Just…gone.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced myself to hang limp, afraid that thrashing would get me dropped. And so far, the only thing I was sure I’d hate more than flying was falling.
I’d had only seconds to adjust to being aloft when another grating screech ripped through the air behind me. Something grabbed my right ankle in midair. The world swerved around me again, and I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, still screaming. Then I was horizontal, my stomach to the earth, my left leg and forearms dangling awkwardly.
After several deep breaths, which only calmed me enough to bring my terror into sharper focus, I forced my eyes open. Then immediately slammed them closed again.
Below me, the van was a two-tone spot of light on the ground: white from the headlights, and red from the taillights. I was already too high to make out the occupants—if they were even still there.
The woods stretched out for miles to the right of the van, and we flew over them. From my horrifying new perspective, the skeletal deciduous branches were as thin and tangled as steel wool in the moonlight, the evergreens dense spots of darkness. And in that moment I hated my abductor for turning my beloved forest—my refuge from all things human and artificial—into a place of nightmares.
And still I screamed. I screamed until I lost my voice. My arms and one leg went numb from being gripped so tightly. They felt like they’d be ripped from my sockets at any second. I chattered uncontrollably. If it was cold on the ground, it was literally freezing in the air, and my toes tingled painfully. I couldn’t feel my hands. Couldn’t move my fingers.
After several minutes, I lost it. What little composure I’d had could not survive two hundred feet in the air, with nothing to catch me. Nothing but the ground to break my fall. No way to save myself. I could see calmness in the back of my mind, but it cowered in the corner like a little bitch, leaving panic to rule the roost.
My free leg flailed uncontrollably. My arms tried to twist themselves from the bird-bastard’s grip, though part of me knew that would only lead to my death. My mouth opened and I screamed again, though no sound came out.
I wouldn’t survive this. No one could survive such torture. Cats don’t fly without airplanes. We can’t survive it—not physically, not psychologically. And if dangling two hundred feet in the air was enough to fracture my sanity, what must it be doing to Kaci?
Kaci. Fresh panic flooded me, oddly warm in my numb extremities. I lifted my head and forced my eyes open again, this time resisting the silent scream my abused throat wanted to indulge. I couldn’t see her; it was too dark, and the wind too harsh. I couldn’t hear her; the thump thump of giant wings was too loud. Then, just as my eyes started to close, a cloud shifted, gifting me with a weak beam of moonlight.
I twisted carefully to the left for a better view. Kaci’s white jacket and reflective shoes were the last things I saw before a giant wing slammed into the side of my head.
“Faythe, wake up!” Kaci whispered, and something shook my left arm fiercely. “Faythe!”
“What?” I groaned and rolled over on the lumpy bed. My sore left arm flopped off the side, but I kept my eyes closed.
Wait, lumpy bed? I had a good mattress, and it was big enough that my arm shouldn’t hang off. Alarm spiked my pulse. My eyes flew open as a barrage of unfamiliar scents flooded my nose. Raw meat, not all of it fresh. Wool and steel. People. And poultry. Lots of poultry.
Shit!
I sat up and glanced around the small, dingy room, taking everything in at once. Bare, wood-plank walls. Scarred hardwood floor. A single twin bed with a rough wool blanket and no pillow. One window made of a single pane of glass, flooding the room with daylight too weak to be anything but late afternoon.
And Kaci, who sat curled up next to my feet on the other end of the bed.
“Where are we?” I whispered, as sounds from the building around us began to filter in. Squawking, screeching, and human speech. Heavy footsteps, and light, sharp scratches against wood. And a television. Somewhere, someone was watching Looney Tunes. The one where Bugs Bunny directs the opera. My favorite episode.
“I don’t know.” Kaci’s hazel eyes were wide with fear. She sat cross-legged on the twisted wool blanket, her hands clenched in her lap.
“How long have we been here?” I slid my legs off the side of the bed and onto the floor, then stood carefully, hoping neither the mattress nor the floor would creak and reveal that we were awake.
