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  Instantly, Jim stood, frowning. “What is it, Aaron?”

  The reddish-brown-haired man, apparently named Aaron, came to a stop and said something to Jim in a low voice I couldn’t quite hear, despite the fact that all conversational murmuring around us had come to a grinding halt. The karaoke music was still blaring, but not for long. Within seconds, the music cut off mid-song, and the singer warbled to a stop.

  Immediately, with a faint crease between his eyes, Jim addressed everyone in the bar, his deep voice carrying far without him even having to raise it very much. “We’re all needed. Our northernmost patrol scouts have just brought word that a group of Angels is coming. Those of you who’ve had too much to drink already, and I hope this number is very small, stay back and join us when you can be effective. The rest of you, outside, and then we shift. Gifteds, you find whoever your ‘taxi’ bear is, and get on. Then we’ll head to the north clearing and wait. Let’s go.”

  After just the briefest of glances in my direction, frowning, though with the expression seeming to convey some sort of apology, Jim began striding out of the bar. Right away, as if this was something they’d fully prepared for, or were used to, everyone else in the bar began swiftly following him to the exit. Everyone except Jen, that is.

  With a half-eaten piece of pizza in one hand and a can of pop in the other, she sidled up alongside me. “Come on outside with me if you want to see something cool.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jen and I followed the fast-moving crowd outside. Stopping on the porch, we watched while dozens of men, illuminated by the floodlight, shifted into bears the moment their feet hit the grassy yard in front of the bar. Like I’d heard about shifters and shifting, it just took a split-second, and their clothes just disappeared along with their human bodies. I’d heard that when they shifted back into human form, their clothes would shift right back with them.

  I immediately realized that hearing about shifters and actually seeing them were two entirely different things. Not too far in front of me, maybe thirty or so massive black bears, their inky fur glinting in the floodlight, took up so much space that they nearly spanned the width of the bar. Calmly and quietly, women were hopping right on their backs as if they were horses, leading me to understand what Jim had said about “taxi” bears. The scene was so strange, yet somehow so wonderful and mesmerizing at the same time, that a few seconds went by before I realized that I’d let my jaw drop open.

  Closing it, I realized that one of the bears, an especially large one, didn’t yet have a rider, and it didn’t look as if he was going to have one. I’d lost sight of Jim during the well-organized yet hurried group dash out of the bar, but somehow, I just knew this riderless bear was him. And when this bear soon let out a mighty roar, then began charging away from the bar, heading north, I knew for sure. All the other bears followed him.

  When the last bear and rider had disappeared from view, I turned to Jen, who’d been nonchalantly munching on her pizza the entire time. “You weren’t kidding. That was pretty cool, to say the least.”

  Swallowing a bite, she frowned. “Oh, but I haven’t even showed you the cool thing yet.”

  “That wasn’t it?”

  “Well, I guess that was cool. I guess I’m kind of used to it. But the real cool thing is tied up to the front of the porch, and he’s pretty used to all the bears, too. I don’t even think he barked. He might even be sleeping.”

  “Oh, you mean Marbles?”

  “Yeah, but not just him. It’s what he’s wearing that’s cool.”

  Just then, Marbles did bark, and Jen went down, untied his leash from one of the wooden slats in the railing, and led him up on the porch.

  “He likes to rest in the grass better than on the porch.”

  In the dim light, I could see right away that Marbles was wearing a tie, and I said it was cute.

  “Adorable, actually. And he doesn’t even seem to mind.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Not at all. But look what’s on the tie. That’s the cool part.”

  Kneeling, I examined his tie, or examined it as best I could while Marbles gave me a few slobbery kisses, wagging his tail.

  “Do you see what’s cool about his tie? He’s got little bears on his tie.”

  I did see, and it was beyond adorable. Tiny dark bears dotted a light-colored tie of soft silk, with a loose, stretchy neckband that seemed to be made of silk-covered elastic. It amazed me that although it seemed like Marbles could have removed the tie fairly easily, he hadn’t.

