Jungle Blaze

by Lexy Timms

  She is learning to slip out of them. The cat’s voice seemed proud.

  Where is she?

  He scanned the area. On one end was the bank he’d seen, on the other was a small building with the words COURTHOUSE carved on the lintel.

  Someone screamed.

  Taylor ran in that direction and nearly toppled a woman running the other way, carrying a small dog. She paid Taylor no heed. She likely wouldn’t have noticed him at all if he hadn’t been blocking her path. She rushed past, screaming, the dog yipping a hundred miles an hour, excited and struggling to get free from her grasp.

  Taylor headed the direction she’d come from.

  STOP!

  Taylor froze in his tracks. Again? What had he missed this time?

  “Taylor?” Angelica’s voice hissed from somewhere nearby. “Taylor?”

  Several houses fronted the park, small places that dated back to WWII, the type of bungalows meant to be starter homes, wood-framed and likely picked out of a catalog. Just across the street, a wood-framed construction was almost hidden behind an elaborate arbor that led into a yard that was a gardener’s dream... or nightmare depending on how you wanted to look at it. Shrubs of all kinds fronted the road; behind were vast beds of flowers, and more bushes lining the space just beneath the windows. Everything was growing in wild disarray: the bushes hadn’t been trimmed in a long time, the flowers were a bright splash of gaudy color with no rhyme or reason to the design.

  Anything could have hidden in that wild tangle. Including one very terrified cat.

  Or a naked woman, as was now the case.

  Sure enough, Angelica was crouching low in the bushes where they grew wildest, just below the windows. She pressed against the wall of the house itself, wild-eyed and angry. Probably more with herself than anything, though her moods lately had become unpredictable, and more often than not he’d been found in the wrong when, to his way of thinking, he’d done nothing at all.

  Right now, though, was no time cast blame.

  “Oh, shit, thanks!” Angelica cried when she spotted what was in his hands. “You brought my clothes! Thank you!”

  He tossed the clothing over the top of the hedge, glancing uneasily back at the street. It was only a matter of time before the hysterical woman found the cop. They had to get out of there. Quickly.

  “My shirt!” Angelica cried out suddenly. “I can’t go around topless! I didn’t even have time to put on a bra this morning!”

  The fact that she’d been wearing one at all was still a point of contention between them. He’d been wanting her to go without since that day in D.C. when she’d nearly strangled after transforming unexpectedly while wearing one. She’d argued that she didn’t like how her breasts had bounced when she didn’t. He’d pointed out that he rather liked her bouncy boobs, and things had degenerated from here.

  He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and instead pulled his shirt over his head. “Here.” He tossed it to her.

  Unfortunately, they must have been talking too loudly, because the window behind them flew up and a very sleepy face appeared. The girl had to be 14, maybe 15. She saw Taylor under her window without his shirt and screamed. And continued to scream.

  Angelica bolted through the bushes, making the screaming worse, and they both ran back toward the bank and headed for the truck. For once Angelica wasn’t arguing with him about where they were going. There were some shouts behind them—apparently the girl’s father was in hot pursuit.

  Taylor had the truck fired up before Angelica could get into it, and they were halfway to the next town before he realized he was sitting on the phone he’d used to notify Randall where they were. Assured that the sheriff hadn’t followed them yet, he pulled over long enough to pull a shirt from her bag and reclaim his. Standing on the road next to the driver’s side door, he dug around in the seat until he found the phone. He’d felt it, but it had slipped down into the seat. Finally wrenching it free, the momentary elation he’d felt was immediately squelched.

  The screen on the phone was now shattered, a hundred little lines going in every direction.

  Of course. Why would anything go right?

  Fighting the urge to say some very choice words, Taylor dug in his bag for a cigarette lighter.

  “What are you doing?” Angelica asked, peering at him through the open window of the truck.

