Vixen (The Fox and Hound Book 1)

by Catherine Labadie

  I smile at his praise for my brother. “There’s a reason he’s getting promoted soon. Eisen has a gift for the barista business,” I say. I wonder what Duncan would think about the rest of my family, but this isn’t the time for that conversation; besides, I want to know more about his family.

  “How many siblings do you have?” I ask.

  “Two: a younger sister and a younger brother. Neither one of them goes to Hostetler though, in case you’re wondering. Ryella moved out as soon as she could, and Coby lives with our mom and her husband,” Duncan says. He’s not any less cheerful, but somehow I get the vibe from his slightly furrowed eyebrows that he

  doesn’t want to pursue this topic any longer. I’m curious about his family, suddenly, if they all share the same red hair, or if they tend towards the same body type.

  A distraction slips through the unique door of the café. My nose twitches, catching the scent before I turn around. Sure enough, it’s human girl wearing the standard overpowering, fruity perfume.

  Ugh. I want to pay attention to Duncan and forget this silly human, so I sit back in my seat and indulge in another long sip of my drink. The twiggy blonde loiters near the door with her friends, perhaps choosing where to sit or reading the confusing and tiny printed menu behind the counter, so Duncan and I talk in peace for a few minutes. But then they stride over to the order

  counter like they own every brick of this place. Eisen, bored and unconcerned, has been waiting to take their orders, and I stop speaking almost mid-sentence when I allow myself one more glance in their direction.

  I already pegged the girl, who looks to be eighteen, as an overtly flirty type, and I wasn’t wrong.

  “I wonder what she’d say if she knew he was a half-breed,” I say, thinking aloud with gritted teeth. So much for trying to ignore her.

  Duncan, who was learning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, sits up slightly to observe what I’m staring at.“She might not know, but I think her friends do.”

  He’s right; while the girl is fluttering her eyes at my brother in a come-hither fashion, her three friends slouch around watching disapprovingly or composing texts on their SMARTcalls. They haven’t ordered

  anything, and they aren’t inspecting the menu.

  I watch Eisen carefully, more concerned with him than with the pack of silly girls. He’s fulfills the blonde’s order with the bare minimum of responses to her dallying; I’m thankful for my animal senses that let me hear even from a distance.

  “They must have been here before…judging by how hard this girl is trying, anyway,” I say, perhaps with more venom than I intended. Duncan seems to understand, although I can’t tell because he doesn’t reply right away.

  I didn’t realize until now how little joy my brother apparently takes from human girls, if this interaction is anything to gauge by. Oh, half-breed girls he enjoys; I don’t remember the names of all the girls he’s brought home. I assume at this point that this girl’s flirting is an offense, patronizing and spiteful; I’m glad her friends clearly disapprove of her behavior, even if their reasons probably aren’t admirable.

  “Sorry,” I tell Duncan after one more moment of watching; I return my attention to my drink, taking another sip. “This is distracting.”

  “I bet….it’s okay,” he replies. “You and Eisen are really close, then?”

  “Yes. Well, all my brothers and I are, so it’s hard to watch them get harassed by…anyway, I’m surprised too,” I say. “Eisen used to flirt right back when he started working here and getting attention, but now…” I struggle to summarize what I’m thinking. Things changed. He’s grown up.

  “Your ears flop down when you’re focused on something,” Duncan observes with a smile and cocked

  eyebrow…something about this expression makes the stray winged creatures jittering around in my stomach flutter again, and I clear my throat.

  “Oh? Just a reflex, I guess,” I say with a shrug, cursing my wit for abandoning me when I need it.

  Now that he pointed it out, I notice one of my ears is flopped down, probably making me look more like a puppy than I prefer.

  “What’s it like being part fox?” Duncan asks abruptly.

  I must be very obviously astonished by the query, because his face colors again, and he clarifies. “I mean…what is it like being M-DNA? Are your senses super heightened? Sorry if the questions seem weird, I—”

  “—don’t talk to half-breeds much?” I cut in. I’m not offended; this boy seems genuine, which is alluring when I’m used to verbal abuse from humans, particularly human boys and men. I really want to trust my gut feeling of safety with Duncan. Why?

