by Aubrey Rose
Then and only then did she sit up, wiping her eyes with both hands. Her dad plucked a tissue from the nightstand and handed it to her. She blotted her eyes and saw the dark smudges of her mascara on the tissue.
"That's why they have me back in," she said. She blew her nose. "It's in California."
"Don't tell your mom," her dad said. His eyes were sympathetic. "You know how crazy she gets about that kind of thing."
"She hates shifters."
"I know, baby."
"So who else does she think is going to get rid of them all?" Wren wiped angrily at her eyes to get the remaining tears.
"Baby, Wren, I know." Her dad patted her hand. "But look what they did to me. She doesn't want that to happen to you."
"Do you think we'll get them all?" Wren asked. She looked out the hospital window. It was nighttime, and it had begun to snow, light drifts of it running up against the windowpane.
"All the shifters?"
"Yeah." She turned her gaze back to her dad. His hair looked like it was covered in snow, that's how white it was.
"I think we'll get them all."
"What if they have kids?"
"They can't hide forever from the world, Wren," her dad said. He reached out and chucked her under the chin. "And especially not from you."
"What if they can? What if they stay hidden away so we think they're all gone?" Wren had never thought about the possibility that there wouldn't be any more shifters left in the country, or the world. Would the CSE still exist? Marty had told her last time that they were laying off part of the office staff where he worked. Could they be closing down? Or starting to close down?
"If they hide for good, what does it matter?" Her dad shrugged. "If they don't hurt anyone, if they stay away, just kill deer for food—"
"It still matters," Wren said, frowning. "They'll still exist."
"I'm sure there are some who will always exist," her dad said. He sounded tired. "That's alright by me."
"How can you say that?" Wren's voice rose higher. "They were the ones who did this to you! That wolf crushed your spine. He could have killed you!"
A nurse poked her head into the room.
"I'm going to need you to keep it down," she said. "Visiting hours are over, you know."
"I'm sorry," Wren said. She waited until the nurse's footsteps had vanished down the hall before speaking again. "They're all just rabid wild animals. They need to be put down. All of them."
"I don't think they're as wild as you think they are," her dad said. "I'm not saying that they're not dangerous. A lot of them are. But...god, I don't know. Sometimes it's hard for me to think about."
"They killed Tommy," Wren said quietly. Her anger burned in dull embers in her mind as she imagined his face. Chief. Gone forever.
"Look, Wren—"
The door opened again, but this time it was Wren's mother. Wren shook her head. She didn't want to talk about Tommy's death with her mom in the room.
"Oh, Wren, my little darling!" Wren's mom swept into the room like a tornado of activity, throwing the dinner bags onto the table at the same time she pulled Wren into a big hug. Her hair was as dark as Wren's, but Wren suspected that she'd been dyeing it for quite some time.
"Oof, mom, careful. You're gonna squeeze me to death."
"My little sugar pie! Look at you! You look too thin. Have you been eating at all?"
Wren glanced at her dad and they rolled their eyes in tandem.
"I've gained eight pounds since the last time I saw you, mom." Maybe more. Wren had always been short and muscled from the CSE's training, but now that she didn't have a reason to stay super fit, her natural curves were coming back to her. Her mom chattered on without hearing her.
"I brought rice and curry from that nice Thai food place down the street. Your dad won't eat the hospital food, it makes him sick." Wren's mom laid out three paper plates and spooned the thick yellow curry over rice.
"That's not true," he interjected. "It just tastes terrible. Bland. I can't taste anything with all the medicine they dump into me."
"I'm sure your nurses will love that you brought curry in here," Wren said. "You'll have the whole east wing smelling like your dinner plate."
"Can you stay to eat, dear? I got extra." Wren's mom placed a plate on the hospital bed for her dad, and offered her one.
Wren checked her watch. "Sorry, mom. I should be going soon. Plane to catch. This was just a layover."
"Not until you eat." Her mom stood, stubbornly holding the plate out to her.
