HIDDEN (FIGHT OR FLIGHT)

Chapter 37

DAMON'S P.O.V.

My heart thundered in my chest, each beat reverberating like a drum, loud and relentless. It felt as though Bear could hear it, though he made no indication. He sat across from me, perched on the edge of my bed like a man holding himself together by sheer willpower. His broad shoulders were hunched, pulling him inward as though trying to shield himself from an invisible blow. His hands were clasped so tightly they trembled, his knuckles pale against his sun-kissed skin. His jaw, clenched with such force, betrayed the storm raging inside him. Yet it was his eyes—those usually warm, expressive eyes—fixed on the floor and filled with torment, that twisted a knife deep into my chest.

I hated this. Hated seeing him like this. Hated the unknown weight he carried that made him look so broken. 

"Bear," I said, forcing my voice into steadiness, though my insides writhed with dread. "Whatever it is, just tell me. You don’t have to be scared." 

He lifted his gaze for the briefest moment, his eyes glimmering with pain that sliced right through me. "I don’t want to hurt you, Damon," he said, his voice thick with something unspoken. 

"Then don’t," I replied, keeping my tone calm even as my pulse quickened. "Just tell me the truth." 

His shoulders heaved with a shaky exhale, his breath uneven like it hurt to draw in air. His gaze fell again, his fingers fidgeting in an almost desperate rhythm. "Becky told me something... About who I was.  " he began, each word laced with hesitation. "Before I lost my memories... About what I did." 

The mention of *Becky* made my chest tighten as though a vise had clamped down on my ribcage. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good. I clenched my hands into fists on my lap, fighting the instinct to interrupt, to reassure him, to stop whatever was coming next. Instead, I nodded silently, urging him to continue. 

"She told me I was… a terrible person," Bear admitted, his voice so low it was almost lost to the silence of the room. 

The words were like a punch to the gut. My breath hitched, and my chest burned with the effort to keep my expression steady. I fought the impulse to react, to deny it outright. "Bear," I said softly, "we all have things in our past we’re not proud of. Go on." 

He nodded faintly, but his eyes didn’t lift. The tension rolling off him was almost suffocating, pressing down on the room like a tangible force. His fingers twisted against each other, knotted with anxiety. "She said I was a Cygan hunter, Damon," he confessed, the words spilling out like shards of glass. 

The air in the room seemed to vanish. My breath caught mid-inhale, my chest constricting painfully. "What?" The word came out cracked and brittle, betraying the calm I’d so desperately tried to maintain. 

Bear’s shoulders sagged further, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears as he forged ahead. "She said I hunted Cygans… and killed them. I did it as revenge for what they did to my family." 

The room tilted, the walls closing in as his words sank in like poison. My mind rebelled against the thought, rejecting it as though saying it wasn’t true could make it so. "No," I whispered, shaking my head, my voice trembling. "That can’t be true. Becky must have lied to you." 

He shook his head slowly, the motion filled with an agonizing certainty. His grip on his hands tightened until his knuckles turned white. His voice broke as he spoke again, barely audible yet heavy enough to shatter my world. "That’s not even the worst part," he murmured, his words a dagger poised to plunge deeper. 

Every muscle in my body tensed, and my mind raced with questions, fears, and a flicker of something I couldn’t name—hope, perhaps, that there was still something left to salvage. "What’s the worst part, Bear?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my attempt to steady it. 

He finally looked at me, his eyes brimming with regret, shame, and something darker—something that made my blood run cold. What could possibly be worse than what Bear had already said? My voice trembled as I urged him, desperate for the truth despite the fear clawing at me. "Bear," I said softly, yet firmly, "just say it." 

His shoulders hunched further, collapsing in on himself as though trying to disappear under the weight of his own guilt. His voice was barely more than a whisper when it came. "I… I tried to kill him." 

"Kill who?" I asked my voice coming out impatient. I could hear his heartbeat increase as he stammered, "I... I tried to kill Kyle.

The words hit me like a thunderclap, freezing me in place. For a moment, the world tilted, and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. "What?" I demanded, my voice sharp, almost a shout that cut through the suffocating silence. 

Bear flinched as though I’d struck him, but he forced himself to repeat the words, his voice breaking into shards. "I tried to kill Kyle." 

The air left the room, a vacuum of sound and breath that left me gasping. I shot to my feet, releasing his hand as if it had burned me. My feet carried me in frantic circles across the small space between the bed and the wall, my mind spinning in a chaotic storm of disbelief and anger. "You must be mistaken," I muttered, more to myself than to him, my voice tight and cracking. "Becky had to be lying. You can’t even remember any of this!" 

Bear’s voice wavered, thick with unshed tears that I could hear even without looking at him. "It’s true, Damon," he choked out. "Becky is Kyle’s best friend. That’s why she reacted the way she did when she saw you and thought you were him." 

I stopped pacing, my body rigid as I turned to face him. My voice was sharp, desperate. "That doesn’t prove anything." 

He ran a trembling hand through his hair, his entire frame quivering with the weight of his next words. "I’ve never told you this," he began, his voice shaking like a leaf in a storm, "but I’ve had nightmares… recurring ones. In them, I’m chasing someone who looks just like you, but with white wings." 

The blood drained from my face so quickly I felt lightheaded. 

"I didn’t understand them at first," Bear continued, his voice cracking with every word. "I thought they were just dreams. But now… now I realize they were memories." 

My legs gave out beneath me, and I sank into the chair near the bed, gripping the armrest so tightly that my knuckles turned white. My breathing came in shallow gasps as my chest heaved, struggling to pull in enough air. "This can’t be happening," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "Bear… please tell me this is some kind of mistake." 

He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, but tears streamed down his face, glistening trails of regret and anguish. "Kyle and his family…" He paused, his voice breaking under the weight of his confession. "They’re the reason I ended up in a Cygan prison, Damon. They’re the reason I eventually lost my memories. I know it’s true." 

I stared at him, my vision blurring with the edges of tears I refused to let fall. My mind spun, tangling in knots of disbelief, anger, and betrayal. How could this be real? How could Bear, the man who had saved me from darkness, who I trusted with everything, say these things? 

The room felt impossibly small, the walls closing in, suffocating me. My hands trembled as I gripped the armrest tighter, trying to ground myself in a world that felt like it was collapsing. I wanted to scream, to cry, to lash out, to demand answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask. But all I could do was stand there, frozen, as my world crumbled piece by piece around me. 

"This… isn’t real," I whispered, the words barely audible, meant more for me than for him. "It can’t be." 

Bear’s voice broke again, trembling and thick with sorrow. "I’m sorry, Damon. I’m so sorry." 

But I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t meet the eyes of the man I thought I knew, the man who had just torn apart everything I believed in. All I could think, all I could hope, was that this had to be a nightmare. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t… then I didn’t know what was left to hold on to. How was I going to face my family now?