  Duncan is still trying to cover what he thinks was a mistake. “I’m sorry. It’s not usually like me to be this nosy,” he says, then kind of smiles and holds up his drink. “Must be the peppermint.”

  “Must be,” I agree, a responsive smile stealing into my expression too.

  Careful, Sierra, my thoughts chime in again, warning me….but I don’t listen. Instead, I begin to tell Duncan what it’s like to be half-breed in a human society.

  I don’t know where to start or what to say at first, but the conversation becomes easier and more

  interesting as I continue. My mentions of segregation and the benefits of animal aspects—here I’m more careful with how I describe sensations; I don’t know how Duncan will respond to half of what I say—get interrupted by frequent questions, and somehow we end up laughing more than a few times. I marvel at his interest, this attention that is confusing as well as flattering.

  “So you can turn off your heightened senses at will?” Duncan asks me once I get around to answering one of his first questions.

  “Yes…try to imagine how exhausting or how painful it would be to have all the higher senses that a fox might have cranked up in this noisy, smelly world,” I explain as best I can.

  “Gotcha. That does sound like it’d be pretty painful,” Duncan agrees. I consider his expression, and something seems odd to me. I don’t know why, but he looks almost relieved.

  “It’s worth it to keep the animal senses toned down most of the time. I don’t need night vision very frequently, and I don’t often need to run as fast as my fox DNA would let me,” I say. Duncan’s expression has returned to normal, and he absentmindedly rubs the back of his neck.

  The afternoon sun, formerly drawing patterns on the wall through the stained glass window beside us, has sunk now, and the lighting in this coffee shop turns soothing and kind. I’m more comfortable in my squishy chair now, and both of our drinks are long gone.

  “Am I the first half-breed you’ve ever asked about this?” I ask after a long pause.

  “Yes. There’s never been opportunity to ask anyone else,” Duncan replies; he leans back in his chair, absentmindedly toying with the recycled lid of his empty cup. “Humans are generally unaccepted in M-DNA circles, so it would probably have been a bad idea to randomly ask someone.”

  “I wish I could disagree with you, but I can’t,” I confess, shaking my head. My hair falls forward into my face a little, and I push it back with a hand. Around this one human, I don’t feel as self-conscious about the fur on my hands anymore.

  “You didn’t check out any SMARTvlogs or blogs to find out about this topic?”

  Duncan doesn’t seem painfully shy, but I’m really noticing how he tends to blush. “I kind of wanted to ask you in particular about it,” he says. “The information seems more authentic coming from a direct conversation, and…yeah. I wanted to ask you.”

  I don’t need to keep pushing, but I do. “How long have you been curious about M-DNA life?”

  “Probably as long as you’ve wondered about what it’s like to have plain human DNA…so for a while,” he admits. He’s right again; I have wondered about human life since I’ve grown up in a mostly M-DNA community.

  “Also true…however, you waited this long to ask someone about all this? I’m probably not the best person to ask a
bout half-breed customs and our way of life. Other people can probably explain better, even if the source is a vlog,” I say.

  “Maybe…but since I met you, I wanted to ask you,” Duncan says again. I feel the increasingly familiar

  swoop of something with the power of flight in my stomach as our eyes meet. I’m not sure if I like this feeling yet, but his eyes attract mine with an unspoken force. I hastily look away before he can notice how very animalistic my yellow eyes are, but I already know how hard it’s going to be to get the shade of green his eyes are out of my head.

  “Oh,” I say wittily. “Well, I—” I don’t finish my thought because Eisen waves at me from his counter. This is the signal we used in the past, when I would hang out here at Omnium Beanery waiting for Eisen to get off work.

