Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (15 page)

J
ack hadn’t even
realized that he’d been holding his breath until he breathed a sigh of relief
when he saw her car still parked out front of the cabin. It had been an anxious
drive from Rosie’s to Cassie’s cabin and he drove as fast as he dared on the
treacherous mountain roads. He needn’t have worried. She was still at home and
safe.

His bear purred
inside, relieved that all was well. His mate was safe.

As he approached
the door, his sense that something was off began to surface. The front door was
ajar and he sensed incongruous odors. Tobacco. Whiskey. Male sweat and
pheromones. Nothing good could come out of that combination.

Drawing his Glock,
he shouldered the door all the way open and entered the cabin, gun up and
sweeping all four corners.

The place was
completely deserted. Not good. Not good at all.

Trying not to get
ahead of himself, he began to search the room for more than just intruders. He
looked for clues. The good news was that there was no blood. His bear sniffed
the air and agreed. She hadn’t been harmed. At least not here in the cabin.

A section of
floorboard had been pried from the corner of the room. He stepped over to it
and looked into the void under the floor. It was empty. Nothing but dirt and
the gnarled fingers of tree roots that had sought moisture from the soil under
the house.

Something had been
in there, though. There was a smooth, rectangular imprint in the dirt at the
bottom of the hole. Fresh, moist dirt. Whatever had been there had been removed
recently.

Holstering his
weapon, Jack weighed his options as he thought through the likely scenario.
Someone had been there very recently and taken something from under the floor
of the cabin. Cassie’s car was still there, but Cassie wasn’t, so someone had
taken her from the cabin. He assumed it was against her will. From the scent
left by the intruders, there were at least three of them. He detected three
distinct brands of cigarette. Maybe one of them was a non-smoker. He’d assume
at least four hostiles that needed to be tracked and dealt with, just to be
safe. Of course there could be more. He had no way of knowing.

He didn’t care how
many there were. He was going after them and he wouldn’t stop until they had
been neutralized and Cassie returned to her home, safe and under his
protection. That was his mission.

With a purposeful
and determined stride, Jack walked to his patrol car and made a radio call. He
was going to need backup. Regardless of how many there were or where they had
taken Cassie, he couldn’t deal with them and get away without some help.

Stripping off his
service weapon and locking it in the glove compartment, Jack looked around to
ensure he was alone and unobserved before shifting into his bear form. Within
seconds, the enormous Grizzly towered in the small clearing, sniffing the air
seeking traces of the scent he needed to track.

With an almighty
and fearsome growl, the bear locked on a scent and bowled its way through the
forest, knocking down small trees in its path as it ran down the hill in search
of its precious mate. The only thing in the world he cared about right now.

Arresting his
descent with his sharp claws and massive paws, the bear tried to maintain
control of his downward traverse. He was no good to anyone if he lost control
on the steep slopes and ended up in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the
mountain.

That was it! He
knew where they had taken Cassie. The scent led in the right direction and his
gut instinct told him he was right. He couldn’t afford to be wrong. Cassie’s
life might depend on it. Skidding to make a last minute course correction the
giant bear resumed his fast paced descent down the mountain slope.

She was counting
on him.

B
y the time they
removed the fetid, filthy sack from her head, Cassie already had much of the
fight taken out of her. She’d struggled with all her might from the time they
grabbed her until they offloaded her from the back of the truck, trussed like a
Thanksgiving turkey. She had nothing left.

That didn’t mean
she’d given up. The feisty shine in her eyes when they removed the hood should
have told them that, although they were too stupid to recognize it.

There were three
of them. Dirty roughnecks all of them with decayed teeth, grimy clothes and a
reek of body odor that made her want to gag. One of them had a thinning comb
over and a huge boil adorning his already ugly face. With a large hoop earring
in each ear, he almost looked like a pirate, but the hoops were too big and
they made him look more like a down and out cross dresser.

The second one was
younger, his hair thicker but dirtier and he still had a good dose of acne, as
if the rotting, crooked teeth weren’t enough. Cassie just about felt sorry for
him. But not sorry enough.

