Shift

by Rachel Vincent

  “You really think they’ll go through with it?”

  “There’s not a doubt in my mind.” I shoved hair from my face, where it had come loose from my ponytail. “They’re not like us, Dad. They’re fanatically loyal to their Flight members, but won’t put themselves out on anyone else’s behalf unless it will directly benefit them. They don’t care if Kaci lives or dies, but they know we do. And they know they’re only as good as their word. They’ll go through with it.”

  His pause was heavy with thoughts I could only begin to imagine. He had to think about all of us. About what would be best for the Pride. Kaci was just one member, but she was ours, and she was defenseless. “Okay then, we have to get her out. If they won’t negotiate, we’ll have to go in by force.”

  I shook my head again, though I knew he couldn’t see it. “Won’t work. There’re too many of them. And if we invade their home—where their children are—they’ll fight even more fiercely. Unfortunately, they’re not limited by space in their own home, like they would be in ours. Their nest is cavernous, with plenty of room to swoop and dive. And, anyway, we can’t get up the side of the mountain in human form, and in cat form, we can’t carry weapons.”

  Glass clinked over the line. Scotch. I could certainly have used a drink right about then. My father sighed. “I didn’t say it would be easy. But it’s better than taking Malone on.”

  “I’m not talking about fighting him, Dad. Not yet. This is a total covert op. I’ll be in and out before they even know I’m there.” As soon as I figure out what I’m looking for…

  “No. You’re too vulnerable on your own.”

  “So send me backup.” I stepped over a rotting log lying across the gravel road and silently cursed the fading daylight. I wouldn’t be able to travel very well or very quickly in human form, but if I Shifted, I couldn’t carry my clothes or my phone. And it was cold in the foothills in February, yet I had nothing but my jacket to keep me warm. “Put a couple of the guys on a plane. I’ll wait for them.” If I ever find an airport…

  “Marc and Jace are already on the way.”

  My initial massive surge of relief was eclipsed almost immediately by confusion. “How did you know where to send them?”

  “We didn’t know where they took you and Kaci, but we figured it’d be out West. So as soon as I got the call from Mateo, I sent them north through Dallas, then west on I20. They’re waiting just this side of the territorial boundary.”

  “I already gave them their new heading.” Michael spoke up from somewhere—probably from behind our father’s desk. “They’ll be there in about three hours, but we’ll need you to narrow down your location a bit by then, so you can give them better directions.”

  “No problem.” Surely I could find a landmark, or road sign, or something by then. If I ever got off the gravel road and onto something a little better traveled. “What about Teo and Manx? And Des? They’re okay?”

  Please, please, please let them be okay.…

  “They’re shaken up pretty badly, and Carey Dodd and Mateo have some deep scratches, but there’s no permanent damage. Teo says they only sent four thunderbirds after you. One took Kaci, and a second and third took you when you went after her. He and Dodd beat the fourth with a crowbar. Manx was upset that she didn’t get a piece of the action.”

  “I bet.” I’d never seen Manx fight, because she’d been pregnant when we…found her. But I understood her frustration over missing the fight. Unfortunately, without a weapon, or claws, even if she’d had time to Shift and someone to watch the baby, she could do little to defend herself beyond biting anything in her path.

  “They killed the bird who stayed behind.” My father sounded both proud and amused. “Teo called to tell us what happened, and Dodd called a tow truck to pick them up, and once he got Teo and Manx to safety, I sent him back to pick up Marc and Jace.”

  “Where are Manx and Teo now?”

  “Dodd drove them to Henderson and helped Teo get cleaned up and bandaged in the hotel. They’re fine for the moment.”

  Thank goodness. I’m not sure I could have handled it if anything had happened to Des. Or to Manx, for that matter.

  “Speaking of hotels…” my father continued. “I don’t suppose you’re anywhere near one?”

  I huffed and squinted in the dim light. “Not unless the Wicked Witch is renting out rooms in the gingerbread cottage. I’m on a gravel road in the middle of the woods, in the foothills of some small mountain range.”