“I just woke up,” she whispered. Kaci started to stand with me, but an old-fashioned metal spring groaned softly beneath her, and I waved one hand, silently telling her to stop. Then I dug in my front pocket for my cell. But, of course, it was gone.
“Do you have your phone?”
She shook her head. “It was in my backpack.” Which she’d left in the van when she ran.
Great. “Are you okay?” I kept my voice as low as I could; I knew she would hear me, but wasn’t sure about the thunderbirds.
Kaci leaned against the wall and pushed one sleeve up to expose her upper arm, which was ringed with a single deep bruise, thicker on the front than the back. “Just bruises.” Talon marks. I pushed my own left sleeve up as I inched slowly toward the window, trying to avoid creaks in the obviously aged wooden floor.
My left arm was similarly marked, and I knew from the tenderness in my right arm that it would match. As would my right ankle. “Anything else?”
“I’m cold and hungry.”
“Me, too.” I made it to the window without a creak from the floor and noticed two things immediately. First, it wouldn’t open. It was a single pane of glass built into place along with the house. Or whatever kind of building we were in.
Second, we couldn’t have snuck out even if we could break the window without attracting attention. We were a couple hundred feet off the ground, jutting out over a cliff. And there was no balcony.
“Damn it!” That one came out louder than I’d intended, though it was still a whisper. I let my forehead fall against the glass and immediately regretted it. After my most recent flight, I wasn’t eager to see the earth from on high ever again.
“What?” Kaci whispered, and the bed creaked again as she leaned forward.
“We’re in their nest. And it’s not exactly built in the treetops.” The window was directly opposite the only door, so I edged my way along the wall to the corner, then made the turn, still hugging the wooden planks. The floor was much more likely to creak in the middle than along the edges.
“What do they want?”
“Oddly enough, I think they were trying to protect us.” From the violence they brought forth.
Kaci glanced from the window back to my face. “I don’t feel very safe.”
“Me, neither.” When I reached the door, I bent to study the knob. It was a plain, old-fashioned brass sphere with a small round hole in the center. Which meant the other side held a simple push lock. I twisted it slowly and the knob resisted. It was locked.
I could have forced the lock with one quick twist, but the pop might be heard, and I didn’t want our captors to know we were awake until we knew a little more about our surroundings.
“How the hell did they get us here?” I wondered aloud, barely breathing the sound. “There’s no way they could have flown us all the way here.” I didn’t know exactly where “here” was, but I couldn’t think of a single cliff of any size within several hundred miles of the ranch.
“They didn’t,” Kaci said, and I turned to see her twisting the edge of the coarse navy blanket in one fist. “I must have passed out when they were carrying us, but I woke up later, in the back of a car. Something like Jace’s, with a big area in the back for luggage and stuff. We were all tied up, and you were still out cold.”
“They tied us with ropes?”
Kaci nodded. “Thin yellow ones.”
Nylon. I glanced at my left wrist, but found no marks. A glance at my ankles revealed none there, either, which meant they hadn’t tied us very tight
ly. If they had, the ropes would have left marks even through our clothes. And we’d woken up unbound, barely locked into a room. Together.
Those were all good signs. They hadn’t killed us because they’d made a promise to Calvin Malone, and they obviously didn’t want to hurt us. At least, not until or unless we hurt one of them. Or pissed them off.
So, what now? Did they plan to finish slaughtering our Pride, then simply let us go? Had they already slaughtered our Pride?
My pulse raced, and I couldn’t stop it. Sweat broke out on my forehead, in spite of the chilly room.
“Faythe? What’s wrong?” Kaci scooted to the edge of the bed, and the old mattress let out a long, grating squeal. She froze, but the damage was done. Her eyes went wide and panicked, and her lip began to tremble.
“It’s okay.…” I crossed the room toward her, heedless of my own footsteps now; the nest itself was evidently holding up far better than the old furnishings. “We need to talk to them, anyway. We’re not doing any good just sitting here.”