"Okay. Maybe a few bites." After the first forkful, though, Wren's resistance melted. The spicy curry warmed her from the inside out, and soon she was shoveling up the last of the rice on her plate.
"How's Olivier?" Wren's mom said, patting her on the shoulder.
"Good." Wren blotted the napkin on her lips. "We're going on a trip this weekend. A spa getaway."
"How exciting! Do you think he'll propose?"
"Mom!"
Wren swallowed hard. For whatever reason, she felt uncomfortable talking about Olivier and their plans. Settling down, starting a family—she’d never thought about it much. Maybe as something that would happen in the distant future. And when she started thinking about settling down with Olivier, there was something in her that blocked her from thinking too much.
"Marilyn," her dad said admonishingly. "Don't push the girl."
"Mike, I'm not pushing. I'm curious!"
"And I'm going to be late for my plane," Wren said. She stood up and shrugged her jacket back on over her shoulders. "Love you, mom."
Her mom hugged her again, even harder than the first time.
"Say hi to my future son-in-law," she said.
"I will." Wren leaned over and hugged her dad, careful not to pinch any of the IV tubing as she squeezed. "Love you, dad."
"You be careful out there," her dad said to her as they embraced. "Don't let your head get in the way of your instinct. Trust yourself. Follow your heart."
"Got it." Wren nodded. Her mom looked confused, thank goodness. She probably thought they were talking about Olivier. "You get better, okay?"
"They can't keep me here much longer," her dad said, beaming. "The nurses all hate your mother."
"They do not!" Wren's mom said.
"Bye, guys!" Wren waved again at the door and left, pulling her suitcase behind her. Walking down the hall, she could hear them bickering all the way until she turned the corner of the hospital wing.
Chapter Seven
In the airplane on the way to California, Wren had taken off her shoes and was about to slip on her headset to watch the inflight movie when the cell phone buzzed with a message.
Here's the video. This is all we have to go on right now. –Marty
Her heart began to beat faster as the video loaded. Pulling on her headset, she plugged the audio cord into the phone instead. The cell phone screen popped up with a shot of a forest.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed play.
The video was choppy, one of the button cams every tracker had to use. Although Chief's movements were smoother than most, it still took a minute for Wren to get used to the up-and-down motion as he walked forward through the woods. The only audio she could hear was the sound of his breathing, his step crunching leaves underfoot, and occasionally a bird cry.
It was hard to hear him breathe, to see him walking through the forest through his eyes. Knowing that soon it would be over. Wren shook the thought away and kept watching the video.
Redwoods lined the path through the forest, their trunks stretching up forever into the sky. At one point Chief stopped and looked up, the camera tilting back far enough that Wren could see the sky, bright blue through the treetops.
Was that the last time he saw the sky? How did he feel at that moment? Was he happy? Wren’s jaw clenched and tears pushed against the backs of her eyes. No. This was research. She needed to be objective.
Chief continued on.
The woods grew thi
cker, the shorter oaks clumping in densely ahead of the path. Wren could see the trail he was following in the muddy parts of the forest floor: bear tracks. She could hear his breathing quicken, and hers did, too. She held the screen closer to her face, her heart beating fast. She wished he would look around more. Now that the path was narrow, there were plenty of spaces that a bear could be hiding.
A branch moved, and Wren started back in her seat, her heart skipping a beat. Then the squirrel leaped out of the tree and darted away through the brush. She exhaled, trying to regain her calm.
Chief moved forward again. Clouds must have come over the tops of the trees, because the light was fading too quickly for sunset. The camera struggled to make sense of the light its lens was receiving. It focused on the nearest tree branch, then farther away. Wren frowned and leaned forward, her nose almost touching the screen.
There. There was a shadow or something, back behind the small grove of redwoods. Chief turned away and it was lost from sight. Wren wanted to scream at him to turn back, to look! Rule one! Surroundings! Check your damn surroundings!
He walked forward on the path. The birds had stopped chirping and all was silent except for his breathing.
