True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) (2 page)

Finally, Baird pulled the truck onto the side of the road just as a few snowflakes began to flit through the air. Baird was hopping out of the driver’s side door before Theron could speak. They were in the middle of nowhere.

Baird made quick work of dropping the crates into the roadway. Theron took a moment, staring up ahead at what little could be seen – a small meeting style building, and way off in the distance, a few small, white trailers like those in Kilikut.

“Where to from -”

The passenger side door opened and Baird grabbed Theron by the shoulder of his jean jacket, yanking him out. Theron only just managed to hold onto his backpack as he lost his footing and fell to the ground. He looked up to find Baird standing over him, a wide smile on his face.

“Alright then, Mr. Talbot. I’d start running.”

Theron’s eyes went wide as Baird pulled back the bolt action of his rifle and shouldered it, again.

“What? Are you fucking crazy?”

Baird smiled. “You’re a god damn shapeshifter, but it’s me that’s crazy? That’s rich. I’ll count to twenty. See how far you can get.”

“Wait! You can’t do this!”

“One…”

Theron snatched his pack up from the ground and took off, barreling over boulders and brush to put distance between himself and this madman. He could hear Baird counting in the distance, his tone betraying a smile on the bastard’s face. Theron scanned the horizon as he ran, praying for a hill or some kind of cover, but there was nothing.

Dear god, was this man really going to shoot him?

Theron felt his ankle turn as he stepped on a loose boulder, and he tumbled down into the brush, rolling ass over tea kettle into a small ditch.

The gun shot split the world wide open for an instant, then Baird’s laughter echoed across the field, followed by the sound of him climbing back in his truck and driving away.

Theron waited a long moment, feeling a searing pain in his ankle. Finally, he lifted his head to look back at the road. There was no sign of the truck. No sign of much of anything in any direction.

Theron lay there for a long moment, staring up at the gray clouds overhead. He had no idea where he was, no idea where the rest of the Holdens might be. All he knew was that he was alone in deeper wilderness than most people could ever imagine, and he knew no one for over a thousand miles.

And his ankle was busted – or at the very least sprained.

And the temperature was dropping.

He took his phone out of the backpack and pulled up his contacts. Mom, Dad, Maggie, John Fenn, Uncle Bill – not much he could do, he was down on the main reserve. This wasn’t a normal reserve. Bill and Baird called it ‘the Extension.’

Theron had never heard of anything like it before.

When no sounds betrayed Baird’s return, Theron fought to steady himself on a boulder sticking up from beneath the grass and pushed himself upright. He heaved the backpack up onto his shoulders, flinching as he tried putting weight on his ankle.

God damn it, Ther. Nice job. You’re gonna fucking die out here
, he thought.

Still, he limped out of the ditch, staring back down the road toward the gate. It was the only direction he knew for sure he’d find another living person. He took a step on the busted ankle and growled in pain.

“Don’t go that way.”

Theron startled, losing his footing as he tried to turn to meet the voice and toppled again, this time landing ass first on the very same boulder. He ignored the pain, turning toward the figure that had snuck up to just seven yards away.

The girl’s eyebrows were up as she watched him. “You don’t look so good,” she said.

Neither did she. She had long black hair braided down each side of her face, but her shoulders and collar bone were prominent. She wasn’t eating enough.

Theron swallowed. “I don’t know where else to go,” he said finally.

“I can tell. You can come with me if you want.”

Theron rolled onto his knees, his ass screaming in pain as he fought to use battered muscles. “And where are you going?”

She gave a flat lipped look that reminded him of his mother when she was about to say something sarcastic. “I’m going to school.”

Theron’s eyes went wide as he looked around him. “School? Out here?”

She furrowed her brow at him. “Not out here. In a schoolhouse. The only reason I’m out here is because Mr. Davenport just dropped the commodity boxes. I wait out here for him so I might get a bit of the good stuff before the adults all take it.”