  Concern and anger thickened my father’s voice, like he needed to clear his throat. “Okay, what’s your status? Did they give you any supplies?”

  I rolled my eyes. “They didn’t even give me a hearty farewell. I have my black leather jacket, my hiking boots, my cell, and my wallet. Which means I have ID and about thirty bucks in cash, if memory serves.”

  “No water? Food?”

  “Nothing but the memory of my last meal.” My mother’s chili, the night before.

  “I’ll tell the guys to stop for supplies,” Michael said in the background.

  “Are you dehydrated? Injured?” My dad’s words were clipped short in anger now, but his fury wasn’t directed at me. It was for the thunderbirds who’d dropped me into the middle of nowhere without a thought for my well-being. And likely for Malone, who was responsible for this whole clusterfuck in the first place.

  “I’m thirsty, but intact.” The only marks on me—other than my broken arm—were deep bruises from the thunderbirds’ talons. “I can manage a bit of a hike, so long as I know someone’s coming for me.”

  That knowledge kept my anger and frustration from blossoming into despair and panic. Even if the idea of Marc and Jace cooped up together in a car did make my stomach churn with dread. “So, we’re going after proof?”

  My father’s exhalation was too heavy to be called a sigh, and I pictured him rubbing his forehead. “Yes. But I need you all focused on the job. No petty squabbling.”

  I closed my eyes as a pang of dread rang through me. Had he noticed tension between Marc and Jace? Had Marc noticed?

  “Hopefully I don’t have to tell you how bad things will be if you get caught.”

  “Of course not.” My heart pounded painfully at the mere thought. After Brett’s death, there was no doubt that if Malone found us on his property, he’d execute both Marc and Jace—and probably make me watch—then lock me up until he figured out how to make me cooperate. Which would never happen. He’d have to kill me first.

  “Good. The rest of us will continue training for the real fight, and if you get caught, we’ll just move up our plans and come after you.”

  But we both knew that by the time the cavalry arrived, should we need them, I might be the only one left to save. “I should probably go.” I glanced at my phone, then held it back up to my ear. “I’ve got less than half power, and I need to be able to get in touch with the guys.”

  My father hesitated, and in that silence, I heard everything he wanted to say to me, and everything I wanted to say to him. “Faythe, be careful.”

  “I will. Love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  By the time I hung up, the sun had set, and its crimson glow had almost completely faded from the sky. I slid my phone into my pocket and Shifted my eyes into cat form. Then I zipped my jacket to my neck and shoved my hands in my pockets, where I was surprised and relieved to find my gloves. If the temperature dropped much more they might mean the difference between frostbite and simple numbness.

  I stayed on the road, but had to pick my way over more large obstacles along the way, including two long-ago-stalled rusted vehicles. If the thunderbirds hadn’t damaged the road themselves, they’d certainly done no maintenance to keep it passable.

  The next two and a half hours passed slowly and miserably. At first I moved at a good pace, determined to find a highway, or an intersecting road with a street sign, or even a cell tower. Anything I could direct the guys toward when they called. But it was eight l
ong miles—by my best estimate—before I saw anything other than that stupid gravel road and trees to either side.

  By the time I saw the water tower peeking over the trees to my east, bathed by floodlights, I was shivering uncontrollably, my teeth were chattering, and my toes, nose and the tips of my fingers had all gone numb. My pace had slowed to a crawl, and I was minutes from stopping to rub two sticks together on the chance that I turned out to be a naturally gifted wilderness survivor.

  But the water tower fueled my resolve and I pressed on, desperate to read the letters wrapping around the sides of the tower. I forced my legs to move faster, bribing myself with promises of hot chocolate and homemade stew, though I was more likely to get protein bars and Coke, assuming the guys ever found me. I actually jumped when my cell rang and my fingers were so numb I could barely feel the phone as I pulled it from my pocket.

  “Hello?”

  “Faythe?” Marc said, and relief spread through me like sunshine, warming me from the inside out. “Are you okay?”

  “Better now,” I breathed, trying not to chatter in his ear.