A rustling noise came from up ahead, and Wren watched as Chief's gun lifted up into view, pointed directly ahead of him in the direction of the sound. Better safe than sorry. He walked forward, slowly, slowly—
The attack came from the side. A roar nearly burst Wren's eardrums, and she jerked the cell phone screen away from her at the loud noise. All Wren could see was the dark shadow of a paw slashing down at Chief's arm before darkness enveloped the screen. The roar faded just enough for Wren to hear him screaming, his voice choking on something liquid, maybe blood.
Then the screen went black. The connection was lost.
Wren's hand shook as she set down the cell phone on her lap, pulling the headphones out of her ears. For a moment, she could only stare out of the window at the black expanse passing below the plane. All around her, people tossed and turned in their seats, trying to sleep during the flight. She bit down on her lip and tried to keep herself from crying.
She knew Chief from way back—back when his name was still Tommy Laredo. They'd done their first year at the Center together, but Tommy had skipped past all the usual requirements and graduated early from training.
He's been the best shot in the entire class, bar none, and the best at tracking even the faintest of animal prints. Preternaturally good. The rest of their class used to say that Tommy was so good because he had shifter blood in him. Then they said he had Indian blood in him, and that's when he got the name Chief.
She'd decided early she wanted to become a shifter assassin. When she was ten, her dad was already one of the best assassins at the CSE. Her mom tried to keep her from knowing about what he did for work, but she knew. She'd always known. He took her hunting and taught her to track alongside him, training that would serve her well later on. It was the only reason she could keep up even a little bit with Tommy at the Center.
Then her dad went out on an assignment, and he didn't come back the next day like normal. Wren remembered waiting with her mom at the kitchen table all day and all night. Waiting for him to come back. On assignment, you're not supposed to have any contact with the outside world. So all they could do was wait.
The knock on the door eventually came, and Wren remembered her mom rushing to open it. It wasn't her dad, though. It was some guy in a suit who explained that her dad had been hurt, and could they please come to the hospital?
When she saw her dad lying in bed, he told her that he couldn't get up to hug her. He would never walk again. Never go out hunting or tracking.
That was when she decided that she would become an assassin and hunt down every single last monster on earth like the one who had hurt her dad.
Tommy knew why she was at the Center, and he didn't care that she was the only girl there. He vowed to get revenge for her dad right along with her. In fact, they'd sworn on it in blood one drunken night out at the bar, Tommy pricking her hand and his with his knife before they pressed their palms together.
"We'll get them," he said. At that moment, she had loved him. They'd dated, but only briefly. And after, when they'd split up because of the work, she still loved him for the promise he'd made.
After a while, she picked the phone back up. She rewound the video to the first glimpse of the bear, when it was still up ahead in the thicket of trees. Her finger traced the outline of its broad shoulder, the back of its head. Its yellow fur seemed to blend right into the dense brush. It wasn't surprising Tommy hadn't caught it—it was gone in an instant. But how had it gotten back around him to attack?
"Excuse me? Miss? Excuse me?"
Wren looked up to see the flight attendant bending over toward her. Outside of the plane window the sky was turning a pale shade of gray.
"Please turn off all electronic devices. We're preparing for landing."
Wren powered off the phone and put both hands into her jacket pockets.
"I'll get them, Tommy," she whispered, looking out to where the yellow sun was still hidden over the horizon. "I'll get the monster who killed you."
Chapter Eight
The morning sun broke over the ocean as the airplane touched down in Los Angeles.
Wren stood in front of the car rental place, a slow smile creeping over her face. The car Marty had picked for her wasn't a boring black sedan, or even a saucy red Mustang. Hell, it wasn't even a car.
"Marty, you beautiful asshole," Wren said, holding the cell phone to her ear as she looked over the shiny black and green motorcycle she now held the keys to. "You spoil me rotten."
"I thought you might like a fun ride up the coast," Marty said. "Don't speed."