  “I bought these under an assumed name.” He held up the bus tickets. He dug through his bag and unzipped a pouch in the lining that was nearly impossible to detect upon casual inspection. He pulled out a small envelope—about the size of a credit card, only thicker. He took his wallet and removed the driver’s license and two of the credit cards. He then replaced them with the contents of the envelope. “But if I try to use them again, they’ll be able to track us.”

  With the lighter, he carefully set the tiny flame against the tips of the bus tickets and gently blew to start a fire. The tickets caught. He dropped them onto the pavement and added the old driver’s license, as well as the two credit cards, to the tiny pyre. They melted, though not completely. At least it was enough to obscure the number and the name. When the fire died he stamped on the remains until it was no longer smoldering, and buried the mess in the ditch at the side of the road.

  “I’m sorry,” Angelica said miserably as he stomped back up to the truck.

  He shot her a look. He really wasn’t in the mood for apologies. “What happened back there?”

  “I just needed some space!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “A little time without running, without fighting or having to constantly do exercises or... well... anything.” She looked at the farmland and the neat rows of roses growing on the other side of the street. “Then I twisted my ankle.”

  He shot her a look. “That’s it?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, it was a bad sprain.” She closed her eyes and carefully started reciting. “Hyperextension of the muscle, partial or complete tearing of the ligament can include a tearing or ‘popping’ sound, swelling as injured blood vessels leak fluid into local tissue. The body releases endorphins and body will begin healing the... But it didn’t, did it? Not in the traditional way.”

  “You changed over a twisted ankle?” Taylor repeated, half of what she’d just said washing over his head, a tidal wave of just so many words.

  Balancing on two legs is asking for it.

  “My body healed itself.” Angelica was speaking like a doctor now, clinical. Sure of herself. “It figures that shifting is the fastest way to heal, and so it started the process when I wasn’t even thinking about it. All I could think of was the pain. It was excruciating.”

  See?

  And my body just changed. I didn’t even realize it until I found myself stalking a woman and her dog. Oh, shit. Taylor?”

  “They’re fine. She was pretty shaken up. The dog was about strangled in her arms, she was holding him so tightly. But that’s a witness. Someone saw you change. By now she’s not only told the authorities, but anyone else who will listen as well.”

  “I know.” Angelica slumped miserably in her seat. “Why don’t you?” she asked him. “Why don’t you shift when you’re hurt? You’ve told me about long recovery times in high school and on the farm. Why doesn’t your body make that same decision? What is it about me that my body does?”

  Because that isn’t his body, it’s mine.

  “I don’t know,” Taylor said, climbing back into the truck.

  Liar.

  Taylor fired up the truck and headed back onto the road, the ashes of his former identity buried in a shallow roadside grave.

  Chapter 12

  Mr. and Mrs. Langtree boarded a Greyhound in Bemidji heading for Duluth. Bemidji was an unexpectedly largish place, at least in comparison to Pillage. At almost 15,000 people, downtown consisted of several streets and businesses, and this time the truck was parked behind a hardware store.

  Angelica was surprised they’d gotten as far as they had so quic
kly. She’d been sure they would be plucked from the road and made to disappear before the truck could even come to a complete stop. When she voiced this to Taylor, he smiled. It was the first genuine smile of the day.

  “Remember that the military is run, like anything else, by people. People are uncoordinated, lazy, foolish, and simple. I might want to please my captain but I don’t know what’s in his head, so I have to guess. If I guess wrong, I pay for it. That prevents me from taking chances. Also, being in the spotlight is exactly what they do not want. My best guess as to what’s happening? At this point, they would have let the bulk of them go and would have tried to detain one or two as they left, hoping that those two simply slip through the cracks.”

  “That’s... what if that was your mother or father?” she whispered, trying to stay unheard over the drone of the bus.