Kaci bit her lip and blinked back tears. “You sure?”
“Totally.” Not that we could do anything about it if I weren’t.
From the hall came light, but obviously human, footsteps. Kaci’s hand gripped my good one, and every muscle in her body tensed. “Should we Shift?”
“I think it’s a little late for that. Besides, they might see it as an act of aggression.” The footsteps stopped outside our door, and the knob turned. “Don’t say anything unless I ask you something or give you a signal, okay?”
Kaci nodded as the door swung open.
The woman in the doorway was short, thick with muscle from the ribs up, and downright skinny from the waist down. She had a long, thin nose, almost nonexistent lips, and long, smooth dark hair—clearly her best feature. She was also completely nude.
Kaci flushed and looked away—she was raised among humans—and the bird-woman tossed a curious, headtilted glance her way before focusing on me. “I am Brynn. Follow me.” That was it. No please, no smile, and not even a glance over her shoulder to make sure we obeyed.
But there was nothing else to do. We weren’t getting out through the window, and while our chances probably wouldn’t be much better in front of a room full of thunderbirds, they certainly couldn’t get any worse.
Our room was the last in a long second-story hall bordered on the left with nothing but a wooden rail, worn smooth by what could only have been generations of hands trailing over it. Beyond the rail, the floor ended, revealing the drop to a huge first-floor room where thunderbirds of all sizes and both genders mingled and lounged, in various stages of Shift. There must have been fifty of them. And I could hear even more moving around behind the many closed doors.
Our hallway wrapped around three sides of the building, and the two floors above were the same; we could see identical third- and fourth-floor railings across the large opening. The front of the building was a series of small glass panes built into the wall, forming a huge grid of windows. The effect was a stunning, patchwork view of a wooded mountainside. And at the bottom, near the center, stood a single door—the only entrance or exit we’d seen.
Kaci gasped, and I glanced down, then followed her gaze up. Way up.
Then I gasped, too.
The building was cavernous and could easily have fit at least three more floors, although none existed beyond the fourth. Instead, the empty space was crisscrossed with exposed beams, and ledges, and nooks, most occupied by one or more thunderbirds. Those on the beams were mostly in avian form, perched like blackbirds on a wire, while those resting on small nests of pillows and blankets on the many ledges looked more human. Some even held old, worn copies of books whose titles I couldn’t quite make out.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen. This wasn’t just a nest. It was a true aviary.
Brynn made an impatient noise at the back of her throat, and I forced my attention from the spectacle overhead and nudged Kaci. Then we followed her down an open flight of stairs to the huge room below.
Like the levels above, the first floor was surrounded on three sides by a series of doors, though they were farther apart on the ground floor. I was guessing the first-story rooms were the Flight’s common areas, like the kitchen, dining room, and maybe more living areas.
As we crossed through the center of the open area, I glanced through several of the open doors. Most were sparse bedrooms, a bit larger than the one we’d woken in. But the doorway to one corner room revealed a large, bright space full of old-fashioned toys—most of the handmade doll and wooden block variety—and the distinctive flickering light of a television.
We’d found the source of the Looney Tunes. And based on the scratchy, low-quality sound, I was guessing they had only worn VCR tapes, rather than DVDs.
My steps slowed as my curiosity grew, and as I walked, I saw more of the room. And its occupants. At a glance, I counted half a dozen small children, none yet old enough to attend school.
But age wasn’t the only thing keeping these kids out of the human educational system.
As I watched, a naked boy of maybe four years—the biggest in the room—shoved one chubby fist through a tower of brightly painted wooden blocks. The small girl who’d been stacking them—also nude, but for a cloth diaper—scowled so menacingly I half expected her to burst into flames.
Instead, she burst into feathers.
