by Amira Rain
“It’s only me,” the stranger whispered. Mary-Lou let him help her out of the water, let him cradle her in his arms and tried her best not to shake apart as adrenaline and fear and cold rattled through her body.
“I am sorry,” the man told her, “I am so sorry.”
Mary-Lou leaned her head against him and said nothing for a long time.
“You are not taking me anywhere shady, are you?”
An hour and a whole lot of embarrassing crying later, Mary-Lou found herself following the stranger deeper into the small forest that enclosed the park. She did not have much choice, what with bloodthirsty people-animals after her and being lost in a strange neighborhood. Still, she could not just follow a bare-chested stranger around meekly. What had her life become, Mary-Lou thought morosely, for this to be even a concern?
“Jonas,” said the man. Mary-Lou glanced up from where she was carefully navigating the forest floor, catching a flash of blue eyes just before the man turned around. She stared at the back of his head, a small wrinkle of confusion curling between her eyebrows.
“What?” she asked.
“My name is Jonas Edwards. I don’t think I mentioned that, which was rather rude of me.”
Mary-Lou thought of asking Jonas Edwards what he thought about pushing girls into streams, politeness-wise, but found she didn’t have the energy for petty bickering.
“Mary-Lou Smith,” she said instead. Jonas nodded in silent acknowledgment.
They entered a small clearing. The woods were darker here, quieter, the grass dotted with flowers dusk had painted varying shades of gray. Mary-Lou took a deep breath, feeling calm wash over her.
“Through here.”
Jonas led her down a path overgrown with plants of decidedly prickly nature, halting at the bottom of what appeared to be a moss-covered rock formation. Mary-Lou, focused on keeping the amount of thistle in her clothing to a minimal, almost walked into his broad back.
“Umm,” Mary-Lou squinted her eyes at the black mass of stone, “Nice rocks?”
Jonas grinned (and how white were his teeth, to gleam this much in the dark?) and pushed aside a boulder two times his size. Mary-Lou stared into the gaping blackness that was revealed in a combination of dread and disbelief.
“I am not going in there,” she said.
Jonas raised an eyebrow, muscles flexing pointedly along the arm resting against the enormous rock
.
They went into the stupid cave.
It was not too bad inside: The ground was covered with more of the same green-yellow moss that decorated the cave’s face, making it soft and vaguely warm to the touch. Further back, a well-used fire pit sat under a surprisingly high ceiling. The walls of the cave were smooth, curling up in a concave rise to cluster around a circular opening at the very top. A useful feature, that; it provided means for fresh air to come in and smoke to go out, as needed.
Jonas guided Mary-Lou to sit around the fire pit, quickly set about creating a fire. “Is that wise?” asked Mary-Lou, thinking of smoke trails and wild-eyed animals.
Jonas shrugged. “They have no reason to suspect me. Not that I care either way,” he added with what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. Mary-Lou fought against shrinking back at the proud display of sharp teeth. The fear must have shown in her eyes, however, for Jonas quickly dropped his gaze and concentrated on the fire.
Several moments of silence later, flames were crackling in an enclosure of stone, throwing shadows against the blue-white walls. Mary-Lou watched Jonas trying not to watch her, felt her skin numb and prickle under the scratch of drying cotton. Finally, she could take no more.
“Thank you for helping me,” she began. Jonas’ head lifted from where he had been staring at his hands, obviously waiting for her to continue. Mary-Lou did so with some hesitancy, “You are helping me, aren’t you?”
Jonas smiled at her, taking care to keep his teeth behind the soft pink barrier of his lips. “Believe me, you would know if I was hunting you.”
Mary-Lou felt her cheeks warm. She waved embarrassment away and focused on the meaning behind the playful words, “So you are like them?”
Jonas sighed, the humor vanishing from his handsome face. And he was handsome. Mary-Lou tried to not let his strong jaw and high cheekbones and overall gorgeousness distract her from judging him as he deserved. “Yes and no. Yes, I am a shape-shifter. No, I do not hunt people. I am fully house-trained,” he added in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.
Unfortunately, Mary-Lou was still stuck somewhere on “shape-shifter” and “hunt people,” so the joke was completely lost on her.
“I,” she started, paused to swallow back hysterical laughter, “I think you should start from the beginning.”
“Okay,” Jonas agreed. His eyes were wide and worried as they studied her face, arms twitching with a repressed desire to move. Mary-Lou wondered if he wanted to hug or strangle her. Neither was out of the question at the moment.
“There are people,” he began, “who are more than human. Or less, depending on whom you ask. They – we – have been around for as long as anyone can remember. From the dawn of history as it matters for the human species: A branch of the same tree, a mutation that never quite went extinct.”
“Shape-shifters,” Mary-Lou offered dubiously. Jonas nodded.