“There are people out here?” Theron asked, shielding his eyes as he fought to see as far into the distance as he could.

“You’re not too bright, are you?”

The little girl was beginning to remind him of Karen Talbot more than he would like.

“I suppose not. I’m Theron, by the way.”

The girl stepped forward and offered Theron a hand. He took it, letting her help him up. She was surprisingly strong for such a frail looking thing.

“I’m Buniq. You can call me Bunny, though. Everybody else does.”

“Bunny?” Theron said, wincing as his foot hit the ground again. He settled his weight onto his left leg, fighting to decide how much weight he could support without screaming like a toddler in the candy aisle. “How far is your school?”

She shrugged and walked toward the road. “It’s right over there.”

Theron paused a moment. He thought he heard a woman’s voice calling. He clenched his teeth and followed the little girl. Bunny was already done rifling through one of the crates from Baird Davenport’s truck when he caught up to her on the road. 

“They’re not even trying anymore,” she said, unwrapping a granola bar and turning up the road. She marched off before Theron could glance into the crates. He recognized some of the contents – the reservation standard known as ‘Government Cheese.’

Theron steeled himself and followed Bunny, limping heavily as he went.

“Come on, slowpoke. You’re gonna make me late.”

Buniq sauntered toward the small building up ahead. It looked similar to the meeting house on the reservation back home, but worn down and rickety. It looked as though siding had been chipped away, then collected and glued back into place in a desperate attempt to keep the building upright. Theron touched his hand to his ribs and winced. He hadn’t felt the bruise when he hit the ground, but clearly that rocky ground had its way with him. Buniq marched up the meeting house steps and opened the door wide.

“What are we doing here?”

She glared at him with exasperation. “We’re going to school. Miss Dalton might -”

They both stopped as they caught a light, female voice swearing softly nearby.

A figure appeared at the corner of the building and Theron’s mouth fell open.

“Who the hell are you?” She said, glaring at him.

It wasn’t the first time someone met him with such disdain since he arrived in Labrador, but this woman didn’t need a gun to knock him over.

The woman was pale faced, freckles across the bridge of her nose and wild auburn hair in coarse ringlet curls, swirling around her face in the cold air. Theron swallowed hard, forgetting his bum ankle for a minute and almost stepping down. He caught himself, holding out a hand to introduce himself.
“Good morning. You must be Miss Dalton. I’m Theron.”

CHAPTER TWO

SINEAD

The small piece of course stone cracked in her hand, driving her fingernail into the chalkboard before she could react. The grinding sound echoed through the empty room and sent a shudder through her very bones. Sinead stepped away from the chalkboard and squealed to herself, doing a little dance of jittery displeasure.

There were very few sensations she hated more than nails on a chalkboard.

She glanced at the floor and found the broken stone, worn down on one side, now a sliver of its former size. She couldn’t write with it anymore.

Sinead Dalton sighed, pulling her coat around her shoulders. Her breath was visible even in the small schoolhouse, but she didn’t dare turn on the heater until the kids arrived in another hour.

Not that they needed the heat. These kids were all special. The cold didn’t bother them like it did normal people.

Still, the Extension only had so much power. She couldn’t bring herself to take more than she absolutely needed.

“Well, god damn it,” she said to herself, striding over to the window to look outside. It was early Autumn, but the weather outside was still bone chilling when the wind blew. At least in the small schoolhouse, she could burrow into her coats and pretend she was roughing it.

That thought was much nicer than reality.

The subtle sound of a few footsteps in the gravel notified her to someone coming down the road. Sinead leaned into the window and caught a quick glimpse of a familiar dark haired girl. Sinead rushed over to the schoolhouse door and peeked her head out.

“Bunny Holden, what are you doing out and about so early?”

The young girl turned back to her, eyes wide, feigning innocence. “I’m just going for a walk. I’ll be in school on time.”

