“Are you playing hard to get?” Mom called down.

“Aooooo!” Nerf howled from the other room.

I took a breath, straightened my posture, and opened the door.

Jordan burst in, slammed the door behind him, locked the bolt, and peered back out through the blinds. His shirt was drenched in sweat, and he was gasping for breath.

“Jordan! Great to see ya!” I announced. “Which bank did you rob?”

“I must have lost it,” he said, his eyes still directed through the front window.

“What?”

“The bear.”

“Oh, the bear,” I said.

“Hi, Maggie,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I was chased here by a giant black bear. Sorry.”

He wrapped me in a hot, damp hug.

“Eeesh,” I said. “You smell like a giant black bear.”

“More like a panther,” he said, and let go of me, crossed the room, and picked up the phone at the receptionist’s desk. “No dial tone.”

“Go figure.”

He returned to the blinds and scanned the neighborhood.

“I missed you, too,” I deadpanned.

Jordan flashed that grin I’d missed so much. “Maggie, it was an actual bear.” As I stepped toward the door, a loud clang burst from inside the office.

“What the hell was that?” Jordan asked.

“C’mere,” I said, and led him to the cage where Nerf was growling, teeth bared.

“Spooky,” Jordan said as Nerf hurled himself toward us.

“What?”

“That’s the look the bear was giving me.”

CHAPTER 4

Maggie

THE BEAR HAD moved from Redmond’s lot onto a quiet county road by the time we pulled up, but as we cruised the town in Deputy Ruby’s squad car, we couldn’t miss the massive furry black animal lumbering down the center of the woods-lined County Road J.

Holy crap, that thing was huge and not friendly-looking. No wonder Jordan worked up such a sweat.

“That’s some bear,” Deputy Ruby said as we crouched behind his car.

Mom got out the tranquilizer gun and rested the barrel atop the car’s hood.

The bear was loping along in the opposite direction, getting smaller and smaller. Mom steadied her aim and squinted.

And fired.

We were too far away. The dart skidded by the bear’s feet. The bear looked down, then whipped back toward us.

Oh, shit.

“Maggie,” Jordan said as the four of us ducked behind the squad car.

“Not now, Jordan!” I hissed.

We heard scraping on the gravel. Then it stopped, then started again.

It was getting closer.

Then heavy wheezing, growing louder.

Mom was sitting with her back to the car door, the tranq gun cocked and loaded. She spun around, held the barrel over the hood, and …

Whack! The bear slapped away the gun, which then skittered to the edge of the woods. The bear roared, loudly, and we heard a screeching of metal. As we bolted away from the car, I looked back to see the bear hoisting the passenger-side door over its head and then flinging it our way like an oversize Frisbee.