I had to save them.
I screamed out as loudly as I could, “Grayson! Watch out!”
The shotgun blasted beside me and I fell sideways, away from the sound and the man who shoved me. I put my head up and watched as Trevor’s father growled and began to tug at his own clothes.
He was going to shift, it seemed, and that wasn’t something I was hanging around for.
When he opened the front door and began to transform, I realized that was the only chance I’d get to escape.
I got to my feet, scrabbling over the dirt littering the floor, and my own painful injuries, and wrenched open the back door, stumbling out into the forest.
I started to run, then heard the sound of a howl.
A wolf. Hurt.
I stopped running and turned back around.
I couldn’t abandon them now, not that they’d see it that way, I was sure. But how could I help?
The gun!
I raced back inside the old cabin and grabbed the shotgun.
My parents were classic trailer trash, and they loved their guns.
I hadn’t shot one since I was a teenager. But I knew how to load one, and God help me, I knew how to fire one.
I hit the barrel breach lever, checking for shells.
Empty.
I looked around the room for the box, forcing my one eye to focus despite the stress.
I felt for them, checking the shelves, the drawers in the table.
“Yes!”
There was a red box in the bottom drawer, full of shotgun shells.
There was a flurry of noise outside. I looked through the window.
The bears were winning, somehow, and my men needed me.
I loaded the gun quickly and slid some extra shells into my back pocket.
I walked out onto the front step and levelled the gun at the black bear, who had his teeth in the black wolf beneath him.
I lifted the gun and set it just right in my shoulder, so I didn’t damage my shoulder, and squeezed the trigger.
The bear let go of the wolf and staggered sideways.
Then he turned on me.
His slobbering, saliva covered mouth opened to reveal a mass of sharp teeth.
He charged and I aimed the gun again and fired directly into his face.
He landed at my feet, a dead four-hundred-pound animal.