  “Get it? He has a little bear tie, because he lives in a village full of bears.”

  Giving Marbles some gentle scratches on the sides of his ears, making him wag his tail harder, I looked up at Jen, smiling. “It’s the cutest tie I’ve ever seen. Very cool.”

  She beamed. “Thanks. I get his ties from a dog tie store on the internet. They have a special, pretty weak Velcro clasp thingie at the back, so that the dog can bust right out of his tie if he really wants to, but Marbles never wants to. He likes being a handsome boy.”

  We soon took him back inside the bar with us, and he promptly leapt right up on a table and began scarfing down pizza scraps. The act took away from the dignity of his tie-wearing just a bit.

  Jen began trying to haul him down off the table, pulling him to her chest like he was a little lamb, and not a full-grown golden retriever. “See, this is why Annie gets mad when I bring you in here. I thought you could handle it this time for a treat, but, nope. Your hunger for pizza got the better of you, didn’t it? He tries to drink people’s beers, too, Avery. He’s just got a real naughty streak sometimes.”

  Once Jen had him down off the table, a thought occurred to me, and I asked her why she hadn’t left with everyone else. “Aren’t you a Gifted? I thought Annie said you were.”

  Jen sank down into a chair, sighing, and began tossing Marbles little pieces of pizza crust from a larger piece. “Yup. I’m a Gifted. One who can shoot silver electricity from her palms.”

  “Then, why didn’t you go along with everyone else?”

  She didn’t answer right away. “A couple days after I first got here, Jim told me that he wants me to wait a few years to fight, because he thinks that it’ll be best if I’m more the same age as everyone else, so that I’ll be able to be the strongest I can be. I wasn’t even mad when he told me this, even though my feelings were a little bit hurt. I guess I’m kind of over that now. Except not really, though. I still feel a little bit hurt sometimes. Especially when Annie says things like I’ll be forty by the time I’m allowed to fight.” Jen tossed Marbles another little piece of crust, sighing. “But at least I have you here with me tonight. And at least I’m still old enough that I still have two jobs here in Timberline, even though I can’t fight.”

  I took a seat next to her, intrigued. “What are your jobs?”

  “Well, the first is that I’m kind of Jim’s secretary for all council meetings, which is when he has meetings of his council guys and girls. There’s like five guys and five girls, and Annie is one of the girls, and her boyfriend, Aaron, is one of the guys. He’s that guy who told Jim about the Angels tonight. But, anyway, my job at the council meetings is to be Jim’s secretary, and secretary for the whole council. Jim calls it ‘taking minutes’ at the meeting. He gave me this special job when he said I couldn’t fight, because he said that this was an important job I could do instead. I’ve got all my own special folders, and notebooks, and filing cabinets for it and everything, too.”

  I wondered how Jen’s near-illiteracy affected the job, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Then, my second job is that I get to run the food counter here at the bar a couple days a month. Since the guys are always out on patrol the most, us girls take turns working the food side of the bar, and also the bar side, too. Most girls get maybe only one shift per month, but I get several at the food counter per month, because for one thing, I’m pretty good at it, and for another thing, I can’t take any shifts at the alcohol part
of the bar. So, I do the food part. I basically just make a lot of sandwiches with whatever ingredients people want. Then the rest of the stuff is pretty much frozen stuff from Ridgewood that we put in the microwave. We do have a grill and a fryer, too, but Annie says those things don’t get turned on when it’s one of my days to work.”

  Marbles had wandered away from us and now climbed up on the karaoke stage, sniffing around, as if he thought there might be some pizza scraps up there, too.

  Suddenly, Jen leaped up, gasping. “What are we doing just sitting here? We have this whole place to ourselves, and we’re not singing karaoke!”

