Bonds Broken & Silent

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Gavin continued his pace through the still-bright sunshine and tried to ignore the new data his aids streamed into his ears. He knew on which branches all the birds in the trees sat. He heard how far away the approaching car was and, even more weirdly, how well-tuned its engine hummed.

  The other undergrads walking by all produced heavy footfalls as if they, too, were freaked out by Gavin’s new hearing aids.

  He hitched his bag up his back as he hurried down the sidewalk outside the big, square Raptor Center, which stood directly across the street from the Small Animal Hospital. A flat, dark brown brick building with a wide entry door and a large concrete expanse in front, the clinic looked like all other academic buildings built in the seventies. Trees sheltered the doors from the street, but Gavin still saw the pet owners carrying in their puppies and kitties.

  And heard all the yipping and meowing.

  What, exactly, did Gavin have in his ears?

  Ahead of him, just across the street, dogs barked and one sole cat meowed inside the clinic’s lobby. And across the intersection, at least four different large birds of prey shrieked inside the Raptor Center.

  Inside. He heard noises from inside the buildings.

  How the hell did the new software in his earbuds isolate sounds and tune them to compensate for his specific hearing loss? How the hell did the hardware?

  But on the bus, he couldn’t understand the conversation between the two people sitting behind him.

  The software update could have been a random bug, but it did nothing to calm his everyone is a spy paranoia.

  He very clearly had just been handed a nice advantage. But the new information fed him by the devices flooded his mind with too many stimuli. On the bus ride over, paying attention took significant effort because of all the unnecessary and unwanted extra information his brain could no longer filter out.

  Gavin stopped in the center of the sidewalk and hitched up his bag again.

  This must be how Rysa’s ADHD feels every day of her life.

  When a freshman with her face in her phone almost ran into Gavin, he started walking again. The woman rustled away, her leggings rubbing discordantly against themselves, and her boots, and her bag. Gavin frowned, annoyed by how noise could make a cute girl with a cute butt seem unappealing.

  About fifty feet away, in the grassy area in front of the entrance to the Small Animal Hospital, a little dog with short legs and big ears barked. An adorable brown and white bundle of fur, the dog looked to be a corgi, or at least part corgi.

  The short, nondescript woman holding the critter’s leash scowled and yanked the little animal the way an owner shushing a dog would yank. Her mouth made the shush lip protrusion. She was clearly telling the dog to be quiet.

  But her intent rolled down the small hill and over Gavin. She wanted the little corgi to bark as loudly as it could.

  Gavin wanted to bark, too. This was different from the time he picked up Dr. Montgomery’s intent in the Auditory Clinic. He’d been close to her. Able to read her body language and her facial expressions. The sonic underpinnings of her voice meshed with the information she’d shared with Gavin.

  And it hadn’t carried an intent that seemed… enthralling. He wanted to listen, and to do, as the woman with the dog commanded.

  A different woman carrying a red bag on her shoulder walked up the sidewalk toward the animal clinic’s entrance. Tall and with luminescent dark hair that caught the early evening light, she watched everything and everyone as they moved by—the freshman with the noisy leggings, a car with belts knocking as it glided by on the street, the woman with the yipping little dog.

  And Gavin.

  A stunning woman with a lovely oval face and perfect high breasts watched him from across the street as if they knew each other and she couldn’t remember his name.

  Yes! bounced around inside Gavin’s head. Yes! and The universe ain’t too bad today. For a moment, he forgot about the acoustic waves accosting his brain and his goal inside the clinic.

  Finding the missing Daisy could wait a few more minutes.

  Gavin couldn’t shake the feeling they had met and that he, too, couldn’t remember. Maybe in passing at a party. But if they’d met before and he hadn’t gotten her number, he deserved all the grief of the past week.

  He checked traffic and crossed the street, smiling as he walked toward the beautiful woman standing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. Running through a few conversation openers, he decided he’d better stick with the obvious. “Have we met?” He scratched at the back of his head and smiled again.