“Right. Shape-shifters. Or Skin-Changers, as the more… enthusiastic of our kind prefer.” A frown twisted Jonas full lips, revealing the edge of a curved canine tooth. Mary-Lou shivered, “But titles do not matter. What we are is beings with two forms: One human, one animal, both contained in the same mind and flesh. We have the ability to change from one to the other, and the desire to do so,” he smiled, “you must understand, living as a human gets rather cramped when a part of you wants to roam the great plains or scale a mountain or soar in the skies, as the case may be.
“So there are days we set aside,” Jonas continued, “time to Change. Most of us do it in private, on our own or within our families. But some,” Jonas frowned, “Some make it into a communal experience. It has been happening more and more as of late.”
“It looked like a cult.”
Jonas glared at her and Mary-Lou raised her hands in a placating gesture, “Look, I am trying to understand. Honestly, had I not seen them change into—well, change, I would be running out of here screaming about crazy people.”
Jonas’s frown became more pronounced, but he did not argue.
“Why did they chase me?” Mary-Lou prompted.
“Because it is a secret. One that is more important to some than to others,” Jonas shrugged.
“Important enough to kill over?” Mary-Lou demanded. Jonas was silent. Mary-Lou thought of persecution, of the murderous panic to which the general population was given and understood, if at least a little, the need to keep such a secret safe.
“What do I do now,” she whispered.
Jonas caught her eyes and held.
“You run.”
CHAPTER TWO
“What?”
Mary-Lou stared at the man as he made his way to sit by her, large body framed in gold-tinted shadows. “You run,” he repeated, adding, “I will help you.”
“Run where? Home?” Jonas shook his head. A band tightened around Mary-Lou’s heart, “Where to, then?”
“Anywhere else. The safest will be to leave the country, but I realize that might be too difficult of a transition. So a couple of states. How do you feel about Texas?” Jonas looked at her with the most earnest blue eyes and Mary-Lou had a surreal moment of realization – oh God, he is serious – before exploding.
“I am not leaving my home!” she told him, “I am not leaving my parents and friends and job just because a group of people with issues decided that they have a problem with me.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Jonas said, voice catching somewhere between pleading and annoyed. “They will kill you.”
“Do bullets work on Shifters?” Mary-Lou aske
d. Jonas nodded, somewhat alarmed at the vehemence in her expression, “Then I can protect myself. Hell, I can get the police involved…”
“No!” Jonas grabbed her arm, nails elongating ever-so-slightly in the folds of her hoodie.
“No,” he repeated, quieter. “A couple of people knowing do not pose a problem, not to most of us. The government, however …” he shook his head.
“Promise me that you won’t,” Jonas said, command and plea mixing in his voice “promise me that you will not involve them, and I will help you.”
“Even if I stay here?” Mary-Lou asked. Jonas nodded with a defeated sigh.
“Even if you stay here. Which,” he added, “I am still completely against.”
“Too bad.” Mary-Lou rose to her feet and dusted chunks of moss and grass from her legs, “Now, I will be very grateful if you could show me the way back into the city.”
They made their way into the city at about two in the morning, on foot. It took them a good three hours of walking. Mary-Lou was ridiculously happy to see streetlights and familiar buildings. Near-death experiences aside, her feet were going numb and she was cold. She looked downright miserable, which is probably why Jonas had offered to carry her about an hour ago. Mary-Lou had turned him down firmly, embarrassed at the very thought. What if someone she knew saw them? How do you explain away a six-foot-something, half-naked man? Even walking side-by-side with Jonas was pushing it.
Thankfully, the streets were mostly empty, traffic slow even at the busiest intersections. The two kept to the shadows, nonetheless, careful to the point of paranoia in ensuring no one was on their trail. Mary-Lou did not want to bring trouble to her parents’ doorstep; Jonas was similarly concerned, albeit more with her immediate safety.
They turned a corner, passing the local post office, the bakery next door. On the next intersection Mary-Lou grabbed Jonas’ shoulder, staying the large man’s gait.
“I will be fine from here,” she said.
Jonas seemed inclined to argue. He was obviously uncomfortable with leaving her in the middle of the street. Mary-Lou was touched, but did not back down: The less people who knew where her family lived, the better.
“Alright,” Jonas bent his head in sullen agreement. When Mary-Lou started forward, he stretched a large hand to lightly clasp her upper arm.
“Just be careful,” he muttered. Mary-Lou smiled, for the first time since the whole awful evening began, and covered his hand with her own.
“Thank you, Jonas.”
The two-story, off-white house that Mary-Lou shared with her parents sat in the middle of a row of similar houses two blocks down from where Jonas and she went their separate ways. Mary-Lou let herself in from the back door, quietly angry at having to be cautious around her own home.
“Mary-Lou?” a voice called from within the house.
Mary-Lou sighed. It had been too much to expect that her parents would go to bed while she was still out, but she had hoped.
“Yes, Mom!” she called back, making sure to lock the door before making her way inside. She followed the light and quiet rumble of voices, finally ducking into the open doorway of the kitchen.
Emma and Ronald Smith sat around the high kitchen table, shoulders hunched as they nursed half-empty mugs of tea. Their faces were lined with worry, eyes shadowed by lack of sleep. Guilt tightened Mary-Lou’s chest. She muttered a greeting and stepped fully inside the small room.