  “We should be getting close. Any specifics on where you are?”

  “Um, yeah. Just a minute.” I clenched the phone tight to make sure my numb fingers wouldn’t drop it, then jogged forward with my gaze glued to the water tower until the bottom half of the letters rose above the treetops. “To the north, I see a water tower that says…Cloud…something.”

  “Cloudcroft,” Jace said in the background, and I heard the rustle of paper closer to the phone as Marc unfolded a map. “Look, it’s right there,” Jace continued, and there was an electronic beep from his GPS unit. “We’re only a couple of miles away.”

  Marc huffed, and more paper crackled as he folded his map. “Head toward the tower. We’ll go south from there and find you.”

  “Hurry…” I said, but the end of the word was swallowed by chattering.

  “Hang on. We’re almost there.”

  Eighteen

  Jace’s Pathfinder pulled to a stop in the middle of the gravel road, and Marc was out before Jace could shut the engine down. He squeezed me so tight I couldn’t breathe, and the talon bruises on my arms ached, but I was happy to exchange my breath for his warmth. Not to mention his company.

  Jace stood with one hand on the driver’s side door, watching us with a mixture of relief and frustration. I gave him a bittersweet smile with numb lips, then lost his gaze when Marc set me down and pulled his leather jacket off to layer it over my own.

  “Come on, let’s get you warmed up.” Marc led me toward the Pathfinder by one hand and pulled the back door open for me.

  “It’s warmer up here,” Jace said before I could climb in. I shot him a censorious glance, but he ignored me in favor of Marc. “All the vents are in the front.”

  “Good call.” Marc pulled open the front door, and I found myself seated next to Jace, bundled in Marc’s jacket, before I even really processed what had happened. Jace restarted the engine and cranked up the heat, then turned all the vents toward me.

  Marc got in and leaned forward as Jace pulled onto the side of the narrow road to turn the car around. “So, the nest is back there?” He tapped his window, facing the direction I’d come from, and I nodded. “How far?”

  “Not sure. Maybe eight miles?” My words were choppy, spoken around my chattering teeth, but they both seemed to understand me.

  Jace frowned and shifted the car back into Drive. “According to the GPS, the road’s a dead end.”

  I pulled off my gloves and dropped them in my lap, then held my hands in front of the vents. “Yeah. But it dead-ends right in front of the thunderbirds’ nest.”

  Jace hesitated with one hand on the gearshift. “Kaci’s only a few miles away. We can’t leave her there.”

  “You got a better idea?” Marc didn’t sound hostile, exactly, but he was definitely impatient, and I was glad I’d missed the first half of the road trip, even considering the bitter cold and the airplaneless flying.

  Jace shrugged. “She must be terrified on her own.”

  “She is.” I used the toes of one foot to pry off my opposite shoe, then stretched my frozen toes toward the floorboard vent. “But we can’t get her back without either evidence or a fight, and the three of us don’t stand a chance against several dozen thunderbirds. Especially since they have the home field advantage.”

  Jace’s jaw tensed and his hand tightened around the wheel, but his foot stayed firmly on the brake pedal.

  “Let’s go,” Marc insisted. “There’s nothing we can do for Kaci without proof that Malone’s guilty, and if we miss our flight, she’s as good as dead.”

  “Please,” I said when Marc’s order had no impact on him, a fact which made me vaguely sick to my stomach. “You know if there was anything else we could do, I’d be the first one to suggest it.”

  Jace’s hand twitched around the steering wheel, then he nodded once, briskly, and hit the gas so hard gravel spewed behind us. I’d have flown forward if I hadn’t been buckled in. Marc hit his forehead on the back of my headrest and let out a string of Spanish profanities too fast for me to understand.

  “Watch it, asshole,” he finished at last, glaring at Jace in the rearview mirror. “We’re no good to her if you plant us in a ditch.”

  Jace scowled, but slowed to a speed less likely to sling us into the next dimension. “You getting warm yet?” He glanced at me briefly and turned right onto the first paved road I’d seen, running perpendicular to the thunderbirds’ long private drive.