In a single, smooth motion almost too fast for me to understand, her arms lengthened and sprouted feathers. Her short hair receded into her head, and her naked scalp began to toughen, flush, and wrinkle, like the head of a vulture. Her thin legs withered until her calves were little more than sturdy sticks ending in tiny, sharp talons. And her hands curled into petite but obviously lethal wing-claws.
The whole thing took no more than two seconds and appeared completely spontaneous. I couldn’t stop staring.
The bird-girl tackled the larger boy, snapping her new beak at him and swiping with her claws, and when they fell, I got a look at the smaller children behind them. All four were quite a bit smaller. Toddlers, judging by their size. And they were all constantly Shifting.
Several arms were feathered, two with hands, one with claws. Two heads were bare and wrinkled, one had tangled dark hair, and the fourth was somewhere in between, patches of blond peach fuzz standing out on an almost bald avian skull. The children were continually in flux, and they obviously couldn’t control their small bodies.
No wonder thunderbirds removed themselves from human society so completely.
I stared, transfixed, until Brynn made another angry noise in her throat, and I jogged to catch up with her and Kaci, though the strange images remained painted on the backs of my eyelids.
But when Brynn came to a stop, I looked up, and all thoughts of odd, ever-Shifting children flew from my mind. There must have been thirty different thunderbirds seated or standing in the back half of the large room. And they were all staring at us.
Fifteen
Kaci’s cold hand slid into mine. Her lips were pressed into a thin, tight line and her jaw bulged, not with anger, but to keep her teeth from chattering, as they sometimes did when she got nervous. Her terrified, wide-eyed gaze flitted anxiously from bird to bird, as if she were looking for a friendly face.
But she wasn’t going to find one, other than mine. We were in this together—whatever “this” was.
“What is your name?”
My head whipped up and I glanced around, waiting for someone to step forward, or otherwise claim his or her question. But no one did, even when I stood silent for almost a full minute. In fact, the only reason I knew the speaker was addressing me was that no one was looking at Kaci.
When I didn’t answer, another voice called from above and I glanced up, but again failed to pinpoint the speaker. “Are you Mercedes Carreño or Faythe Sanders?”
Aah. They knew I was one of the adults, but not which one.
“I’m Faythe. Who’s speaking, please? I�
�m getting a little dizzy trying to pinpoint you.” And frankly, I wasn’t sure where I should look. I didn’t want to accidently insult someone by misdirecting my attention.
“You are speaking with our Flight.”
Of course. I’d almost forgotten about the mob—I mean Flight—mentality. Fortunately, I actually saw the speaker that time, though she hadn’t asked either of the previous questions.
Another voice spoke from my far left. “You and the kitten will be delivered to Calvin Malone tomorrow.…”
“What?! No!” I shouted, and Kaci clung to me, terrified. “You can’t do that. You have no idea what he wants with us!”
“We promised to remove you from danger and deliver you to him, and we will not go back on our word. We’re only letting you live because we’ve been assured that you and the kitten were not involved in the death of our cock.”
I turned and pinpointed an older male thunderbird with strong features and the typical top-heavy build. And nearly laughed aloud on the heels of his last word.
It’s not funny! some horrified part of me insisted, from deep within my head.
But it was funny, in that scandalous way that inappropriate jokes are always irresistible at the most inopportune moments. Their Flight member was dead, they’d kidnapped us and were trying to kill the remaining members of our Pride, and this asshole sounded like a testimonial for Viagra!
For a moment, I couldn’t speak for fear of bursting into laughter, and it took all my self-control to kill the irreverent smile that my lips wanted to form. But then Kaci squeezed my hand again, and the look of pure terror on her face sobered me instantly.
I cleared my throat. “That’s right. We had nothing to do with it. But neither did anyone else in our Pride. Malone only told you that…”
“We’re not interested in discussing Finn’s death with you.…”
“Well, you should be!” I shouted—and immediately regretted it when a series of soft whoosh sounds and heavy thumps told me more birds had landed behind me from the overhead perches.
Shift Page 15