Sinead gave her a raised eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure you will.” They stared at each other for a moment, but Bunny wouldn’t break. Sinead knew better than to expect otherwise.

Buniq Holden was only eleven years old, but she carried herself with the same regal air as the grown women of her family. Despite that air of grace, Sinead knew full well today was the third Sunday of the month, and the officers would be dropping the commodity boxes off this morning. Buniq was looking to get an early peek at what was inside the crates.

“Well, if you’re going to be out there anyway, why don’t you make yourself useful and find me a couple more stones for the board? Think you can do that for me, sweetheart?”

Buniq smiled and nodded, then skipped off down the gravel road, her long black braids bouncing behind her.

Sinead shut the door to the schoolhouse, watching her breath dissipate into clouds of vapor. Without the heat on, it would take a couple seconds for the air to warm up inside the schoolroom again. Sinead deliberately exhaled toward the ceiling to watch her breath fade, then shot off toward the back of the room.

She was going to have a second cup of tea that morning.

Damn it.

They say Irish Breakfast tea is made with gunpowder. At least, that’s what Sinead’s father always said. Not that she had Irish Breakfast tea available. The Extension received only so many commodity boxes each month, and since the gates to the Extension closed two years prior, the number of those boxes dwindled every few months.

They’d started with seven, dropped to six, then four.

Now, it was only three. Three crates of food stuffs to sustain the entire population of the Extension.

It wasn’t enough.

Sinead took a deep breath and pulled her saved tea bag from that morning’s cup. She’d reuse it three times before it completely lost its flavor.

Weak tea was better than none, and she was damn well going to enjoy it, she thought.

Instead, she lost her grip on the mug as a loud, shattering crack ripped through the cold air. Sinead spun around from the kitchen, barely catching the mug before it fell from her hands. She scanned each window for a sign of something outside.

That was definitely a gun shot, she thought.

Sinead’s heart shot into her throat. She remembered the last time there’d been gunshots on the Extension.

Who could they be shooting at? And why? It’s only eight in the morning, there’s no one out there except -

Sinead took off for the school door, stepping out into the frigid air just in time to see Officer Baird Davenport climb back into his truck and barrel ass back down the main drag.

There were three crates lying in the middle of the road, nothing but dust to keep watch over them.

“Buniq!” Sinead called, scanning the flat land around the schoolhouse. She couldn’t see anyone or anything.

Sinead rushed around the corner of the schoolhouse, praying Buniq had been far from Davenport and whatever inspired him to take a shot. “Bunny? Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

The ground wasn’t quite frozen, but it was rough underfoot, patches of boulder sticking up from the rough grasses and gravel patches. Sinead hurried out into the field behind the school. This was where the children always went to find new stones for Miss Dalton to write on the board with, yet Buniq wasn’t here.

Sinead was determined to find the girl, roaming in every direction, calling her name. It was several minutes before she finally turned back for the schoolhouse.

God damn it, if that man did something to her
, Sinead thought, her fists clenched tight at her sides.

“That Frenchy, bastard, son of a bitch -”

Sinead stopped dead at the corner of the schoolhouse. There standing by the front steps of the school was a stranger. A tall, stern browed stranger.

A damn handsome one at that.

He was tan skinned like the rest of the families on the Extension, his hair not as long as some. This man’s black hair stopped just below his jawline, and he wore a jean jacket with a red flannel shirt underneath. His arm was clutched across his stomach, and he leaned oddly to the right. The man seemed like he belonged – his native blood as clear as the color of his hair or eyes, yet unlike every other man within five miles, Sinead didn’t know his name.

That made him dangerous.

The Extension didn’t get visitors. The officers made damn sure of that.

Sinead heard the schoolhouse door creak as she stepped toward the strange man. She shot a glance up the steps to find Buniq there, holding the door wide open to him. Sinead lunged onto the steps to stand between him and the doorway.

She looked down at those intense brown eyes and summoned up her best glare. “Who the hell are you?”