  “You have to go?” Duncan asks me when I turn my attention back to him; he’s still lounging in his chair. Even though he’s not a half-breed, I picture him as a large, warm-furred canine creature: comfortable for lying around but muscular with both brute force strength and athletic speed. Maybe he would have Rhodesian ridgeback DNA, if he was my kind; his large, gentle hands would be a good match for the paws of the huge dog that was bred to hunt lions. He’s different from Lyle; in a feline way, mountain lions are more dangerous creatures with their sharp claws and teeth.

  “Yeah, Eisen’s going to take off his apron and check out,” I answer. I don’t know how to return to what I was going to say before I noticed my brother waving, so I busy myself with the arduous task of gathering my school bag up into my arms. It’s silent for a moment as Duncan and I rise and walk to the recycling chute built into the wall beside the door to throw away our empty cups.

  “Thanks for this afternoon,” I finally say. I stand by

  the door with my human friend, waiting for Eisen to come around. Duncan’s expression appears conflicted for a moment, confusing me as to what he’s thinking, but then he responds.

  “No problem…I enjoyed it,” he says, then pauses. “Let’s do this again soon? Like, tomorrow?”

  I don’t answer for a moment because I don’t know what to say. My tail twitches again as my ears perk up. Something must seriously be wrong with me for me to be so happy about this, but I try not to think much farther than that.

  He wants to see me again! Soon!

  I think I forgot to voice my response again, because he resumes speaking again before I answer. “If you don’t want to that’s completely okay, I just—”

  “It’s okay, I’d like to,” I say, breathless and surprising myself. On the heels of this delight, however, comes a memory that halts my grin. “But…I kind of have a party to go to tomorrow night. It would be really weird if I wasn’t there.” If I was excited for the party before, that excitement has been considerably mellowed.

  “Okay, well—” I’m guessing it’s Duncan’s fate to be interrupted by other people in my life, because suddenly Eisen sprints through the back door leading out of the employee area and seizes my arm on his way out. I manage one very hasty wave towards Duncan and a breathy “see you at school!” as my brother practically drags me out of Omnium Beanery.

  I catch one last glimpse of Duncan coming out of the coffee shop, walking in the direction of his own car. Thankfully he’s smiling; I’m glad he’s not offended. For some reason, I feel it might hurt if he was upset with me.

  Careful, I warn myself yet again.

  “That was rude!” I huff at Eisen as we get into the car; he’s already torn the beanie off his head, and his hair and the fur on his ears sticks up hilariously. I almost have to laugh, but then I notice my brother’s expression, and how his ears angle back with irritation. Oh.

  It’s going to be a long car ride home.

  14

  Some miracle helped me convince Eisen to keep quiet about what went on last evening at Omnium Beanery. He wasn’t happy about staying silent, but he’s never been a tattle-tale when it comes to stuff I’ve done. He’ll keep my secret for now, but his grumpy sulking lets me know that he’s unhappy about the whole matter. He did have a warning for me: Don’t trust too easily. Humans can be cool sometimes, but typically they only ever view you as a lesser being.

  His advice may have helped me keep my head, as well as the memory of that girl flirting with him, but the words have soured in my stomach. My only course of action is waiting. I want to see how things turn out before I tell anyone in my family beside Eisen about…whatever is going on with me and Duncan. It's

  not like I have a clue what's going on myself.

  All Harold and Wade wanted to hear about when I got home was how the “apology” letter had been received. I didn’t say as much as I could have, but they were fine with my information. I feel guilty about keeping secrets from Harold, but I know if he knew I would feel obligated to change my ways. Looking back on everything I know about humans and this one

  boy, I’m not so sure if I should trust Duncan. But I don’t even know how to explain that I do trust him in spite of that. So for right now…I’ll wait and see. Harold will understand once I work up the nerve to explain.

  I have enough problems to mull over as I follow my standard routine Friday morning; the official administrative thoughts about the letter I gave Bryan and what my friends thought about me going off with Duncan after school yesterday are just two. I’m not sure if Morgan and Shelby spread the word, but I’ll find out soon enough.

  Plus I need to put together an outfit for the party tonight; after pawing through my relatively small wardrobe, I despair of this rather quickly.

