by Mia Marshall
She knew. “Not going to happen, Ade,” Sera repeated. “I’ve thought about what you said on the roof, that something feels unbalanced now. That might be true, but I’ve gotta say, I see no evidence of that. You’re the same pain in the ass you always were. So I’m choosing to believe there is a way around this, around all of it, and we will find it.” The words were heavy, a proclamation of fact rather than one woman’s opinion. When she spoke with such confidence, I had no choice but to believe her. “Besides,” she added. “When do I ever not get my way?”
“Never,” I admitted. She nodded, satisfied I was finally seeing reason.
A clanging bell cut through the air, and a moment later the school’s heavy doors flew open. Teenagers spilled from the depths of the building, their voices loud and energetic, releasing tension built up from sitting quietly for hours on end, absorbing knowledge most of them didn’t want. They called to each other noisily, running to their cars and pulling quickly away from the curb, off to the nearest fast food restaurant where they could enjoy their short-lived freedom with a side of trans fats.
We studied the students carefully, looking for any sign of the sullen, brown-haired teenager we’d met a few days ago. Just as we were about to give up, we saw a group of students slink around the side of the building and move toward the trees that surrounded the school. In the center of the group, his slouch and slow gait the international body language of the bored teenager, walked Brandon.
We followed. Their trail was so obvious even a human could have found them. Heavy footfalls left clear shoe imprints on the ground, and the trampled grass pointed the way as clearly as an arrow. If I hadn’t already figured out Brandon was human, the fact that he didn’t notice us approaching would have been a clear indication he didn’t get the shifter gene.
In addition to Brandon, there were three other teenagers, two boys and a girl. The other boys were both skinny, their gangly limbs and lean faces suggesting they weren’t done growing yet. They wore oversized clothes likely intended to conceal their lack of muscle tone but which only served to highlight how thin they were. One had bleached hair, clearly done at home with a peroxide bottle, and the other had piercings in his left eyebrow and beneath his lower lip.
The girl was small, quiet, and almost painfully adorable, nothing but enormous brown eyes and soft cheeks. She was trying to balance being so damn cute with harder clothes. She wore all black with lots of silver jewelry, and streaks of purple hair framed her face. Everything about this group suggested bored teenagers who thought they were far more trouble than they actually were.
My sheltered upbringing meant I’d never met this kind of student growing up, let alone become one myself. Sera, who’d attended a public high school as part of Josiah’s efforts at limited assimilation, grinned as we approached. She’d spent a few years sneaking off into the trees with her own school’s bad boys, and this was familiar ground for her.
“Brandon!” she called. They turned immediately, and I noticed cigarette packs being surreptitiously returned to pockets. “Don’t mind us. We won’t tell.” In a heartbeat, her sardonic expression vanished. Her eyes softened, and she let her full lips tip into a soft, conspiratorial smile. She leaned casually against a tree, a pose that allowed her to jut one hip to the side and emphasize the curve from her waist to her thigh. Sera had an impressive curve to display, and Brandon’s male companions noticed.
“Oh yeah?” said Bleached. “Why should we trust you? You don’t go to the school, do you?” He sounded more hopeful than worried, as if he thought Sera might be a very mature senior. With a bit of extra swagger, he withdrew the cigarettes again, doing his best to show that he was old enough to smoke, or for anything else Sera might have in mind.
“Nah. We just know Brandon. Don’t we?” She gazed at him, letting her eyes suggest all sorts of potentially inappropriate connections. Brandon looked on the verge of utter panic, trying to figure out what had changed between Sera tormenting him in his dad’s car and flirting with him in Smokers’ Woods. I couldn’t help him, either. I was too busy trying not to laugh.
Bleached glanced between Brandon and Sera, trying to read the situation and his own chances. He flicked the lighter and brought it toward his face, only to have the flame disappear every time it got close. “Dude, this thing’s broken. Give me yours.” He grabbed his friend’s, only to encounter the same problem. Sera’s face was impassive, but Brandon looked amused. He knew what Sera was but felt no desire to clue the others in, making me think the rest were human.