  Ordinarily, karaoke might have sounded like fun, but I was kind of disappointed that my date with Jim had ended so soon, and so abruptly. Even while at the same time, now that he wasn’t near me and my thinking felt a little clearer, I was kind of relieved. Not getting too close to him had been the plan, and I’d certainly been well on my way to blowing that plan completely to hell, which struck me as a horrible thing to allow myself to do. At least not until I could get him to agree to let me not attend training exercises. It still just seemed pointless to me. And even worse, I could see it opening the door for him to try to get me to actually participate in fights against the Angels at some point in time, which I would never in a thousand years be agreeing to.

  I begged off from karaoke, telling Jen that I just didn’t feel like it.

  She asked why. “Is it because you feel weird about singing and having fun while everyone else in town is fighting?”

  Pretty shamefully, that actually hadn’t even occurred to me, and now I felt terrible. For all I knew, Annie could have been getting hurt right at that moment. Or Jim. Thinking about this, I didn’t answer Jen, and she began making her way to the stage, walking backward.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t feel like you can’t have fun while a fight is going on. I don’t feel that way. And you know why? Because I know that everyone’s always fine. I’ve even sneaked out to the main field where most of the fights happen, just to watch from the trees sometimes, and every single time, it’s all pretty much the same thing. It’s always just all our shifters and all our Gifteds kicking sorcerer butt. It’s actually even boring sometimes. So, come on. Let’s sing.”

  I still begged off, and finally Jen said fine, that she would sing alone, if I’d just watch. I agreed and began finishing my pizza dinner while she took to the stage.

  It turned out that she wasn’t a half-bad singer at all. Displaying a fairly impressive vocal range, she sang while I finished my pizza, clapped at intervals, and eventually, sat at the foot of the stage and cuddled Marbles.

  But after a half-hour or so, Jen dropped the mic at the end of a song, yawning. “It feels like midnight all of a sudden.”

  It wasn’t anywhere near midnight, but I was tired, too. Soon we shut off all the lights, left the bar, and walked back to our respective cabins, which were situated almost next door to each other, with only one vacant cabin in between. Along the way, Jen said that everyone might not be back until “way late.” I wasn’t quite sure if I felt relieved or disappointed by this. Part of me desperately wanted to see Jim again, but part of me didn’t.

  Despite feeling tired, I had trouble falling asleep that night, and once I finally did, I had trouble staying asleep. Once, I awoke feeling like I’d just had a dream about Jim, but I couldn’t even remember exactly what the dream had been about. Another time, I awoke after having had a dream where he’d pushed me in front of him and everyone else in Timberline. A group of Angels was approaching, and all the Timberliners were yelling at me to use my power to levitate the Angels away. Breaking free of Jim’s hold, I’d fled, shrieking that I was useless to defend anyone. It took me at least an hour to fall back asleep after this dream.

  Finally, just before I awoke for good around eight in the morning, I had a more pleasant dream. In it, Jim was holding me in his strong arms, kissing me. I clung to him, filling my nostrils with his heavenly, masculine scent, all thoughts of training, Angels, and fighting completely driven out of my head. This dream was far too brief.

  Around nine, I’d just finished showering and dressing when Jim showed up, though he didn’t look like he had kissing on his mind. With a slight crease between his eyes, he was clearly tired and tense, and I invited him in, hoping that commanding me to attend that day’s group training session wasn’t going to be the very first thing he was going to do.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t, though when Jim sat me down on the couch and took my hands in his, his expression really didn’t change much.

  “First, I want to tell you that I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly last night. I felt terrible, but of course, it really couldn’t be helped.”

  “Oh, I know and you shouldn’t have felt bad in any way. So, how did everything go? Is everyone all right? Were the Angels all dealt with?”

  “Yes, and yes. We were able to kill one of them, and the rest fled in the process.”

  Looking deeply into my eyes, Jim paused, giving his throat a little clear, and I knew we were heading into territory I’d rather we didn’t head into.