  She blinked her exceptional amber eyes and exhaled as if she’d just escaped getting hit by a meteorite. “Maybe.” But her posture said they had and she didn’t want to admit to it.

  Gavin looked away, still grinning. “It wasn’t at a party where I did something stupid, was it? Because I only do stupid to entertain the masses.”

  When he looked back, she wore the sweetest, most beautiful lopsided smile he’d ever seen, and mumbled something he didn’t catch.

  He tapped his right ear. “Sorry. My aids are acting up.” He leaned closer and twisted his head to present his earbud. “New software update today. But I read lips.”

  The woman adjusted her red bag and her University ID swung on the kitty- and puppy-decorated lanyard around her neck. Gavin repressed a frown. An ID on a lanyard meant she might be staff or a graduate student, which also meant she could be a lot older than him. But she didn’t look it.

  Either way, he’d get her number.

  She shook her head and smiled again. A few tendrils of her dark wavy hair had fallen onto her shoulders from the swirl on the back of her head. They pointed like arrows down the front of her crisp white shirt that, despite being buttoned up, accentuated her not-too-big and not-too-small breasts.

  And her lanyard. And her ID that, when she moved again, flipped over and presented its information side.

  Daisy, it said. Daisy Reynolds Pavlovich, Veterinary Science.

  Chapter Seven

  Gavin must have turned sheet white because the hot woman named Daisy curled her fingers around his elbow.

  “… okay?” she asked.

  “Um…” What the hell was he supposed to say? He still didn’t know. How did he say “I got a text message that told me to help you” without actually saying it? Or “Do you know where my friend Rysa is?” Or maybe a flat-out “Are you a spy?”

  Because she’d probably call the cops. Or punch him in the gut.

  But she did neither. She squared her body to his and made sure he clearly saw her lips. “What are you remembering?”

  Remembering? “About what?” About…

  Dogs, and not cute corgis, either. Huge German shepherds. His throat burning. And a pretty female who signed. “You know American Sign Language, don’t you?” he asked.

  Daisy released his elbow. She stood straight and her foot slid back half a step. I am out of practice, she signed.

  Pretty female flooded into the front part of his brain at the same time as a wordless, weird, animal hoot. “What the…?” He blinked and stepped back.

  “Hey…” Shock widened Daisy’s eyes, but not a what the fuck kind of shock. More of an oh, shit kind. As if, somehow, she was responsible for all the weirdness of Gavin’s week.

  “Did you do something to me?” Nothing about the woman in front of Gavin said danger. Nothing. In fact, the part that hooted jumped up and down and screamed good mate.

  “You shouldn’t be feeling aftereffects. No one has aftereffects.” Daisy stepped closer and peered at his face like a doctor checking a patient’s eyes.

  Excellent mate whooped from the lower parts of Gavin’s brain and danced down his spine into the lower parts of his body. Excellent mate and pretty female.

  Daisy grinned and shook her head. “Has your friend explained to you what happened yet?”

  She knows about Rysa, Gavin thought. She knows about everything. Adrenaline brightened his vision and ma
de his muscles hum. He might get answers.

  “I got a text the morning after she disappeared. I’m supposed to help someone named Daisy.” It felt good to let the words tumble out of his mouth. “And that I’m being watched. Then my phone rebooted. What the hell is going—”

  Behind them, up by the entrance to the clinic, the nondescript, bland woman with the corgi said something to another pet owner exiting the building. Gavin did not understand the words she spoke, but her intent screamed so loudly he lost his train of thought.

  The woman had totally forgettable, flat hair that was some dark blonde, light brown flat color, a flat face with a nose so generic it would be difficult to describe, and what looked to be a perfectly average body. Gavin couldn’t even tell how old she was. Not from her beige-ish, or maybe gray-ish t-shirt, or her unremarkable jeans. Or from how she moved or carried herself.

  She seemed to morph as he watched her. He would, no matter how long he stared, have a difficult time describing her to anyone who asked.