“What do you want?” he asked. Surprisingly, Sera’s little trick with the fire made him marginally more helpful. I didn’t know whether this was due to the reminder of our magical connection or just his fear that we’d give something away, but he was slightly less sullen than he’d been before. He’d been upgraded to merely snippy now.
Still, he spoke the words confidently, making eye contact in a way he hadn’t in the car. I was happy to see I’d been right. He was the big man among his friends, and he needed to impress them.
“So direct.” She stood up straight and wandered closer to Brandon. His two friends watched every step, but I kept my eyes on the lone girl. She appeared to be slowly disappearing into herself, as if her already uncertain existence dimmed further once the boys stopped noticing her.
I’d known girls like that at university, shy and quiet, unable to demand the attention they craved. You never asked that girl where the weekend’s parties would be held, or what the latest fashions were. She was never the first one to know such quickly changing information, but she made up for it by observing, always observing, and no one had a better grasp on who was hooking up, who was nursing a crush, and who’d actually found the type of love she desperately wanted for herself. In other words, she was the perfect one to ask about James and Pamela.
Sera was still talking to Brandon and his friends. She’d lowered her voice to suggest secrets and intimacy, and the boys continued to behave like hormones on legs. It was good to know that, in a world where everything was horribly unstable, I could count on teenage boys to make fools of themselves over an attractive woman. Brandon himself looked immune to Sera’s charms, but not the adulation of his friends, and I swore his chest puffed up and he stood at least two inches taller while they spoke. I picked out a couple words from the conversation and knew they were discussing James.
Divide and conquer, then. I sidled over to the girl, who was watching Sera work her magic with something between envy and despair. “Hey,” I said. “What’s your name?”
She looked at me in surprise, as if she’d given up on someone at this school addressing her directly.
“Mary,” she murmured. She lifted her chin slightly, trying confidence on for size. It was an uneasy fit, but I suspected she’d grow into it over the years.
“Good, solid name,” I assured her. “My mom decided to get creative and named me Aidan, which caused no end of confusion at college. They put me in the boy’s dorm, and it took weeks to sort it out. Not that I really minded.” I hadn’t. Before college, I’d never seen a naked man in person, and it was quite an education to share a bathroom with fifteen of them.
Mary smiled slightly, but I couldn’t tell if she was merely trying to be polite. I forged ahead. “Sera and I are trying to get some answers. As soon as we have them, we’ll leave you alone.”
She turned to me, interest definitely piqued. I didn’t think she felt any great animosity toward us, but neither could she warm to us. As long as we were there, she lost the benefit of being the sole girl in the group, with all the attention that provided her. I suspected she hung with these boys because even their awkward attempts to treat her like a guy who just happened to have breasts were still better than trying to fit in with the other girls. While Sera and I remained, that balance would be off.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“We’re trying to learn a bit more about Pamela. Her family is worried about her.” Mentioning that some
of Pamela’s blood had been found on the wrong side of her skin felt like unnecessary information.
“Cause of James?” She asked. I nodded knowingly, as if I was already in on whatever secrets she was about to share with me. “I don’t know why they’re stressed about him. James is cool.” Her eyes drifted to Bleached and Pierced, mentally comparing her companions to the missing shifter and finding them lacking. “I mean, I know he got in trouble sometimes. He was always in detention for being late. But he wasn’t ever rude. He never made fun of me.”
I felt a sudden urge to yank this girl away from the teenage boys, who didn’t seem nearly as harmless as they had a moment ago, and deposit her in a nice safe chess club where she’d possibly be treated with respect and reverence. Building themselves up by preying on this girl’s fragile self-esteem wasn’t something I could easily ignore. For the moment, though, I shook it off.
“You never saw him yell at her? Did they fight?”