  “Avery, they’re getting stronger. Their attacks are also becoming more frequent. We shifters and Gifteds need all hands on deck in order to deal with them. I need you to—”

  “Fight? I’m not going to, because I’d just be a hindrance in any fight. And besides, I thought you just wanted me to attend training sessions. So, now we’re escalating?”

  “You’re right that I want you to attend training sessions, but I not only want you to attend, I want you to participate. I want you to use your power, and practice how you’re going to use it within the group.”

  “Even though I never will use it, because I have no intention of ever fighting?”

  Jim had clenched his strong jaw, and now he unclenched it just long enough to speak. “You will at least participate in training.”

  “So, we’re back to this again, are we?”

  Pulling a hand from mine, Jim raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Now we’re back to you telling me that I’m going to be forced to do something I don’t want to do.”

  “Can you just at least tell me this? Why are you so reluctant to use your gift? From what the agents told me, I think I have a little clue, but I want to hear it from you. I want to hear you say exactly—”

  “Because I’m not brave. That’s exactly what I told them, and it’s the truth.”

  “But exactly why do you think—”

  “Because I just know I’m not brave, okay?”

  “Well, you were brave enough to levitate a little boy out of the path of a speeding car.”

  “Yeah. And like I told the agents, that was just a weird, flukey thing. If I were in any kind of a fight situation, and if I had more than a split-second to think about things, I know I’d choke. I know I’d go tearing off to safety, leaving anyone who depended on me hanging. I might even have to be rescued, making other people put themselves in danger.”

  “No. No, you’re not the ‘needing-to-be-rescued’ type.”

  “Oh, wow. And because a man is telling me this, it must be true, right? Years from now, I’ll be saying, ‘I never knew I wasn’t the ‘needing-to-be-rescued’ type until a man told me I wasn’t.' Is that it?”

  “No. I’m telling you that you’re not the ‘needing-to-be-rescued’ type as one human being to another, because I think you need to hear it.”

  “And next, I suppose you’re going to tell me that I can ‘find my bravery’ or something like that, just by watching you. Is that about right?”

  “No. I won’t be condescending and tell you that you can learn to become brave by watching me. You’re already brave, Avery. You’re strong, too. Any woman who has survived a childhood loss like the one you—”

  “Don’t. I’m warning you, Jim.”

  “All right, then. Any woman who’s survived essentially being dragged off to a shifter camp by government agents and
has lived to tell about it with her wits still intact is brave and strong. Though maybe that was more of a passive bravery and strength, but that’s not the only kind of bravery and strength in you. There’s something else, something I can see in your eyes when you become a bit combative with me, which is turning out to be fairly frequently. And it’s something that makes me think that if you could just accept your bravery instead of fighting against it—instead of trying to deny it—you could be—”

  “The strongest Gifted in this village? Even one of the strongest Gifteds the world has ever seen? Please spare me your inspirational—”

  “I was going to say phenomenal. Just, phenomenal. That’s what you could be, Avery. And if you find that inspiring, well, I’m sorry. In the least sorry way possible.”

  To my horror, tears suddenly began prickling behind my eyelids, and I wrenched my hand free from Jim’s to wipe my eyes, even though I could have done this with my hand that was already free.

  “I think I want you to go now.”

  “Avery, please just—”

  “You may be the ‘sheriff’ in Timberline, but you’re not the ‘sheriff’ of me, and you’re not the ‘sheriff’ inside my cabin, so please just leave.”

  I needed him to, because my prickly eyes were getting worse, and I was determined not to let him see me cry.

  After a long moment just looking at me, Jim rose from the couch. “Fine. I’ll go, if you really want me to.”

  “I do.”

  “All right, then. And as far as training today, I guess you’re off the hook for now, because I’ve canceled it in light of last night. Everyone’s tired, and I still have some things to deal with. But as for Tuesday—”

  “I get it. I’ll be there. Lest you drag me there by my hair.”

  “You really think I’d do that?”

  I found I couldn’t look at him. I found I couldn’t respond to what he’d said, either.