by Desiree Holt
The closest person to me is a wide-eyed woman in her fifties.
“That rhino is going to kill that boy!”
Kill? Boy? What the fuck is happening?
“Which rhino?” I demand. “Which color?”
She looks at me, with wide, confused eyes. I know that many people don’t know rhino species from their assholes, but goddammit, she should be able to at least tell me the color of the rhino.
“Uh, white?” she says. “I think he’s that big white one.”
No.
Panic edges its way into my throat. This is exactly why I’m here; to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. If I hadn’t gone to the damn bathroom, I would have been able to make sure that this didn’t happen. I could have gone downstairs and pulled Ryan out before anything happened.
But now, I don’t know what the fuck to do.
I grab my cell phone and call Dr. Chin on my client list. She’d be downstairs, she could figure out how to stop the police and security guards from doing something…awful…
The phone rings three times and then goes to voicemail. I try again as I try to push through the crowd to get to the glass, but the call goes to voicemail again. I scream in frustration at my phone, which, given the shrieking and everything else that’s happening up here, doesn’t seem like it’s out of place.
I have no idea where the police and guards are, but as I push myself up to the front of the glass, I can see what the hubbub is about. In the corner of the exhibit, I see a little boy, no older than two, standing by himself. He’s crying, as if sensing that everyone else in the zoo has panicked on his behalf. Ryan, in his rhino form, stands between the boy and the other, advancing rhinos. They’re standing about twenty yards away, in a standoff against the bigger white rhino. They sniff and snort at Ryan, and he answers accordingly.
I hope he speaks fairly good rhino.
At one point, Ryan looks back to the boy as if to make sure that he’s still there. Another rhino takes the opportunity to advance forward and Ryan whips his head back and snarls in answer. I didn’t know that rhinos could snarl, but Ryan just did.
“He’s going to kill him!” a man cries.
What the hell? Ryan’s not trying to kill the boy. He’s trying to protect him, goddammit, can’t anyone else see that? No, they’re all driven by fear now. They think they know what’s going to happen when they don’t. Oh my God, they don’t have a fucking clue.
From being in the front, I can now look at the curve of the glass and see a zoo security guard taking aim down below through a slit in the enclosure. I’ve always wondered why they kept a small slits open to the zoo enclosure down below—I figured it was to allow the smell of the rhinos enter the observation deck, more for ambience than anything else, because the deck always smells like dung and piss.
But now I realize what they’re for. They’re like arrow slits, to give an officer an easy shot. One is aiming now.
With a mother fucking rifle.
Not a tranquilizer. Not a smoke bomb. No, it’s a rifle, and he’s aiming to kill Ryan with it.
“No!” I shout hoarsely through the glass. “Don’t shoot!” I pound on it, harder than I’ve ever pounded on anything before.
The noise causes Ryan’s head to twist up to look at me. For the briefest moment, our eyes meet. I can feel the pull of my soul to his—why the hell did I not see it before? Why didn’t I give in and tell Ryan these feelings that I’ve been fighting our whole non-relationship?
“They’re going to shoot!” I yell back at him, feeling the tears coursing down my cheeks. I point, hoping he understands.
Somehow, he does and he looks back at the slits and sees the gun pointed at him. I see the rigidness of his body as he fully understands everything that’s happening. And all I can think of is how I’m failing him. How I didn’t help avoid this tragedy from happening.
His ears pin back, and we both know that there’s nothing he can do. He can step out of the way to show that he’s no threat to this kid, and let the other rhinos charge him. Or he can take the bullet, keep his dead body between the boy and the other animals until someone can rescue him.
We’re at a zoo, for fuck’s sake, why are they trying to kill Ryan, when they should be rescuing the kid?
I know the protocol though. If the zoo security truly believes that an animal is a threat to a human life, then they’ll shoot to kill the animal. A human life over the life of the animal. They don’t know that this particular rhino is a human. Dr. Chin and the rest of the zoo board has kept the rhino’s identity a secret.
Now it will be a secret that kills him.
I have to stop it. Any way I can.
I push my way back through the crowd towards the entrance to the observation deck, which is so damn hard, because everyone else is pressing against the glass.
Other people, the ones who are concerned for the animals’ well-being, are shouting similar things to me. They don’t want any rhinos shot, because of animal cruelty and conservation.
They don’t know that the one rhino “threatening” the boy is a human being.
The only way to stop them in time is to call someone who can stop it.
I dial Dr. Chin again as I sprint down the hallway. No answer.
Why the fuck is this hallway so long? And where is anyone who can stop this down here? There’s a call box for security, and I pick it up. I pick it up, and get a dial tone, so I hit ‘0’.
“Hello?” a gruff man’s voice asks on the phone.
Security.
“Don’t shoot the rhino,” I say, managing something resembling a calm tone.
“Ma’am, we will do what we must for the safety of the child. That is non-negotiable and we stand by the decision of the zoo staff.”
“No, wait!”
The line goes dead and I scream at it in frustration before hanging it up. I don’t have time though. I have to stop them.