Mary shook her head vehemently. “Never. They were that couple, you know? The one joined at the hips and lips. He looked at her like she was every dream that ever came true.”
When she put it like that, it sounded pretty nice. Unfortunately, it also decreased the likelihood that James was the one we should be chasing. I took a moment to consider how disturbed my life was, that I was hoping to find an abusive teenaged bear shifter.
“I heard they broke up weeks ago,” I said, remembering Dana’s loud proclamation intended for her mother’s ears.
Mary shook her head quickly. “No way. If anything, they seemed to be together more than ever, always whispering about something.” And Dana covered up for her, as I’d suspected.
“What was Pamela like?”
“She was one of those girls. You know. Homecoming court. Played volleyball and even looked good in those tiny shorts. Good grades. Nice to everyone. I mean, I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. She always seemed so real, you know?”
I nodded slowly, trying to put the pieces together in a new way. A bear and a cat fell in love, which was enough for their families to want them separated. Add in an old-fashioned “good girl falls for bad boy” plot, and we not only had the ingredients for an awesome romantic comedy but a compelling reason for Carmen to want to separate the teenagers, especially if she found out their breakup was a scam.
Unfortunately, while that might explain why James had vanished, it didn’t help at all with Pamela—unless Carmen had hidden her own daughter as a decoy.
“Did you ever hear any rumors about them running off together? Any sign they were planning something?”
She shook her head, and I held in a sigh. It wasn’t her fault the two lovebirds had actually managed to keep a secret in the rumor mill that is high school. But her next words stopped me cold, and made me thank the gossip gods that shy teenage girls who paid way too much attention to others’ business existed in the world.
“In study hall last week, I overheard her on the phone, making plans to meet someone. She told her friends this person was making all her dreams come true.” I gave her my best encouraging look, urging her to share every bit of unsubstantiated gossip. “I didn’t know Pamela well, but everyone knew she only had two dreams. James, and getting the hell out of Tahoe. She’s not here, so I guess she got one of her dreams. Maybe both, I guess, if James is with her.”
“Did she say anything else about this person?”
She shook her head. “Just that she was so excited, because she never expected this person to be on her side. That’s all I know.”
It was more than we’d had an hour ago. Pamela and James hadn’t merely been the victims of an escape attempt gone awry. Someone had helped them plan it, and it was someone she knew. And just for fun, it was someone unexpected, because otherwise it would have been too damn easy.
I glanced toward Sera, standing in the middle of a teenage boy triangle. She caught my look and offered a generous eye roll, indicating she was at the end of her patience with those particular fools. Fortunately, the bell rang, the distant noise echoing quietly through the trees.
“Damn,” muttered Pierced. “We never even got a smoke, either.”
“It’s for the best,” I said brightly. Their heads snapped toward me, so distracted by Sera they’d completely forgotten I was there. “Smoking causes low sperm count. Impotence sometimes, too.”
They scoffed, but I saw a hint of worry flicker in their eyes.
“No, really. It can take a while, but it happens.” I began to walk away, then remembered Mary’s earlier words. They weren’t getting off quite that easily. “It’s worse with bleach, I’ve heard. Like, the hydrogen peroxide soaks into your brain, through the skull, interacts with the nicotine and boom, constant limp dick.”
“No way,” said Bleached, all false bravado. Even so, I saw his eyes roll upwards, trying to see his own impotence-causing hair.
“Dude! You’re fucked,” laughed Pierced, exactly as empathetic as I expected him to be.
“Same with titanium. That’s what your piercings are, right? It can leach into the skin over time and just mess everything up, you know, below the belt.” It was utter nonsense, but at least it would force these idiots to do a bit of research. They might actually learn something.
Sera couldn’t resist joining in. “You’re right. I read something about that. By the time they’re twenty-five, their dicks will be completely useless, won’t they?”
