” Zeke agreed, nodding once. “I don’t have any siblings, and the ages of most of my family members are… trending upwards. He’s the only other inheritor after me.”
“And you’re going to be disinherited if you don’t get married,” Charlie remembered. “So he… wants to get rid of me.”
It was a lot of money, along with a lot of business assets. People had done worse things for a lot less. She wasn’t excusing it—she would have been dead if Zeke hadn’t shown up—but she could understand it, in a twisted sort of way.
She vaguely remembered mentioning where she worked at dinner with the family, and she wondered if he had just been lurking around the restaurant for the whole day. That did explain how he knew where she was, but it still left one question.
“How did you know to come help me?” she asked cautiously. If he was going to say something that sounded even remotely like he was spying on her or keeping tabs on her, she was going to scream.
“Richard is not subtle,” Zeke informed her blandly. “He likes to think he is, but whenever he’s up to something, it’s obvious to basically the entire tri-state area. So, when he left yesterday morning, I checked in on him periodically, and I trailed him when he started to follow you away from the restaurant.” His mouth twisted into a scowl. “I was hoping he was just doing some sort of recon or something like that, but evidently not.”
Well, she supposed keeping tabs on Richard was alright.
“Evidently not,” Charlie repeated dryly, shoving a piece of bread crust around on her plate with a fork. “So, he’s just going to keep trying to kill me until your dad’s dead?”
“That’s unlikely,” Zeke replied carefully. “Everyone still finds our relationship rather suspect, I think, so if you go missing before we’re properly married, it would be passed off as you changing your mind. Once we’re actually married, you’ll be safe by virtue of the fact that no one thinks you would go through the trouble just to disappear without a penny. If you disappeared then, my parents would suspect some sort of foul play, and Richard at least knows he’s not clever enough to keep his skeletons hidden from people who are actually inclined to look for them.”
“Then can’t we just, I don’t know, get married really quickly at the courthouse?” she sighed, now clinking the rounded end of the fork against her plate.
“If we want anyone to take it seriously,” Zeke returned, “then it will need to be… something of a spectacle.”
Charlie groaned and dropped her face down into her free hand. Zeke remained quiet for a moment, before he pointed out slowly, “No one would blame you if you just backed out.”
Charlie very nearly accepted the offer right then and there, but she bit her tongue before she could. She dragged her hand down her face and mumbled, “I need to think about it.” She glanced up at him. “I’ll give you a call when I know what I want to do.”
It was a pretty clear dismissal, and Zeke understood it as such. He nodded once and got to his feet, and Charlie saw him to the door. Leaning in the open doorway, she watched him leave, until he disappeared around the corner of the street.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out in an almost explosive sigh, before she thumped her head against the doorframe. She did so once again, just for good measure, before she stepped back inside and closed the door. She locked it, first with the knob, then with the deadbolt, and then with the chain. Just in case Richard decided to try again, though she doubted he would try anything in the middle of the day, and she suspected that trying to break into her home would cause a bit more of a rumpus than he was willing to cause.
She felt a bit better after locking the door, anyway, and she lingered by the door for only a moment longer before she made her way into the living room. She finally had a bit of privacy, after all.
Charlie held it together pretty well, all things considered. She was willing to give herself credit for that. After all, she managed to wait until after Zeke was out of the house and on his way back into Crestholme proper before she fisted her hands in her hair, sank to the floor in her tiny little living room, and shrieked through her clenched teeth.
She did feel a little better afterwards.
Not a lot, but a little. Baby steps.
Zeke wasn’t crazy, apparently. And he wasn’t elaborately pulling her leg. He was a bear. A literal, very large, very furry bear, with claws and teeth and equally bear-like relatives.
Charlie clamped her hands over her mouth and screamed again. The woman who lived in the other half of the duplex was a very nice old lady, and Charlie didn’t want to disturb her by shrieking too loudly.
With that done, she tumbled backwards, sprawling out on the rug, her arms spread out to her sides.
She was engaged to a man who could turn into a bear. Whose relatives could also turn into bears. And one of those relatives wanted to kill her.
She lifted her hands to scrub furiously at her face before she rolled over, to instead sprawl face down on the carpet.
Honestly, she was a good person. Not the best person, but she was still a good person. She didn’t deserve this. All she wanted to do was paint and pay off her student loans.
Slowly, she rolled onto her side and sat up, pushing herself upright in a lackluster manner. She just… needed to gather her thoughts. Or clear her head. Or both, maybe. Or possibly neither. She wasn’t actually sure what she needed to do just then.
Actually, she was. The thought occurred to her suddenly, but it made immediate sense once it struck her. It was sort of obvious, actually. She felt a bit silly for not thinking of it immediately.
(Then again, she supposed she was justified in being a bit frazzled, given everything that had happened.)
She needed to talk to Sam. Not to tell her about the actual situation—oh god, no—but just to talk to her. Sam was uniquely good at getting Charlie to focus on inconsequential things at just the right time.
She picked herself up off of the floor and went in search of her phone, walking past it twice before she actually spotted it and picked it up. Long since memorized, it was faster to simply dial Sam’s number in than to go to the contacts list and track it down, and Charlie brought the phone to her ear.
Sam answered the phone on the second ring with a cheerful, “What’s going on?”
“I have a weird favor to ask for,” Charlie replied without any fanfare. The words were almost as much of a surprise to her as they were to Sam.
“Wha—okay? Shoot.”
“So, some jackass tried to mug me on the way home from work last night.”