  Taylor’s jaw was set so hard she heard his teeth grind. “Really?” He blinked. “You think that hadn’t occurred to me?” The anger in his eyes was frightening. “You think maybe there’s a reason I’ve been a little distant? That maybe I have a hole drilling through my stomach because I’m worried about them and I can’t be there?” He hissed the last part, choking down what sounded suspiciously like a scream.

  The woman seated across the aisle from them shot him an uneasy glance, pulling her baby a little tighter into her arms.

  Taylor’s right hand clenched on his knee. The knuckles turned white.

  Now that he was finally talking, everything came spilling out in an angry torrent of words.

  “I should be there, next to Harold, taking on a tank with a shotgun. I should be helping everyone I’ve ever known as a child to slip away because I endangered them all, just like my brother accused me of doing. I should be cleaning up my own mistakes.” He turned to her, his face set. Pale. His jaw set. “But I’m not. The reason I’m not is because I didn’t leave you. I never left you. I’m here, now. We’re taking the only course of action left... and if I’m a little distracted, maybe I have a damn good reason for it.”

  And just like that, Angelica’s world came to a crashing halt for one horrifying moment. She tried to breathe and couldn’t, suddenly realizing that she hadn’t been in this alone.

  But he had.

  She reached to cover his hand with hers, but this time it was he who moved away. Her heart shattered.

  “I’m sorry.” The words seemed so frail and small when whispered. Like they couldn’t begin to cover the multitude of sins she carried. “I’ve been... I try to... Taylor, you’re the most important thing in the world to me.” Tears splashed the back of her hands clasped in her lap. “I need you, and sometimes I forget that you need me. You’re so... you. I really am sorry.”

  Taylor took a deep breath and reached over to cover her hand with his. “I pushed the exercises because it was something I knew, something I could...”

  “Control?”

  “Yeah. I can’t stop Griselda—I can’t even find her. I can’t stop her from spreading info about us. I can’t...” He looked down at his hand on hers. “I can’t protect everyone. And I can’t protect you from this... shit that madwoman did to you.” He looked up at her, his eyes steely and his face set. “But I will never ever stop trying to protect you. I swear it.”

  Angelica lay her head on his shoulder, slowly, gently, this time giving him the time and option to push away. The muscles of his chest and in his shoulder felt solid, unyielding under his shirt. She placed a hand over his heart, just to feel it beat in his chest.

  “This isn’t your fault,” she whispered into his shirt.

  “Don’t say that to Harold.” She heard the low growl in the back of his throat.

  She lifted her head to look at him for a moment and asked the question that she’d been avoiding. “What happened between the two of you?”

  Taylor was quiet for so long that she wondered if maybe she’d pushed too hard after all. Maybe this truly wasn’t any of her business. She bit her lip and waited him out.

  “I left,” he said finally, “to join the Marines. It wasn’t a good idea, not really. The Marine Corps puts you through hell. They train you and burn away all the excess. Mentally and physically, they scrape you down until only the lean and efficient bits are left. Under that sort of strain and constant exhaustion, it’s easy to shift accidently. Very easy. But I was so sure that I was above all that, that my control was so superior.” He turned his head, staring out the window at the passing scenery as he spoke. “Two days before I shipped out, my brother took me out for a drink. That’s what I thought, anyway. Turned out, he set me up. We hooked up with some friends, a few girls I thought were just friendly. But Harold had been setting this up for months.”

  Angelica didn’t like where this was going. Harold seemed to need a good ass-kicking.

  “We had way too much to drink, the bar we ended up at was a biker hangout, some words were exchanged, and we got into a fight. You know, a couple Minnesota farm boys in a bar fight, what could be more cliché, right? Except that one of the girls got hurt. It wasn’t bad, but enough to enrage me. I get protective, if you haven’t noticed. Anyway, I found out later that it didn’t actually happen. Harold set the whole thing up.”

  Her head on his shoulder still, she stared at his reflection in the glass, understanding why he looked away, hiding the pain etched on his face. She closed her eyes, allowing him his privacy. “Why?” she asked when the story didn’t seem forthcoming.