  “Yeah.” But my teeth were still chattering. “How far to the nearest gas station? I’m starving.”

  “We gotcha covered. Marc, grab the…”

  But Marc was already lifting a bulging white plastic bag over the front seat into my lap. “It’s probably cold by now, but it’s better than candy bars and soda. And there’re a couple of bottles of Gatorade by your feet.”

  “Thanks, guys.” For the next twenty minutes, I devoured convenience store chicken strips, potato wedges, fried mozzarella sticks, and corn dogs. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. A Shifter’s metabolism runs much faster than a human’s, and if I’d had to Shift, I probably would have passed out from hunger.

  When the bag was empty, I wadded it up and dropped it at my feet, then started on a bottle of purple Gatorade. “So, where are we going?”

  “Roswell.” Marc twisted in his seat, and his face came into focus in my side-view mirror. “We should be there in a couple of hours. Our flight leaves at nine-fifteen.”

  “You’re serious? Roswell has an airport?”

  “Nope.” Jace grinned. “We’re booked on the first available flying saucer. Hope you don’t get space-sick.”

  I couldn’t suppress a grin of my own; it felt good to finally be smiling again, after so much fear and pain. Even if the jokes were stupid, and the smiles were only temporary, and neither could truly hide the seething anger and growing bloodlust consuming us all on the inside. “You only think that’s funny because you weren’t on my last flight. Whatever we take off in better have jet engines. Or at least a couple of propellers.”

  Movement in the rearview mirror caught my attention, and I glanced up to see Marc scowling at Jace. I twisted to face him. “What’s wrong?” My question seemed somehow too trite, yet too complicated to have any real answer.

  “How safe do you think Kaci is with them? With the birds?”

  “Having second thoughts about leaving her?” Jace’s smile was gone.

  “No,” Marc growled. “We had no choice. I just want to know how bad off she’ll be when we get there. Does she have anyone to talk to? Anything to do? Do they even know what to feed her?”

  “Assuming we make the deadline, she’ll be fine.” I had little doubt about that, after seeing Brynn with her daughter. “They’ll stand by their word, unless I break mine. I made sure she has plenty to read, but there’s nothing I can do about the company. Fortunately, they seem inclined to leav
e her alone. They don’t like outsiders, and as weird as it sounds, they think of us as practically human.”

  “Meaning what?” Jace asked.

  “They look down on us, and they don’t trust us. Including Kaci. But they don’t want to hurt her, either. She’ll be fine, so long as we make it back with the smoking gun in two days.”

  “What about food?”

  “She’s a teenager, not a baby.” Jace swerved to pass the first car we’d seen since leaving the gravel road. “She eats the same things everyone else does.”

  But I knew what Marc meant; Kai had asked for carrion. “I told them to make sure her food was fresh and well cooked.” In animal form, our stomachs can handle raw meat, but even a cat won’t eat rotting flesh. And in human form, Kaci couldn’t eat either one.

  Marc nodded, apparently mollified, and scooted onto the driver’s side of the backseat, so he could see me better. He leaned against the window, and when he blinked, his eyes stayed closed a little too long. He looked exhausted, and I realized then that he and Jace probably hadn’t slept at all since Kaci and I had flown the coop. My father had sent them west immediately, hoping they’d be close enough to help by the time he heard from us.

  “How did you guys get out?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Jace frowned at me, and Marc blinked slowly in incomprehension. They really needed sleep.

  “From the ranch. How did you get out? That was before the ceasefire.”

  “Oh.” Marc rubbed both hands over his face, then blinked again. “Your dad went out the front door again, gun a-blazin’. While the birds were all flocking around him, we snuck out the back door and into the woods in cat form, each hauling a backpack.”

  “Why the hell would they fall for that again? They’d just caught us sneaking out!”

  “They didn’t fall for it.” Jace gave me a lopsided grin. “It was a hell of a race, but they didn’t follow us into the woods. I think they’re totally helpless when they’re earthbound.”