Adrenaline and determination cause time to slow down for me. I scrape and bruise myself as I rush to get there in time. And somehow, miraculously, the gun hasn’t gone off, even though I know the security guard is still aiming his rifle at Ryan. My Ryan.
I’m never going to make it in time.
The man I care so deeply for.
I didn’t even realize that I had dialed Dr. Chin again, and I hear her voice on the other end, as matter-of-fact as ever. “This is Dr. Chin.”
I want to sob in relief. “Where are you?” I demand, my voice roughened. “They’re trying to kill Ryan!”
Shocked silence fills the line. “What?”
“Are you near the entrance of the enclosure?” I’m crying now. “You have to get Ryan out of there!”
The crack of a gunshot freezes me in my tracks, and I stop so abruptly, I drop my phone on the hard concrete. My heart pounds in my ears as I fear the worst has happened. There’s a loud noise, something animalistic. Someone’s hurt.
Ryan.
I somehow find the energy to run faster, kicking off my heels as I do so. I round the corner and I spot the entrance to the rhino enclosure, the same place where I say good luck to Ryan every morning and meet him at the end of each day.
Dr. Chin runs up, meeting me there, her cheeks flushed. She looks just as frightened as I do, and I don’t even have the mind to snap or yell at her for not being here for her job.
“Did they kill him?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I made the call, but I don’t know.”
We both look out at the enclosure through the one-way mirror. I gasp, and put my hand over my mouth. Ryan’s bulk is on the exact opposite side of the pen, where the child is now crying. He lays on his stomach, and I can’t see if his eyes are open or closed. The other rhinos are crying out in horror at what happened, and one has charged at where the gunshot came from.
If we don’t get the kid out of there, there may be more gunshots today, I realize. And we need to get Ryan out of there, but he’s on the opposite end of the enclosure.
Movement. I see Ryan shift slightly, painfully. He’s alive. At least for now. My heart leaps into my mouth and I shout up, “Open the door! Open the goddamn door!”
“Miss Andrews, what are you doing?” Dr. Chin says.
“I’m saving them! We just need it opened enough to let Ryan come in here.” I snap at her. She hasn’t been here this entire time and now she decides to step in? No. “OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!” I roar again. “Why the fuck do these guards not know that we have a human being in there that they’re trying to shoot?”
Dr. Chin sees my determination and nods. She pulls up her walkie-talkie and mutters a few words. The doors begin to creak open, and at this point, I’m supposed to get out of the way of the animals and the eyesight of the observation deck, but damn the rules.
The door opens, just wide enough, and I stand there, exposed. I know what I must look like to the people in the deck, but I don’t care.
“Ryan, come here,” I sob, motioning.
He turns his head, painfully, and our eyes meet. I see him wince as he gets to his feet. He turns his head towards the boy, and the child’s face falls into a sense of wonderment, before the kid nods, and they both trot towards the entrance. I hold my breath, praying with every fiber of my being that they both make it.
The second Ryan’s frame crosses the threshold of the door, Dr. Chin yells into her walkie- talkie to close the doors. They slam shut, and a resounding thud announces that the rhinos on the other side charged it.
We were seconds away from more catastrophe.
Ryan’s breathing is labored as he collapses on his side. I reach out gingerly and feel his hide, imagining the silkiness of his bare skin when he’s human.
Don’t die, I want to whisper to him. Please don’t die.
“Rhi’o talka me,” the little boy exclaims. “Talka me.”
There’s a low rumble, and it takes me a moment to realize that Ryan is laughing as a rhino. I frown and then look up to meet Dr. Chin’s eyes.
She gets my unspoken order and doesn’t question it.
“Hey, kiddo,” she says, her usual clinical demeanor fading away. “How about we find your parents?” She looks back at me. “Get him back to the clinic before more security arrives.”
I clench my jaw and nod.
She leads the boy away, and when they are out of sight, I turn back to Ryan, who has transformed back into a man while I was turned away. His naked skin is a sickly pale shade of gray and I can see the sheen of sweat on his body. He’s going into shock. I spot the bullet wound in his left shoulder. Dangerously close to the center of his chest.
I could shoot the guard that shot him.
“I did a bit of selective shifting,” he says hoarsely. Each word is strained and pained, and I want him to stop talking, but he keeps going. “Changed enough to tell the kid to follow me.”
“You did well,” I say.
Dimly, I wonder if any zoo worker saw him transform. Certainly the man who opened the door for us did. But then again, I don’t care. The zoo can share its secret with a few more people for Ryan’s sake.
Ryan’s lips curl into a smile. “Did I do well?”
I cry out and my knees give out. I want to touch him, like this, but I’m afraid of hurting him any further.
“Hey,” he whispers. “I’m all right.”
Then he passes out.
* * *
Dr. Chin has patched up Ryan, and she says that he can’t be a part of the zoo for about six weeks while his shoulder heals. He’s on bedrest for a few days, at least, while he recovers from the gunshot wound.
When I leave the zoo, I’ve already had a glimpse of the news. Headlines everywhere are heralding the rhino for leading the boy out of danger and for averting tragedy. There are calls to action to make zoos that are safer, and I spotted a few discussions about the impact mankind has had on the animal kingdom. Some of it is compelling, some of it is inevitable.