  Taylor sighed. “To prove a point. He knows how protective I get, even with strangers. He was trying to get me riled enough that I would shift.” Taylor’s eyes focused on something in the distant past. “It kind of worked. I went into a frenzy and would have killed them. Or at least really hurt them. But Harold stopped me, seeing that I had gone too far. He confessed to orchestrating the whole thing. I stormed out on him, made my own way home.”

  “You didn’t change?”

  “I did.” Taylor said with a harsh laugh. “That night when I saw Harold, we both changed. Right then and there. My dad came into the middle of us, swinging a baseball bat. Harold got a few good rakes in down Dad’s back and legs, but that bat broke my shoulder and Harold’s hip.” He shrugged like it was nothing.

  Angelica gasped, horrified. Remembering Nikki’s slap across Taylor’s face. The easy brutality in Harold’s actions. Was this what it meant to be a tiger? Or any big cat?

  But not Taylor. Taylor isn’t like that. She dug her hand into his shirt, holding him tightly as though to keep him from harm. What was it like to grow up in such an environment? And how would it be when they found the elders?

  What if Taylor kills because of how he was raised? Does he carry this violence, too?

  Suddenly she was scared. More scared than she’d ever been. She had to forcibly remind herself that she’d never seen anything violent or abusive from him since they’d been together. But he also hadn’t seemed surprised, or even shocked, by Nikki’s slap.

  “What happened next?” she asked through lips that seemed suddenly very dry.

  “The bones mended as we changed back, but my father just stood there, blood streaming down his leg and arm, holding the bat like it was Excalibur. I begged him to shift, to heal, but he stared at me and gritted his teeth and said he wouldn’t shift now if it meant his life. He was too ashamed of his sons and the curse that had been laid on them to even pretend it was okay. I’d never seen him so angry before in my life.”

  Angelica tried to picture the giant of man bloodied and holding a club, taking on two tigers in the bloom of their youth, and shuddered.

  “He threw us both out. I was set to leave anyway, but Harold... he had to find his way for a year after that. He and Dad eventually reconciled, but he still hates me for it. It took me a little longer to come home again.”

  She nodded, so full of mixed feelings that she had no idea what to say anymore. “They’re going to be okay, Taylor,” she whispered, though right now she was having trouble forgiving any of them.

&n
bsp; He reached up and cupped her cheek, pressing her head again to his shoulder. “I think the nightmare would be to lose him before I could...” He let the sentence go unfinished. “He attacked me through the only weakness he knew I had.”

  “Your protective instinct,” Angelica whispered. “Like the way you’re protecting me now.”

  “And failing.”

  “No.” She lifted her head. “No, not that. I...I needed you to know what to do. I needed you to have the answers so that I didn’t have to find them. I’m sorry about that. I know I’m unique. You don’t know everything. You can’t. But when I realized that, I got scared and lashed out because I still wanted you to fix things.”

  “We will find the answers,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Together.”

  They rode in silence, her head on his chest, feeling him breathe, feeling the warmth of him.

  “So...” Angelica whispered in the silence of their trip. “Here we are. A tiger and a lion riding a Greyhound.”

  Taylor’s laugh was the first one she’d heard since they’d returned from Africa.

  IT SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN a surprise, but there were no direct flights from Duluth to Nepal. The next flight available had them leave Duluth in an hour. That was the good news. The bad news was everything else that followed.

  The flight went from Duluth to Chicago. From there the next stop was Beijing, and from there to Chengdu and then Lhasa and from there to Kathmandu. In all, it was a 41-hour journey. After that... well, Taylor hadn’t broached it with her, but the biggest issue, assuming that their luck held and helicopters didn’t descend out of a blue sky to snatch them away to secret laboratories, was where they would go once they arrived. SECRET COMPOUND OF ANCIENT SHAPESHIFTERS wasn’t something you just looked up on Google maps.