Bear My Babies

Chapter 8

Melissa hadn’t slept much that night. Her brain wouldn’t allow her to drift into oblivion even though she had begged for it. It refused to give in to her needs, and when she threw off the covers in the morning, coffee wasn’t going to make a dent in her tired state. She sort of stumbled through her morning to get ready hoping that auto-pilot would get her through the day. Auto-pilot didn’t seem to be very observant as she walked all the way to her office door with her key in her hand as ready as she could be to start the day.

Without her body firing on all cylinders, she pushed her key into the lock and struggled with trying to open the door. Her brain would not register the destruction before her until she pulled the key out and noticed what she had been missing. Her body went numb as she surveyed everything before her. The glass on her front door where her name should have been was completely bashed out. The large front windows Tilly took pride in keeping crystal clear every morning to allow the sun to shine through had been shattered. The entire front of her building had been battered in some shape or form.

Across the front of her pretty white office was spray painted in menacing scrawl was, “stop messing with nature.” It was pretty clear whoever had done this was against her research, but why? And who?

Her stomach pitched forward as she stood and stared at the mess in front of her. Her eyes started to prickle with tears as the numbness started to fall away. She desperately wished it would come back and shroud her from the emotions bombarding her. All of her hard work was inside this office, and someone wanted to ruin it. Someone had ruined it. Saying her life’s research was messing with nature felt like a giant slap in the face. Clearly, they didn’t realize the happiness she had brought to the paranormal world. The happiness she was on the verge of bringing to another species if her trial worked. Her unmade baby was not messing with nature. She was going to bring something beautiful into this world and these people were insulting her.

The total destruction wasn’t all clear to her from the outside. She could see that they decided to take their little spray painting spree on the inside to ensure their message was received. She could see graffiti all over her front office as well, so she knew going in would be bad. With a shaky breath, she took out her phone and called the police, the tears starting to fall. Why did this happen to her? Somehow she managed to get through telling them what had happened through her sobbing. The operator tried to get her to calm down, but she wasn’t witnessing her life’s work in ruin. She hung the phone up and waited for Tilly so they could go in together. There was no way she would be strong enough to do this on her own. She needed her friend more than ever.

“Oh my God, Melissa.” A male voice from behind her startled her. She hadn’t realized she’d just been staring at the building shutting off the world around her. All anger from his phone call the night before was forgotten as she ran into Thomas’ strong arms.

“It’s awful. Why would they do this to me?” she murmured into his shirt. She buried her face into his hard chest, wanting to block out everything she had seen, everything she had yet to witness, but knew there was really no avoiding it.

“This Nathaniel’s doing?”

She felt his chest rumble as he spoke, but she didn’t move away as she answered him.

“No, I didn’t tell him anything, Thomas. You need to believe I would never put our future baby in harm’s way. I spoke to a mutual acquaintance last night and he said Nathaniel couldn’t have sent those men after you. He’s in jail at the moment, and out of favor with everyone.” She was getting angry again, but she still couldn’t remove herself from his comfort.

“Okay, it’s okay. I believe you, and I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. They caught me off guard and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry. We’ll figure this out. It has to be an enemy of the were-bear community, or shifters in general. I’m so sorry Melissa, this is all my fault.” He was still holding her and she looked up into his eyes.

“No it’s not. This is my research and my facility. You’re just a part of my bigger picture. This isn’t your fault. I’m making someone, or a lot of someones, very angry by helping shifters conceive. Now that they somehow know I am willingly subjecting myself to having a shifter baby, everything will be focused on me.”

Thomas’ jaw clenched as he took in her face. He finally pulled his gaze away from her to survey the damage over her head. He didn’t move to release her, and Melissa decided she wasn’t ready to move just yet.

Tilly arrived at that time, jamming out in her car, the bass rattling her windows. She hadn’t even looked their way and now sat putting on her makeup her head bobbing to whatever song she was listening to. Melissa decided to just let her continue to enjoy her morning, it was a friendly gesture to delay the misery she’d be walking into. Besides, she didn’t want to move from Thomas so she wasn’t going to break from him just yet. Once Tilly exited her car and turned around, she just froze with her mouth hanging wide open, her freshly applied lipstick shining in the morning sun. Melissa would have laughed at her comical face if it had been any other circumstance. Melissa reluctantly broke free of Thomas and ran to hug her friend.

“Melissa, what the hell? Who the hell did this? Was it Nathaniel? I’ll kill him!” Tilly’s eyes were burning with anger as took in what had been done to the building.

“No, it wasn’t Nathaniel, but we need to go in and see how bad it is. I didn’t want to go in without you.”

“Let’s do this. Have you called the police?”

“I did. They dispatched someone who should be here any time.”

The two locked arms and walked toward Thomas who moved out of their way so they could go in. His forehead creased with worry as he looked at the two women. “Be careful of the glass,” he said, following behind them.