Page 13 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
“Because of how I…” Too late, Lila noticed the child’s big dark eyes looked bigger and darker because they were filling with tears. “Oh, shit. Don’t cry.Pleasedon’t cry.” Lila hated tears, including her own. It was always awkward and weird and terrible, and she never knew what to do with her hands. Pat the weeper on the shoulder? Hug them? Hand over a box of tissues? Or a sandwich? Or just wave goodbye, hoping they’d leave? Or wave at the weeper whilesheleft?
Worse, she was still stuck mid-rise. Should she sit back down? Or go to the fridge for more milk? Or stay frozen, adding physical discomfort to an already awkward situation?
It was even worse when the weeper denied they were weeping. Then she had to sit there and pretend everything was normal and that the weeper wasn’t leaking like a soft tire. Nine times out of ten, weeping didn’t solve anything; it was almost always a waste of time, energy, and saline.
“I’m not crying!” This in a voice thick with tears and pizza.
Lila sat back down. “Well, thank God for that. If you were crying, it’d be super awkward.” Like now, for instance. Textbook example of why she hated tears. Should she reach across the table and try to hug a strange child? Who might turn into a tiny bear without warning? Should she pour milk? Or heat milk? Or just call Child Protective Services? And offerthemmilk when they came to get the kid? Actually, she should have called CPS the minute she saw the kid stuck in the basement window. And arguably last night.
But who did you call to report a bear-girl? A cop? A scientist? A Hollywood agent?
And if youweren’tgoing to call Someone In Authority, then what?
Did the guy with the Caesar haircut count as Someone In Authority? A caseworker, the kid had said. But not a very good one. Perhaps he had. Um. Other qualities. She’d noted what he didn’t have: respect for boundaries or a wedding ring. Maybe those issues were related.
Get the guy out of your head.“I’m sorry I upset you.” Lila got up, went to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of chocolate milk. She handed it off to Sally, who was blotting her tear-stained face and runny nose on a long red napkin, except there weren’t any red napkins and it was actually Lila’s scarf,fuck. “Argh, that’ll teach me not to hang it up.” Lila pulled it out of Sally’s grasp and hung it on one of the pegs on the wall next to the fridge. “How can I help you? You’re here for a reason.”
“Uh-huh. ’Cuz of you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I feel safe here.”
“That,” Lila said, “makeslesssense.”
“Plus you’re not scared of me! Not even a bit!” The child’s surprised delight was as warming as it was puzzling. “And you didn’t call the bad guys.”
“Only because I had no idea which bad guys to call. Or even which good guys. Look, if your folks are missing, shouldn’t we call the cops? Or are you the one who’s missing? In which case shouldn’t we call the cops? Or CPS? Or an agency that’s at least CPS adjacent?” Did werebears have their own Child Protective Services? Cub Protective Services? Lila thought about the puzzling call she’d endured last night
I’m afraid we don’t deal in cubs. You need to call the IPA.
and thought they probably did. The voice on the other end had been annoying, which she’d expected—what after-hours call to a faceless bureaucrat wasn’t annoying? For both parties? The lack of surprise, however, had (irony!) been a surprise. In fact, now that she thought about it, the operator’s utter lack of surprise (or any noticeable emotion) while dealing with a woman calling from a Saint Paul suburb to report a bear cub in her house was both unexpected and chilling.
And not even your average bear cub. She’d Googled the cub’s interesting coloring last night at the hotel. Sally Smalls was a sun bear, a species out of Southeast Asia. The alternative name was, hilariously, the honey bear. Completely by accident, Lila had picked the perfect snack to calm Sally down.
Sun bears were rare, too…tagged asVulnerableon the list of endangered species.
Or at least, ordinary sun bears were rare.
The IPA. Do you need the number?
Curious. She’d ponder when she had some leisure. For now… “Look, Sally, CPS or the equivalent can at least set you up in a foster—”
Sally nearly choked on her milk. “No, you can’t! They’ll kill me! They’ll tear me to pieces and go after my family and tear them up, too!”
“That’s a pretty damning summation of the foster care system. How long have you been on your own, exactly?” Lila had assumed the girl had only recently gotten lost. Or run away. Or been abandoned—fuck, she hadnoinformation here. “Calm down, you don’t have to—what are you doing?” The girl had stopped flailing; now her head was cocked sharply to the left and her knuckles whitened around the bottle of chocolate milk. “Are your Bear-Girl senses tingling?”
“Don’t call me Bear-Girl. Do I call you Human-Lady?”
“Fair,” Lila said, then watched bemused as Sally got up, practically ran to the fridge, then started poking around. “Also, and no judgement here, but what the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for baking soda.”
“Sure. Sure. Totally normal thing that strange children do all the time in my kitchen.”
“Ha!”
“How did you even know I have that?”
