Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Beck

I was searching on my phone for a place to have the replacement door delivered from, as Misty chided Cricket to stay still as she fixed her hair in the other room. I chuckled to myself. That little girl was just as spicy as her mama. They had fought back and forth since Misty started. Cricket didn’t make it easy on her mom. Misty was doing her damndest; there was no doubt about that. I had realized another layer to the puzzle that was Adelaide, she had found her own family, her own pack per se. There were still many missing pieces of attempting to understand why her family had kept what she was a secret. The answers would come in time. In the meantime, I had a door to repair and a wolverine to impress. Misty wasn’t the only one under this roof with secrets. Mrs. Gonzalez and I needed to have a chat.

An hour later, Cricket bounded down the hallway, her curls defined and bouncing, eyes excited as if whatever she had observed overnight was forgotten. Misty grabbed her hoodie off a chair and pulled it on, following her daughter out the door. I followed at a distance, keeping to the other side of the street as Cricket boarded the schoolbus.

Misty had her hands in her hoodie pockets, and I wondered what possessed her to wear the garment despite the heat.

She jogged across the street to me and kept walking in the direction back to the building. I kept by her side.

“I know she needs more than me,” she admitted out loud, maybe for the first time. I didn’t know this prickly woman well enough to read her. I just silently listened as she continued.

“What are you?” she asked, eyes forward, letting me speak without them boring into me. That was all good and fair, but I didn’t know her well enough to give the full explanation.

“A bear,” was all I offered, and she nodded.

“You're bigger than the ones I’ve met,” she pointed out.

“I am,” I agreed.

“They were afraid of you, weren’t they?”

I shrugged. “I suppose you could say that it took both of them to knock me off balance so they could make a run for it. I only let them go because I wanted to check on you. I never expected your daughter to be one of us. Do you understand what that means for both of you?”

“I overheard Cricket’s father talking after I got pregnant. When I confronted him about what he intended to do with us, he went nuts. When Adelaide found out what he did to me, she took me to her mom’s for the weekend and went back to town. I never saw Cricket’s dad again. About a year ago, his brother hunted me down and started showing up randomly. The second he got a scent of Cricket, there was no stopping him. He's been trying to get me to give her up or get us to go with his people ever since. Adelaide was the only one who kept them at bay. I don’t know why, she was just a human, but something about them posing a threat to us just flipped a switch in her; she broke his arm the first time they met, and ever since then, if she’s around, he's all talk and backs the fuck off.”

“You're sure she doesn’t know?”

“Positive. She would have recognized what Cricket’s dad was, what Cricket is. There's no way she would have…” she cut herself short.

“Would have what?”

“It’s nothing. Some secrets are just better kept,” she said cryptically. I couldn’t help but think she was talking about more than just letting Adelaide in on her secret.

“Bringing humans into our world is never safe,” I agreed. “But, given what's happened to her, she’s already in it,” I pointed out.

“I suppose you're right,” she admitted as we reached the store below the apartments.

“I’d better get going, Valentina is going to be swamped,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

“I should have your door up by lunch,” I let her know, and followed her in. She ducked behind the counter, grabbing an apron. Valentina called to her in a string of Spanish which Misty answered in her own. I grabbed some tasty candy labeled from Mexico and a glass bottled Coke and got into a line that wrapped around the perimeter of the tiny store. At the counter, Valentina greeted me. I had been in here a few times this last week snooping in off hours of the day when it wasn’t bustling like it was now.

“Señor Oso, what will it be?” she asked.

“What do you suggest?”

She hollered to Misty in the back in spanish again, and she answered in kind. She rang me up, and I paid and stepped aside, wondering what I was even buying. A few moments later, I was passed a paper bag with a styrofoam container that felt like a brick.

“Enjoy!” Misty said with a smile she obviously forced for work and turned back to the busy assembly line she was working at with another woman. I went out the front door of the shop and up to Misty’s apartment to wait for the door to be delivered. I sat at Misty’s table and unloaded the food. Five tacos loaded with eggs, meat, and beans, and topped with cotija cheese on fresh tortillas. A few lime quarters were tucked into the side, and 3 containers of sauce: crema, verde, and a red sauce that, just by the scent of that one, had my mouth on fire. I was not a masochist, so I closed it and set it aside before digging in. I couldn’t help but groan as the flavors enveloped my mouth. This, this was heaven.

The door arrived an hour later, and as promised, I was installing it before noon when the sound of footsteps made me look down the hall. Mrs. Gonzalez narrowed her eyes, looking from the broken door against the wall to the new heavy-duty door I was installing with its extra locks.

“You have one minute, bear, explain yourself before you are gone,” she said, her words terse. Wolverines were animals to be respected and wary of. They may not be large but their claws cut deep not to mention thier will to prevail dominated even the strongest alphas.

“I’m here to protect them, her friend—” was all I got out before she interrupted me.

“Adelaide,” she said simply making me note she didn’t have any other friends of note.

I nodded, “She got into some trouble with some wolves—”

“Mcfuckster,” she interrupted again.

“Yeah, that creep. Anyway, Misty had some bear trouble last night, so I’m fixing the door.” I pointed out.

She tilted her head, considering my words. “You and I, bear, need to have a chat,” she said.

“We do,” I agreed when my ears picked up on the woman down the hall moving around in her apartment.

“Not here,” I said, my eyes turning from the woman’s door back to her.

“Agreed,” she replied. “Come find me later,” was all she said before she turned and walked away. The wolverine was prickly for sure, but it seemed Misty and Cricket had more guardians than just me. They just didn’t know it, or at least Misty didn’t. I’d ask Cricket later. The important thing was placing us all on the same page.

I’d find time to have a conversation with the landlady in the coming days, right now making sure these two ladies were protected was my first priority. If she was that worried about me hanging around she would come find me.