But no one knows the truth that the rhino in the enclosure was Ryan.
We didn’t have a tragedy on our hands, but there are some things that need to be addressed. Such as my feelings for Ryan and the hope that I haven’t screwed things beyond repair between us. They say that there’s nothing like a life or death situation to realize how much you care about someone.
Boy, they weren’t kidding.
I have to make reparations. And my first step to do that is to resign from Shifters Unlimited.
I sneak away from the hubbub long enough to make my way to the offices. I haven’t thought this completely through yet, nor do I have a plan of action for what I’ll do after I lose my job.
But I have to do something. I remember Elyse’s words from last night, how she wanted Ryan to be more animated and bring attention to the zoo. I remember feeling that way myself, and I feel sick.
Ryan sure made headlines all right. And it nearly cost him his life.
The office is silent as I make my way through to the other side, where Elyse’s corner office sits. Everyone is at work, but they don’t try to talk to me as I head over there. They know better than to deal with me.
I don’t even knock as I enter the room. As soon as I do though, my angry retort dies on my tongue.
“I wanted this,” Elyse says, her voice slurred. She’s slumped over her desk, a bottle of liquor next to her hand. “I wanted this, but I didn’t want this, Leslie.” She looks up at blinks at me. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“So the kid wasn’t a plant from you or anything?” I ask. It’s the question I most feared, that my boss had somehow concocted this whole thing and put a child’s life in danger to make some buzz for the zoo. “You didn’t fucking plan something like this?”
She blinks and then shakes her head. “No. No, not at all. How could you even think that?”
I want to tell her that she’s a diehard business woman and I know she’d try a lot of things to make a buck. Elyse seems to come to this realization too, because she starts laughing.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true, innit? I am that kind of person. God, I hate myself.” She passes a hand over her face. “No, I wouldn’t do anything like that. Not even for a quick buck.”
I let out a slow sigh of relief. At least there’s that. So it was just a fluke accident—a kid got into the enclosure. Freak accidents do happen all over the world, and that happened to be one of them.
Ryan’s safe and the child is safe. Maybe this will set a precedent that will save more lives in the future. I can live with that thought. But I’m still going to resign.
“…which is why I’m resigning from Shifters Unlimited.”
I frown in confusion. Did Elyse just say that?
“What?” I ask.
Elyse indicates the office. “I’m resigning. I wanted something like this to happen—not what could have happened today, but something—and now that it has happened, I realize that…I’m not the right person to do this job. Not at all. I’m toxic waste to this company. Putting the needs of the company above the needs of our talent. Or, hell, the zoo itself.”
I chuckle grimly. “Well, you see, I came in here to resign, myself.”
Elyse looks at me, flabbergasted. “No. As your boss, I refuse your resignation.”
“I thought you weren’t my boss anymore.”
“I am. Long enough to tell you that I want you to take my place.”
“What?” I ask. “You mean a promotion?”
Elyse nods. “Yeah. You…have the morals to do this job. And do it correctly. I saw that when I got the report from Chin about what you did for that rhino shifter.”
Obviously, she doesn’t know about Ryan’s and my outside liaisons, but I hold my tongue, wanting to hear where she is going with this.
“You’re a good person, Leslie,” Elyse says. “Not a cutthroat bitch like me, even though you try to be sometimes. And I think you can lead Shifters Unlimited to a new, better place.”
Indecision makes me wonder if this is a joke. And am I letting myself down by accep
ting the promotion, even though seconds before, I was going to resign?
“Take it, Leslie,” Elyse says. “I think you’ll do great things with the company.”
I think about Ryan and how I was so powerless to help him. I think about how many other zoos and animals in the world who could need help. An unbiased hand.
Finally, I nod.
“All right,” I say. “I accept.”
Chapter Eleven
Ryan
Getting shot sucks.
And it all turned to shit so quickly too. One second, I’m trying to keep the other rhinos away from the boy, the next, there’s a searing pain in my shoulder. Good thing the guard was a bad shot, or else I’d be dead.
I guess they don’t teach you how to hunt animals at the zoo.
Dr. Chin has sewn up my wound and bandaged it. She’s more caring and more warm, completely unlike her. I suspect she’s trying to make amends for what happened out there, but I don’t know how many amends it would take for me to ever set foot inside the zoo enclosure ever again.
I’m done with that job. I don’t care how much they pay me.
Rather than take me to a hospital, I opted to go back to my little apartment over The Drinking Horn and rest. Grandpa has already called Jon, the new assistant at the bar, and he already agreed that he can work full-time downstairs for as long as it takes for me to heal.
And right now, even though I’m on pain medication, that feels like it could be a very long time.
Leslie disappeared soon after I got all patched up. I swung out of my morphine kick long enough to realize that she was gone. Probably because I’m of no use to her right now. I’m not going to be a rhino at the zoo ever again, and I suspect we’re done in our no-strings-attached relationship.
I sigh as I settle onto my pillows. The medication is on the nightstand, and Dr. Chin has promised to come by in the morning.
Joy.
“You all right?” Grandpa asks from the doorway.