  My arrival at school is punctuated by the odd

  looks my friends give me as I arrange my light faux leather jacket on the hook inside my locker door and set my lunch on the top shelf. Lyle makes an effort at conversation with me, which I’m grateful for; Morgan is less chatty, and Ivar and Shelby aren’t in sight. The odd tension in the air has set my teeth on edge, and I finally interrupt Lyle midsentence with a slightly over-loud voice.

  “Okay, this is really dumb! If something is wrong, or

  if you have a problem with yesterday—” My words, aggravated and sharp, dwindle into silence when I notice Morgan frantically shaking her head at me while at the same time trying not to get Lyle’s attention. Her antlers make this a comical picture.

  “That doesn’t matter, Sierra,” she says, the pale doe spots under her eyes standing out. This, along with Lyle’s bewildered expression, is her way of letting me

  know that Lyle doesn’t know about my adventure with Duncan yesterday. I’m surprised she didn’t tell, but glad too; it’s not really his business anyway.

  Morgan’s brown eyes study me with some emotion I can’t read, but then her eyes slide over in Lyle’s direction and her expression alters to something kinder.

  “Look around,” she tells me, and I do. I feel stupid for not noticing the differences in my half- breed classmates right away; this is bigger than any tension that might be lingering between me and my friends right now.

  It’s ironic that just as my brother deigns to go camouflage and wear a hat to work for the first time in his life, every single M-DNA student here has suddenly decided to drop their disguises. The muted colors and all the hats and scarves and jackets I’ve been seeing for a few days are nothing compared to the many shades of color my vision absorbs now. Vivid fur and feathers and scales and skin patterns are on display everywhere, and a slow grin creeps onto my face. This feels like the community I’ve been raised in. Home.

  It’s an unofficial heritage day for the half-breed population. Everyone has gone out of their way to display their animal aspects: wings are folded neatly for the few students who have bird or bat DNA, and paws and claws and tails and ears—some few with piercings—are on colorful display. Some girls have worn complimentary colors in all shades, and I notice some very outspoken make-up on quite a few feminine faces. I can hardly pay attention to anything else because of this spectacle; I feel underdressed. I made more of an effort with my appearance to
day and wore

  a short denim skirt instead of pants, but what I’m wearing isn’t particularly stunning.

  “Wow,” I say, proud of my classmates for finally being brave. “What happened?” I inspect my friends closely. Lyle is still wearing his hat, but something about the lines near his mouth definitely looks more feral; he also hasn’t bothered to hide his wiry tail. I look around;

  Ivar and Shelby have also followed the new trend of standing out, and even if Morgan couldn’t hide her antlers before, she’s wearing a very woodsy colored dress to emphasize her deer features.

  “Everyone decided to stop hiding,” Morgan tells me.

  “Why?” I ask. “I mean, why now?”

  “Awesome response, Sierra!” someone hails me before my friends answer my question, and I browse the faces around me to find the source of the voice. Femi and Hasida are on their way to our homeroom, and I think it was Hasida who called me. She and her sister are perhaps the most outspoken with their apparel: Femi looks like she’s dressed for a tropics-themed masquerade—minus the mask—and Hasida conveys a reptilian feel with her futuristic silver garb.

  The silver contrasts splendidly with her crimson hair.

  “Thanks?” I call back, unsure what response they’re referring to

  “Bring a signed copy to the party tonight! You can read it to us all…if we can hear you over the music!” Femi says, laughing as her and her sister exit the hallway.

  The subject of their praise dawns on me, and I remember my letter—well, Harold’s letter—to Bryan.

  How do they know what it said? I’m annoyed with my confusion as I speculate with Lyle and Morgan.

  “Did Bryan publish the letter on the school SMARTspace page or something?” I ask. I wouldn’t put it past him…or past Katrina, for that matter, I think.

  “Not really,” Morgan pipes up helpfully. “Someone in the half-breed class saw the note fall out of Katrina’s bag, and they managed to salvage it.”