“Mary!” Emma gasped, the table clattering as the older woman rushed to her feet, “Baby, what happened to you?”
“Nothing!” Mary-Lou hastened to reassure. She was met with two disbelieving stares, and quickly amended, “Nothing horrible.”
“What happened to your clothes?” Emma asked, Ronald’s voice overlapping with hers as he rasped, “Your face is bruised!”
“That’s from the bushes,” Mary-Lou told them, “And the river. The green stains on my jeans are definitely from the cave.”
Her parents blinked up at her, only marginally less worried.
“Sit,” Emma pointed a stern finger at her recently-vacated chair, “and explain.”
“But you are tired—” Mary-Lou protested.
The finger stabbed the air in a resolute downward motion. “Now.”
Mary-Lou sat. She held back the relieved groan that rose in her throat, not wanting to explain the numbness in her feet as well.
How was she to explain at all?
“I was chased,” Mary-Lou blurted out, settling for the most honest lie she could manage, “by a cult.”
“What?!” her parents exclaimed in unison, wide-eyed. “What cult?” Emma demanded, “Where on earth did you find a cult?”
“I went exploring this afternoon,” Mary-Lou began. Her parents’ faces immediately tightened; her wandering habits had long been a sore point between them. Their city might be small, but bad things happened just as they did in New York or Chicago. Mary-Lou carried on, side-stepping the issue with practiced ease, “Down by the docks. I saw an interesting building, went to check it out, and – there they were. Chanting and dancing and –that’s all I saw.”
“Who?” demanded Ronald, “Did you get a good look at any of the people that chased you?”
“No!” Mary-Lou denied quickly, “No, I didn’t. They jumped at me, and I ran. I had no time to stop and stare, you know.” This was true enough. She remembered the darkness of that first Shifter’s eyes, the rolling shadow of several bodies – pieces of different puzzles, none combining into a single solid figure.
Her parents were obviously not too impressed by her explanation, but did not pursue the issue. “And the bruises?” Well, that issue.
“I fell into some bushes, rolled down a hill, and ended in a stream,” Mary-Lou went through the list quickly, not wanting to lie more than necessary, “It got them off my trail, at least.”
“And the cave?” asked Ronald dubiously.
“Erm,” Mary-Lou winced --- very eloquently. “There was a cave near the stream. I hid inside for a little while, and left for home as soon as I was sure the coast was clear.” There, an explanation that did not mention half-naked men of questionable origins and the associated furry-slash-scaly animals.
Emma hugged her daughter, Ronald moving to envelop both of them in his arms. Mary-Lou realized she had been shaking, and trembled even more with repressed emotion.
“You are okay,” whispered Emma. She trailed a wrinkled hand through her daughter’s hair, pressed a motherly kiss on her forehead. Mary-Lou nodded, overcome with relief and gratitude for the wonderful couple that had taken her in and loved her as their own all of these years. She told them as much, mumbling words of endearment amid relieved tears. She had come so close to losing them tonight – closer than she could even explain.
“We love you too, Mary-Lou,” her father told her.
Mary-Lou hugged them tighter and promised herself that whatever happened, nothing would touch her family. She would make sure of that.
***
“Good morning!”
Mary-Lou lifted a hand in response to her coworker’s cheerful greeting, swallowing her sip of coffee before replying with a less-merry, “Hi, Katy.”
“Oh, come on,” Katy grinned, holding the door to the office open for Mary-Lou so she could shuffle inside without having to juggle her coffee and handbag, “I know it’s Saturday, but that’s no reason to be grumpy!”
“Says the woman who threatened to trip a child last Sunday because he was – and I quote – ‘running in circles like a broken helicopter and giving her a headache, ’” Mary-Lou shot back, mock indignant.
Katy laughed, unrepentant. “Yeah, little bugger was fucking annoying. Had the boss not been hovering, I might’ve taught him some manners.”
Mary-Lou nodded in agreement. Some people just needed to be put in their places – the earlier, the better.
“Speaking of rude people,” Katy muttered, plopping in the chair to Mary-Lou’s right and booting up their shared computer, “Her
e comes Jenna.”
Mary-Lou rolled her eyes just as the office door banged open to reveal a tall, thin woman.
“Good morning, Jenna,” she greeted, repressing a smile at the pinched glare Jenna sent her way in response. She did not pay Jenna much heed. Displeasure tended to be the older woman’s default expression and anyway, Mary-Lou had built immunity to misplaced bitterness a long time ago. Working the front desk of any public establishment made doing so a vital necessity for preserving one’s nerves.
Katy, however, lacked both the practice and the patience to deal with Jenna’s issues. Any prolonged interaction between the two tended to end in petty fights, closely followed by sullen silence. Working with them quickly became unbearable for the rest of the office. Schedules were changed about a month into Katy’s time at the Center and as it stood, the two shared only one shift per week.