"Ha! That's a good one," Wren said. "Rent a Kawasaki Ninja for me and then tell me not to speed!" Her fingers slid over the chrome handlebars, the black leather seat. The lines of the sport bike were accentuated by green side panels. A Kawasaki, alright. She hoped she could fit all of her clothes into the saddlebag.
Oh, who was she kidding? If her clothes didn't fit, she'd leave them behind in the parking lot without a moment's thought. Already she was imagining the ride up the coast, wind streaming through her hair...
"It's not quite inconspicuous, is it?" Wren asked. "You could have rented me a Volvo station wagon or something."
"That was my call," Marty said. "This is the most popular bike for California coastal rentals. And I figured that now the shifter knows we're after him, he'll be on the lookout for an inconspicuous sedan coming from San Jose."
"Nobody expects an assassin to come roaring up all the way from Los Angeles on a green motorcycle." Wren swung her leg over the Ninja and settled into the seat. It was small enough that she only had to tiptoe a little bit to balance. Not bad.
"Exactly. Also I know you like to ride."
"You're the best, Marty."
"Go kill 'em," he said. "Literally."
She pocketed the cell phone and revved the engine. The sport bike growled under her, as though it was as eager to race up the coast as she was. She patted the smooth green side of the sport bike and flipped her braid back over her shoulder
"Good boy," she said. "Let's go put down a bear."
The coast flew by under her feet, and the rising sun soon burned up the waves of fog. The rumble of the engine under her body hypnotized her and caused her to lose all sense of time. By the time she stopped for gas she was surprised to find that she had been riding for hours already. No time to waste. She ate a protein bar and hopped back on.
Curve after curve, she made her way north. The tall pines were as black as shadows against the yellow cliffs, and the sunlight glinting off of the water was blindingly bright. The salt air seemed to clear her brain of all thought, and she let herself ease into the rhythm of the ride, enjoying the wind and the sun.
There were fewer and fewer cars up on the northern edge of the California coast, as they peel
ed off to the inland highways to head toward San Francisco more quickly, and soon she was alone on the road, with only a few cars passing in the other direction every once in a while.
It was late afternoon. She'd thought she had missed the small town and was planning to stop for directions soon, but then she saw the city sign. Maugham. Population: 411.
All thoughts of her relaxing ride were driven away by the reminder of Tommy's death. This was where it had happened. She swallowed and slowed down.
Fifty feet up ahead, a man walked alongside the side of the road. His shirt was off, slung over one shoulder, and he held out a thumb to hitchhike. He turned at the sound of her bike and held up his hand in a half-wave.
As she passed him and waved back, her eyes swept over his body. His physique was incredibly muscled for such a tall man, and his broad chest shimmered with a gleam of sweat in the sun. His hair hung down past his ears: "hippy hair," as her dad would have put it. And something else, something lighter on his skin, running across his chest. She only saw a glimpse of it before his arm dropped.
He turned to watch her as she sped by him, and in her mirror she saw his eyes flicker down to the back of the motorcycle.
Beautiful eyes. Light, almost golden brown. If Wren had been a normal girl, she would have been taken in by them completely. Years of kills had cautioned her against those sorts of feelings, and there was only one thing in his eyes that mattered to Wren: where he had focused them.
In a split second he was out of sight behind her, but Wren knew without a doubt that those beautiful gold eyes had memorized her license plate number.
A half mile later, Wren reached town. She turned off into a dirt road in the center of Maugham.
It was a sampler pack for what a real city might look like, she thought. There was one tiny restaurant, one grocery store, one gas station. And one hotel, a small inn with wood shingled sides. All of the parking spaces at the inn were full, so she pulled into the parking lot for the gas station across the street.
After gassing up, she went into the gas station store to get some coffee. The teenager sitting on a stool at the counter had his eyes closed and was bobbing his head to whatever music was playing in his huge headphones. Wren waited unsuccessfully for him to notice her and then tapped his shoulder. He looked up at her from his chair with red-rimmed, glassy eyes and a goofy grin. He stunk of pot.