I watched panic fill both their eyes. Pierced’s hands were twitching, looking like he wanted to rip the metal from his face that instant.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Really, really stupid fish. “Twenty-five? You’re optimistic. I bet he bleaches once a week, and he has at least two piercings. And they smoke, what, half a pack a day? I give them a year. Two, tops. Enjoy ‘em while you got ‘em, boys!” I placed a soft emphasis on that final word, subtly reminding them they were too young to enjoy anything with us, ever.
The teenagers ran back to the school, possibly in search of the first device with internet access. I noticed Mary smiling quietly as she trailed behind them and felt an answering grin cross my own face. No matter how much information we’d actually retrieved from this lot, I decided it had been a productive lunch.
“So,” I muttered, as we made our slower way back to the car. “Learn anything interesting?”
“James had an accomplice in his escape.”
“So did Pamela. You know who it was?”
She jumped easily over a tree root blocking the path. “Nope. But James talked about leaving for years, even before he met the girl. Moron One told me this, and based on the look Brandon gave him, I don’t think that was information we were meant to have.”
I mulled that over. “Considering that everything we’re not supposed to know seems to be shifter related, I’m going to posit that James wanted to escape his family and/or shifter culture.”
“You’re positing?”
“I think Carmichael might have touched me the other night. I’m blaming him, somehow.”
“Fair enough. I’m always happy to blame Carmichael.” She paused to consider everything she could lay at Carmichael’s feet, then got back on track. “So we talk to Mac?”
My sigh was a lot louder than it needed to be. I wanted to talk to Mac. I wanted to see him and hear his voice and accidentally on purpose rub against him, but I also wanted to keep a tiny shred of dignity. I didn’t need to keep giving him chances to reject me. “I guess,” I said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “And if he doesn’t want to tell us more about shifters?”
“We find another way. You hungry?”
I nodded.
We reached the car and stopped plotting ways to learn about shifters when we became more interested in fighting over music. Normally, I let her play her tapes in the Mustang—after all, her car, her rules—but the local Americana station was playing Dolly Parton. Some things in life were sacred.
“Leave it,” I placed both hands over the radio’s face and
dug my fingers into the plastic. She made a half-hearted attempt to pry them away, but the need to keep at least one hand on the steering wheel put her at a marked disadvantage. “It’s a classic.”
She turned toward town, heading for a coffee shop still serving breakfast. “So is Citizen Kane, but that doesn’t mean I want him in my car.” She was going through the motions, but she wasn’t particularly invested in the argument. She was too busy craning her head, trying to see the reason for the cars unexpectedly coming to a stop in front of us. Sera did not do well in traffic. “You see a problem?” Her fingers tapped at double speed along the steering wheel, frustrated at the delay.
I leaned out the window, trying to see past the SUV in front of us. At first, I saw nothing. The cars were all slowing, but the problem wasn’t just in the road. Pedestrians, as well, had stopped moving, and everyone was gazing at a spot about a hundred feet up the road. Some faces were outraged, some were concerned, and a few simply looked amused. It wasn’t until two people moved slightly that I spotted the object of everyone’s attention.
“Sera, you’re going to want to park.” I already had my seatbelt undone and the door open. Without giving Sera time to respond, I sprinted down the street, heading for the tall, brown-haired, and very naked teenager wandering around the sidewalk with a look of equal parts confusion and pure terror.
CHAPTER 9
“James!” I had no doubt we’d found the missing shifter. He had the same coloring as his uncle and cousin, the same broad face with high cheekbones. While he lacked the bulk of his relatives, I knew that was only a matter of time. He already had the broad shoulders and strong arms I knew to expect in bears—and at that moment, I was seeing those body parts, and all others, a little too clearly.
He was surrounded by locals, none of whom had expected their day to be interrupted in this way. Some were showing enough common sense to stand back from the large, terrified teenager. Others demonstrated compassion, trying to calm him with soothing words that had no effect. Many more simply stared.