The third
kidnapper had a short, almost nonexistent neck and a head shaped like a bullet.
He was clearly the leader, the alpha dog by the way the other two deferred to
him almost constantly. He was the one she was going to have to take out first.
Hard and fast. If she could do that, there was a good chance the remaining two
would be manageable, although she didn’t like the two against one odds, even if
they were underlings.

In the middle of
the dirty, disused warehouse sat the old strong box. The three of them had
managed to lift it from the hole. It was the central feature of the otherwise
empty room, sitting under a bright halogen lamp. Scratched and marked, but
still tightly closed. The padlocks showed no sign of yielding.

They don’t make
‘em like that anymore
.
Cassie smiled at the frustration they must be feeling. Their impotent efforts
to open an old strong box must have really grated on these tough guys who
looked like they usually got what they wanted.

Bullet head gave
Cassie a back hand across the face, drawing a small worm of blood from her
nose.

“Think this is
funny do ya?” he shouted down at her then raised his hand again. “Not so funny
now, is it?” Then he thought better of it. The boss had told him to keep her in
good condition in case they still needed her.

Cassie flinched,
but tried to hold firm, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of cowering to
his violence.

Her hands were zip
tied behind her back and her ankles were also zip tied. She didn’t like her
chances of breaking free of her restraints. She was a big, strong girl, but not
that
strong. She was going to have to play it out with these losers a
while longer until an opportunity presented itself.

“Where’s the key?”
Bullet Head screamed at her, his face inches from hers, showering her with
angry droplets of spittle.

Cassie spat and
shook her head in a vain attempt to rid herself of his saliva.

“Go fuck yourself
in the ear!” she yelled defiantly.

“Well .. well. A
fiery one. Just how I like it. Bet a big girl like you could give a guy like me
one hell of a ride, hey?” He cackled and made a disgusting snorting sound. “You
know what they call me?”

“Bullet Head?” she
retorted.

His pock marked
face flashed crimson with fury. “Bitch!” he spat at her. He wanted to slap her
but knew he shouldn’t. The boss wasn’t a tolerant man and he knew what happened
to the last one of their gang who stepped out of line. He grimaced at the
thought. Who knew a set of bolt cutters could do that much damage to the human
body.

“I’ll show you a
thing or two when this is over and we don’t need you or your wise ass mouth any
more.”

Bolt cutters. That
was it.

Bullet head’s face
lit up like he’d actually just had an idea. An evil smirk crossed his lips as
he left the warehouse, walking fast like he was on a mission.

When he returned,
he carried with him the largest pair of bolt cutters Cassie had ever seen. He
was still smiling.

This can’t be
good.
She was out of
options and out of time and had no clear means of breaking free or escaping.

“They call me a
chubby chaser. Behind my back, that is. Nobody would dare say it to my face, as
pretty as it is and all. You’re just my type and we’re gonna have us some fun
when this business is done.” He bent down to remove her shoes. “Which little
piggy is gonna get chopped off and sent to market first?” An evil laugh rose
from his throat.

Cassie kicked him
with all her might, using the full force of both legs to plant her feet square
in Bullet Heads nose. With a satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage, he fell
back on his ass and flapped around on the floor like a freshly caught fish.
Screaming and spraying blood all over the floor.

While the other
two looked on helplessly in shock or in fear, Cassie didn’t much care which,
she scooped up the heavy and cumbersome bolt cutters and snapped through the
zip ties securing her ankles. She was then able to wriggle one leg at a time up
so that she could thread them through her bound wrists. Eventually, she worked
her hands from her back to her front. Holding the bolt cutters open with her
feet, she managed to feed the hard plastic between the jaws of the tool and saw
it against the blade. Finally, they broke apart, leaving her wrists unbound.

She rubbed
circulation into her swollen wrists as she took stock of the situation. The
other two had recovered their wits by now and posed a serious threat as they
approached her from opposite sides. They were trying to divide her attention
and corner her. It was working, too.

Then the shit hit
the fan.

