“Yeah, you’re real fucking funny, asshole. Now get off me!”
Baer slowly got to his feet and climbed off Grey before continuing to wander off into the South Georgia woods. God help them if anyone happened to be hiking through the woods near their property line. Baer was going to give them the scare of a lifetime.
It was on the tip of Clay’s tongue to call Baer back, but he figured the poor guy needed a few moments alone to pull his emotions together.
Grey shoved to his feet and violently wiped a hand across his face where Baer had licked him. It was a decent payback as they went. And there weren’t too many people who could say they survived having a grizzly bear crush and lick them.
“He’s really a bear,” Grey said after a moment, staring at where they last saw Baer. “I’ll admit…I kind of thought it might be an illusion. I felt the fur. He was really five hundred pounds! It’s…”
“Crazy, I know,” Clay filled in.
“Impossible! Magic isn’t real. Gods and goddesses aren’t real.” Grey lifted his empty hands in front of him and shook them at the sky as if his words alone could change what they’d both already seen with their own eyes.
“And yet…”
Grey dropped his hands to his sides, letting them slap against his legs. “Yeah. I know. Baer is now Boo-Boo, and he’s walking through the woods, scaring the shit out of the local wildlife.”
Clay snorted. He couldn’t argue with that assessment. He wandered over to a tree and sat down, placing his back to the thick trunk. Peeling off his shoes and socks, he placed his bare feet to the grass, letting a deeper sense of strength and connection seep into him. It didn’t make a lick of sense, but he couldn’t argue with the peace he got from just touching the earth like this.
Grey slowly walked over and stretched out on the grass next to him. Clay couldn’t help cautiously watching him, while trying to make sure that he never actually met the man’s gaze.
“Was it difficult? To use your powers?” Clay asked.
The Soul Weaver shook his head. “Not to get inside of Baer’s head. It was more difficult to sort through everything to find the important things. The things a person doesn’t want you to see.”
“A lot of noise?”
Grey’s brow furrowed again. “Ever see that show hoarders? It’s a lot like that. Stepping into a room where thoughts, feelings, and memories are stacked up on top of each other with no rhyme or reason that I can discern. There’s also this feeling that if you pull at the wrong thing, a mountain of other thoughts and feelings are going to come down on top of you.” Grey paused and licked his lips. When he spoke again, his voice was a little shaky. “I-I think I could actually get trapped in someone’s mind like that.”
“And the childhood memory?”
“Bright and shiny, like it was new. But connected to so many other emotions and decisions. It hasn’t gotten buried under other things. Probably one of those things that haunts Baer still.”
Clay grunted. There were more than a few things he’d prefer Grey didn’t see in his brain.
“I think I can make you forget what you heard.” Grey tilted his head up to look at Clay and smirked. “I’m not sure how I would do it. More like a feeling. I think that’s some of what this power is. I can read emotions, thoughts, and memories. But I can also wipe memories. Could come in handy if you want Dane to forget something he saw.”
A chill ran along Clay’s spine at the thought of Grey fucking around in Dane’s mind, but if he was honest with himself, it was a good suggestion. If they wanted to protect Dane from this world, it was an option. Not a good one. Not one he ever wanted to seriously consider, but it was out there.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Clay murmured. “Are…are your powers always on?”
“What do you mean?”
Clay frowned. “Baer can always hear the thoughts of animals if they’re close. I can feel the power of the earth when I’m touching it, but not as much when I’m in the house.”
“Yeah, I can feel your emotions without trying. Distrust is rolling off you in huge waves,” Grey admitted sharply.
“Sorry. I—”
“I get it, Clay. No one wants the privacy of their mind invaded. We’ve all got things we want to keep private.” Grey glared at the grass. He picked up a small twig and snapped it between two fingers. “As gifts go, this one is pretty damn shitty. I’ve never been comfortable around people. I’m a writer. We’re natural introverts. And now I’m being overwhelmed with all these feelings. Makes it difficult to sort through what’s mine and what’s yours.”