“Oh my god, are you—”
“I’m fine,” Charlie cut her off, thinking quickly. “One of my neighbors heard the ruckus and chased the guy off and walked me home.” She heard a relieved sigh on the other end of the phone, though it sounded mostly like aggressive static. “I was wondering if you could carpool me to and from work for a while.” It was the only consistent time she was alone and unprotected. It was the only consistent time Richard would be able to get to her without any hassle. She wasn’t going to just leave herself wide open like that. But considering she didn’t have a car of her own and she couldn’t afford to call a cab twice a day, five days a week, she was willing to improvise.
“Of course!” Sam answered immediately. For a moment, all Charlie could think about was a retriever snapping to attention. “Just text me a copy of your schedule,” she added. “You’re sure you’re okay? No lasting trauma? No need for vengeance?”
Charlie snorted. “I don’t even know who I would be getting vengeance against,” she lied blandly. “I hardly even saw his face. And I don’t think I’ve got any lasting trauma that working with the public didn’t already inflict on me.”
“Fair point,” Sam conceded mildly. “You should send your neighbor a gift basket or something,” she suggested wryly. “Get him a medal, maybe. He was actually willing to save your ass.”
“That seems a little ostentatious,” Charlie pointed out, ignoring the implied insult, and she could feel herself gradually relaxing into the normalcy of the conversation. “The medal, I mean. I might get him a gift basket. Or at least a card. Gift baskets are expensive.”
“Cheapo,” Sam sang on the other end of the line.
“I’m engaged to a man I barely know because he has a lot of money,” Charlie reminded her patiently, in much the same way that a teacher might remind a student that two plus two was always going to equal four, every single time. “We both know I’m cheap.”
“Have I mentioned how weird that is to think about?” Sam asked, clicking her tongue and otherwise ignoring the overly patient tone.
“Only about fourteen thousand times,” Charlie sighed, lifting her free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose between two fingers, despite the fact that Sam was not actually there to see her do so. “So, go ahead. It’s definitely not at all like you’ve exhumed and are beating a dead horse.”
“Ugh.” Sam sounded as if she was shuddering. “That phrase gets so much creepier when you say ‘exhumed.’ Don’t do that.”
“You are grossed out by the weirdest shit, you know that?” Charlie groused good-naturedly. “It’s just a word. Like moist.” She smiled slyly to herself, waiting for the reaction that she knew would follow. She was not disappointed.
“Don’t say that word!” Sam all but screeched, followed by the muffled sound of her stomping one foot on the ground like a bizarrely large, petulant child. “It’s so gross!”
“Moist. MOIST! Moooiiiiiiist,” Charlie repeated steadily, and by the end she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing as Sam whined at her in overwrought misery.
“That’s it!” Sam declared eventually, and she was trying very hard to sound like she was angry and failing very badly at it. “You’re so mean, and I’m hanging up,” she decided, sniffing primly. “I don’t need to put up with this abuse. Anyway, remember to text me your schedule.”
“Uh huh,” Charlie agreed, and just before Sam could hang up, she shouted, “MOIST!” in the phone once again. She heard Sam shriek in outrage before the line went dead, and she cackled to herself as she set her phone down on the coffee table.
Slowly, Charlie sat back down on the floor and sprawled out on the rug again, flinging one forearm over her eyes. She did feel a bit better. A bit more normal. A bit safer, too, knowing she wouldn’t have to walk to work for a while. She relaxed against the floor, arm going limp over her face until she let it fall to the floor above her head.
She did have some thinking to do, though. She would probably be safe if she broke things off with Zeke. She could just hand him back the ring and be done with it. She trusted his word enough when he said he wouldn’t blame her for it.
It was a tempting idea. Perhaps the smartest idea, too. The most rational, at the very least. And yet, she was shying away from it.
There was a great deal of money on the line, true, but that wasn’t the entire reason. As inconvenient as her loans were, countless numbers of people lived their lives with all kinds of debt and managed to be content. She knew she could manage it. The money would be convenient, but she knew she could get by without it.
She didn’t fully believe that Richard would just immediately back off as soon as she broke off the engagement if she decided to go that route. If he was willing to resort to murder to get what he wanted, then who was to say he wouldn’t just assume they were ending the engagement as a ruse? After all, by then he knew that they were onto him.
So really, it seemed pretty likely that breaking off the engagement wouldn’t actually guarantee her any sort of safety, unless Zeke got another girlfriend immediately.
But that brought her to her other reservation.
If she ended the engagement, Zeke was going to find someone else, and then some other woman would be stuck in the middle of the bear-infested mess. She tried to think about whether she could really live with herself if she knowingly inflicted that mess on someone else, and she was pretty sure the answer was a very firm no. She had never been a particularly vindictive person. Not the best person, sure. But a good person, nonetheless. Good people didn’t shrug off danger and say, “Not my problem.” No matter how tempting that option was, she didn’t think she could take it.
She groaned and flung her arm over her eyes again. Life would be so much easier if she had just followed more in her dad’s footsteps; learn to be selfish and not care about the problems in the world. She sort of wished she were more like that.
But no, she really didn’t. She had known since before she even knew the word ‘selfish’ that she didn’t want to be like her father.
(She really should check in with her siblings eventually. She doubted any of them had ever dealt with anything quite like the mess she was currently embroiled in, but it might be nice to check in with them. The ones who had split away from their father, at any rate. She didn’t want it to get back to him that she was reaching out; she didn’t need him trying to mooch off of her, especially when she didn’t even have anything to give him.)
She sighed out a slow breath, chest rising and falling again, before she let her arm fall away from her face so she could instead push herself back upright.
She was pretty sure she knew what her decision would be, but that was no reason for her to jump right into it without thinking it through thoroughly. She would just… take a bit of time to think it over and make sure her head was clear when she finally decided what she wanted to do.