T
he crash was
deafening. The entire end wall of the warehouse disintegrated in a hail of
splintered wood, broken beams and a cloud of dirt and dust. Like a bomb had
gone off, destroying an enormous section of the building. But it wasn’t a bomb.

It was a bear.

A Grizzly Bear.

A nine foot tall,
800 pound grizzly bear and it didn’t look very happy at all. Its massive jaws
widened as the huge beast let out a bloodcurdling growl before snapping shut.
The bear eyed both of the remaining kidnappers. Bullet Head made himself scarce
as soon as the wall exploded. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit. He
crawled away in the hope of remaining hidden long enough to escape.

The other two were
defenseless. Their guns were on the other side of the room. Who needed guns to
guard a zip tied girl, anyway? They were regretting that train of logic and
looking around frantically for the fastest escape route. There was only one way
out. The problem was that the bear was between them and their escape route.

They looked to
each other, eyes wide with fear, hoping the other had some idea they hadn’t yet
thought of. Too terrified to talk, they skulked behind their prisoner and used
her as a human shield, hoping the bear would be so busy tearing her apart that
they could slip away undetected.

The bear sprinted
forward with speed and agility that belied its sheer bulk, taking all three of
them by surprise. Huge paws moved like lightning and before she knew what was
happening, Cassie was scooped up by the powerful yet surprisingly gentle pads
of the bear’s paws and carefully and deliberately set down to one side, leaving
the two goons and the bear all alone to face each other.

Cassie was stunned
and bewildered. She was sure it was the same bear she saw at the spring, but
what was it doing here? Why did it seem to want her out of harm’s way? She
scooched backward on the floor, distancing herself from the bear. That’s when
she backed into something unmistakable.

The cold steel of
a gun barrel. A very big gun barrel.

“T
hat’s enough of
that heroic display, Sheriff Raven. No need to scare my boys any more than you
already have,” the man spoke calmly and without any sign of fear, despite the
almost lethal proximity of the gigantic bear. The bear didn’t appear to back
down at the sight of the new intruder, despite the fact that he could see he
held a weapon of some kind pointed at Cassie.

“Before you do
anything rash, Mr. Raven,” the man held the gun aloft, “I’m holding a Benelli
M4. A Super 90 to be exact. Military spec. I’m holding enough firepower in my
hands to stop an animal twice your size, so don’t even think about it.”

The lethal
looking, high powered shotgun was pointed directly at the bears head as if to
emphasize his point.

The human brain
inside the bear did the math and visualized the spread of the shot at that
distance. Not only would it tear him to shreds and way beyond his ability to
heal, the cone shaped spread of shot from the weapon would most likely kill
Cassie if the shooter fired from his current position.

The bear dropped
its paws and slumped into a submissive posture. There was no point taking risks
when the tactical advantage had been well and truly lost.

Cassie was still
looking around for the Sheriff. She didn’t see Raven anywhere and didn’t
understand why the gunman seemed to be talking to a
bear
.

“Oh, you poor
dear. You didn’t know? How adorable.”

Cassie turned
around and looked at the man properly for the first time. His hair was short,
like Raven’s but salt and pepper. He was older than Raven, but his face was
hard and his body equally trim and muscular. A man whose job kept him lithe and
trim. A man with  a dangerous occupation.

He wore black
denim jeans, a black shirt and a full length black leather coat. It was a fair
bet he had a small arsenal hidden under there. She’d seen his type before.
Former soldier turned mercenary turned hired thug. Even his eyes were hard.
Lifeless and soulless, like sharks eyes.

“I’m not a fool
Raven. I was watching the cabin in case someone else showed up. There you were,
right on cue doing your cute little bear ‘thing’ and scampering off to save
your precious girlfriend. So predictable, right?”

A heavy silence
hung in the air. Cassie looked from the gunman to the bear. The bear met her
gaze and she saw something in its eyes. Not fear. Sadness. The bear was
concerned for
her
. None of it made any sense.

Then the bear did
something impossible. Something beyond her comprehension or ability to deal
with.

Cassie blacked
out.