  And the woman just told the guy to give her all his cash.

  Right out in the open. Sent toward the poor guy a very clear wave meant to compel him to ‘give her his cash.’

  “An update did weird things to my hearing aids.” He pointed at the woman. “That woman just told that guy to give her all his money.” Gavin wanted to get up, walk over, and give her all his cash, too. “Whatever she’s saying makes me want to pull a twenty out of my pocket.”

  Daisy stiffened. Her attention snapped away from Gavin and toward the woman so fast he thought she might give herself whiplash.

  The poor guy in front of the door pulled out his wallet.

  Daisy’s nose twitched. Then her shoulders tensed and she slowly stepped between Gavin and the woman.

  The hooting part of his brain did a backflip and it took effort—conscious, real, thought about effort—on Gavin’s part to keep it contained. His animal instincts were surfacing. Why now? Why here, with its clear and present threats? But part of him wanted to fight—and to fight alongside the pretty female who was an excellent mate.

  The gorgeous woman standing between him and the bland thief was the most distracting person he’d ever met in his entire life.

  Daisy’s hands appeared behind her back. She finger-spelled a word that shouldn’t make sense, but oddly did: enthraller.

  “What does that mean?” he asked. But he already knew from the way Daisy stood between him and the woman. She meant dangerous. Serious, you-need-protecting dangerous.

  Excellent mate hooted again.

  In front of the clinic, the poor guy stuck his fingers into his wallet. A couple of bills appeared.

  He handed them over without a word. Without any change in his body posture. Just handed over all his cash.

  And Gavin’s hearing aids allowed him to hear why.

  Chapter Eight

  Twenty feet away, up the little hill in front of the animal clinic, the nondescript thief tucked her newly-acquired cash into her pocket. She tugged on her little dog’s leash and, once again, looked as if she yelled at the poor animal to be quiet.

  But her voice carried a highly irritating undertone. One that Gavin suspected no one else heard, but which made the little dog frustrated and angry. The woman seemed to have a dog whistle embedded in her voice.

  Daisy turned around and squared her body to Gavin. “I don’t smell calling scents,” he read from her lips, “and she looks forgettable, which means she is probably a morpher with voice enthralling capability.” She closed her eyes and twisted her head, as if concentrating. “Nor do I sense another Shifter, which means she’s someone capable of hiding from her own kind.”

  Gavin opened his mouth, then slammed it shut. “I didn’t understand any of the words you just said.”

  Daisy’s mouth thinned. “Rysa hasn’t called you? To explain?”

  Rysa was supposed to call me? “No! What the hell is happening?”

  “My father told me she called you already. That she explained…” Daisy waved at the world. “… and that you were safe.” Daisy glanced over her shoulder. “… lie.” When she looked back at his face, her eyes mirrored all the weirded-out terror Gavin felt. “We are in danger.”

  Gavin looked up at the nondescript woman. When she smiled, he smiled back. “How much danger?” he said through his locked-into-a-grin lips.

  Daisy moved closer. “If you feel the urge to follow her commands, fight it. Knowing you’re being enthralled is half the battle.”

  The animal instinct part of his brain wanted him to curl his arms around Daisy’s waist, but he forced his body to ignore it. They had much more pressing issues than how nice she smelled. Because she sure did smell nice. Like a pretty female.

  Gavin blinked and shook it off. Focus, he thought.

  “Does that woman have some sort of special brainwashing tech?” Gavin watched the woman “yell” at the dog again. “She’s making an extra irritating sound that’s pissing off the corgi.”

  Daisy closed her eyes again. “She’s good. Like highly-trained level of good. I would have missed her if you hadn’t pointed her out.” Her face softened for a brief second and thank you moved through her eyes.

  Gavin’s internal hooting started again. He frowned.

  “How bad is this?” he asked. All the questions that had knotted him into a spinning ball of fear a week ago resurfaced on the back of the frantic animal parts of his brain. Crazy rolled back into his life and now stalked both him and this woman named Daisy.

