Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 106(@200wpm)___ 85(@250wpm)___ 71(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 106(@200wpm)___ 85(@250wpm)___ 71(@300wpm)
Jane and Zoe glance at each other and then laugh nervously. “Just stay with the group and we’ll all have a wonderful afternoon,” Jane says.
We follow them into the greenhouse and they’re great, letting the kids get their hands dirty with the vegetables and showing them how to plant seeds. It used to be that parents would get upset when their kids came home dirty, but now the parents thank me. With videogames and TV, it’s getting harder and harder to get kids to play outside.
After about twenty minutes, I do a quick headcount to make sure all my kids are still here. My heart nearly stops when I’m one short.
I know immediately who it is.
Gavin.
He usually comes by my side every five minutes or so to ask outlandish questions, and it’s been strangely quiet.
My heart starts pounding as I run out of the greenhouse and desperately start looking around. I spot him on the other side of the valley, approaching the forest.
“Gavin!” I shout, but he’s too far away to hear.
Oh, come on. I take a deep breath and start sprinting across the valley. The last thing I need is for him to wander into the forest and get covered with poison ivy.
“Gavin!” I shout as I run. “Get back here!”
He either doesn’t hear me or he’s ignoring me, but he disappears into the trees.
I arrive at the forest a few minutes later and shiver when I see how dark it is inside. This kid…
With no other options, I duck my head under a branch and enter the forest.
Chapter Two
Adrian
My grizzly bear snarls and lets out a low growl when the smell of strangers hits his nose. It takes less than a second for him to fly into a vicious rage. His fur rises as he charges toward the source of the unfamiliar scent, slamming into trees and snapping branches as his livid paws thunder against the ground with every murderous step.
Calm down.
He lets out a nasty growl as he continues charging forward. I can feel everything he’s feeling. The wild untamed need for violence. The bloodthirsty and monstrous need to dominate everything and everyone, me included.
I’m his prisoner.
He’s a feral psycho and I’ve never stood a chance.
It wasn’t always like this. I had a life once.
But then puberty hit and my grizzly’s hostility started to grow. His rabid fury became overwhelming until one day he wouldn’t let me back out.
I’ve tried everything to pull him in, but it’s like I’m wedged in cement down here. Sometimes, it feels like he’s holding my head underwater, laughing as I drown.
Back in the olden days, they would have put a feral bear like mine down for the greater good. It wouldn’t have mattered that I was in here too. It’s always been too dangerous to let a beast like him live. They would have ended his reign of terror with a shotgun slug to the temple. My nightmare would have been over.
And it would have been the right thing to do.
I used to wish that my brothers would take mercy on me and settle it for good. I guess they think letting me live is compassion, but it’s not. It’s weakness. A truly compassionate person would have done the hard thing and ended this torture a decade ago.
A low wicked growl rumbles through our body as my bear gets close. I can smell the scent now.
It smells like apple sauce, cheap generic soap, and blue jeans.
It smells like trouble. It smells like a disaster waiting to happen.
I wrap my hands around his essence and try with all my might to pull him in, but he’s as unmovable as ever. I don’t have anything good to say about my grizzly bear, but I’ll give him one thing, he’s a strong motherfucker.
I watch helplessly through his eyes as he approaches the edge of the forest.
No…
Panic and dread starts to fill me.
Don’t. Please don’t.
A cute boy is standing in the forest—in my bear’s forest—staring up at the trees, oblivious to the danger quickly descending on him.
Run!
I scream, but there’s no use. He can’t hear me from where I’m trapped down here. No one can.
The kid has messy brown hair and dirt all over his jeans. I picture his mother this morning, tying his shoes and putting a couple of quarters into his pocket to make a phone call in case he got lost on his field trip. The dread starts to build inside of me. No phone call can save him now.
My bear creeps forward, snarling as the boy’s presence in his forest—in my prison—triggers his fiery temper.
I don’t think he’d hurt a kid—at least, I hope he wouldn’t—but I know at the very least my grizzly would terrify him to make him pay for daring to step foot in his domain.
I can taste the anger. The outrage. I’m drowning in it as my bear lowers his head and lets out a low feral growl.