  A woman who smelled nice that he was told to help. If he could smack the side of his own head and yell Focus! without looking crazier than the crazy up the hill, he would have. But no matter what his instincts wanted, he needed to act like a human being with all his faculties.

  “Stay behind me.” Daisy turned her back to Gavin.

  He felt suddenly, completely exposed. “If you speak, I won’t be able to understand what you say,” he said.

  Daisy didn’t turn around. She watched the nondescript woman walk down the hill toward them. The corgi continued to bark and the thief continued to fake looking out-of-sorts and frazzled.

  The woman stopped about five feet away. “… vet?” She cocked her head. “… stop barking?”

  Another wave of ‘comply’ rode out on the woman’s voice, but this one was different from what she’d used on the man with the wallet. The wave jostled the air, forming into a long, almost visible cylinder.

  The nondescript thief aimed her commands directly at the lovely, amber-eyed Daisy.

  The wave contracted into a cone focused directly at Daisy’s head, but Gavin’s body responded anyway. He wanted to skip out from behind her and take the nondescript woman’s hand like he was a six-year-old. Like she was his babysitter and Daisy was a neighbor kid.

  Gavin curled his fingers around Daisy’s arm.

  Her eyelids closed, then opened, in a slow, pained blink. Her body said she wanted to run, but the weird sounds floating on the woman’s voice kept her still.

  The woman stepped closer and another wave of ‘comply’ shot out on another question about her dog. Daisy blinked and shook as if all the waves crashing against her brain had washed away her final defenses.

  The one person who understood what the hell was happening was about to wash away, swept up in the sonic tsunami made by a monster she’d labeled an “enthraller.”

  Gavin felt the ‘comply.’ It poked and harassed the hooting, yelling part of his brain that wanted, more than anything, to be set free so it could act. His instincts wanted to beat the living shit out of the thieving monster and to carry away the pretty female.

  He stepped around Daisy. “Sick dogs go to clinic.” He pointed over her shoulder, toward the door.

  Why did he sound sub-human? He could talk. Language was his friend. He’d always gotten along just fine with words.

  The thief scowled. Her mouth opened.

  A new wave rolled out of her throat on the back of a question Gavin could not
parse. “… just a question….”

  Behind him, Daisy spoke. “… what you are!”

  The waves from the woman flared out into a bright, painful burst, as if she’d altered whatever she’d been using on the dog to bring it just inside a human’s upper range of hearing.

  She pointed at Gavin’s face. “… burst his eardrums!”

  The wave crawled across Gavin’s skin and fear sloshed from his body into his brain—and the animal part broke free.

  Gavin tackled the woman as if she was a mugger.

  They slammed into the lawn, the woman on her back and Gavin holding her shoulders. Her clothes snagged the ground, rubbing across it like oiled sandpaper. The grass and the dirt snapped and ripped, but she slid across the bursting blades of grass.

  The wave from her throat changed to a humph the second he made contact with her body. The extra information flooding into his hearing aids stopped.

  To his surprise, his hearing aids stayed in his ears. He rolled slightly to pull his arm around, planning to cover her mouth with his hand, but she yelled.

  The little dog lunged for his face.

  Gavin’s animal perception widened to include the frantic pain the woman inflicted on the dog. The I like humans the poor corgi wanted to express but couldn’t. He heard the I’m so afraid in the dog’s growl.

  The dog’s responses abruptly changed. She yipped and her little legs pumped as if she swam in the air. Her mouth closed. She slammed into Gavin’s chest, her doggie head curling under, and Gavin caught her the way he would catch a twenty-pound corgi-shaped football.

  The little animal shook. She burrowed into the space between his arm and chest, obviously terrified.

  “Fucking normal!” The thieving monster somehow landed her kneecap soundly over his kidney.

  Sudden, blinding pain ratcheted up his spine. It spread out into all his organs. His insides felt as if someone had reached in through his bellybutton and squeezed.