by Nina Berry
He slid the magazine back into place and snapped the box closed. “Good thinking. If we end up needing more money, we can pawn it.”
I made a face at him. “Before we end up in jail, why don’t you go pay for the gas. I’ll check around the trunk for change.”
He grinned. “I’ll get food too.” He waved the money at me. “Hot dog or ancient burrito?”
“Dog, please. And chips. And soda. And candy, chocolate.” I waved him toward the store.
“Yes, ma’am.” He touched his forehead in a mock salute. I couldn’t help watching him saunter away, trying to ignore the fluttering in my stomach. The door chimed as he entered the store.
I felt for the edge of the rug covering the bottom of the trunk and lifted it slightly to reveal the spare tire underneath. The manila folders slid back. I saw them and froze. The tab on one folder was marked in thick black ink, “Grey, Desdemona.”
CHAPTER 5
My hands trembled as I reached for the folder with my name on it. The glare from the lights of the gas station easily illuminated the pages as I turned back the cover. Several pages of jagged handwriting stared up at me. I read the first words: “Notes taken from the central file on Desdemona Grey, suspected Shifter. Subtype: Feline. Species: Tiger, Siberian aka Amur.” In the same hand, written at an angle across this was jotted: “Shifter confirmed Nov. 11, 16:05 hours.”
Through the store window I could see Caleb paying for the gas and pointing at the rotating rack of hot dogs behind the clerk. Hastily, I scanned the other pages, turning my back to the store so he wouldn’t see what I was doing.
It became clear that the writer, probably Lazar, had tracked me closely in those final hours before the shift. He noted everything, from my estimated height (“Approx. 6’0”, normal for larger feline shifters”) to my interaction with Jake Peters (“Flirtatious male teenager put hands around subject, came into contact with back brace. Subject fled.”).
They must have been following me for a long time if they knew I had the brace. God, possibly years. Only the last half a day before my capture was recorded here, but this was a temporary file, used while Lazar was on the move. He’d probably planned on later copying the information into a central file.
The clerk handed Caleb his change, so I stuffed the pages back into the folder. I didn’t want him to see the file. It was too private, too weird to have my own fanatical stalkers. I needed time to digest it all. I could read it closely later.
Caleb was coming through the door of the Eat and Go, his arms piled high with food. I slammed the folder shut, got in the car, and threw it in the backseat.
He tapped on the glass with his elbow, hands too full to open the door. I leaned across and pulled the handle. He slid into his seat, bringing a warm smell of cooked meat with him.
“I left yours plain in case you have a phobia of ten-year-old condiments, but here’s some mustard and ketchup packets.” He brandished the food.
“Mustard’s great,” I said a bit too shortly, and relieved him of a hot dog, condiments, soda, bag of chips, and two chocolate bars, glad to busy myself with something normal.
“We’re poor again.” He ripped open his own bag of potato chips. “I put twenty down for gas, and all this added up fast. Did you find anything else in the trunk?”
I took a huge bite of hot dog to give myself a moment. “No,” I said, chewing. Warm, salty meat taste coated my tongue, offset by gooey, bland bun. “God, this horrible food tastes amazing.”
“Ambrosia.” He crunched into his chips. “So I was thinking about what you said earlier, about going home.” He glanced at me, sounding too casual.
“What about it?” I gulped down a fizzy mouthful of soda. It followed the hot dog down to my stomach to form a hard, buzzing lump.
“I still don’t think you should go,” he said. He held up a hand as my eyes widened in alarm. “No, hear me out. I know it’s an impossible choice for you, but I know a safe place not far away. You could meet other shifters there and learn a lot about how it all works.”
I stared at him. “Not everyone leads a lawless, under-the-radar kind of life, you know. I can’t just abandon my family without a word. They’d think I was kidnapped by some perv and start dragging the river. If your mom were still around, would you do that to her?”
He looked down, thoughtful. “Touché. So you’re going to tell your mother and the cops that you changed into a tiger and someone stuck you in a cage?”
I realized he was right, about this at least. If I told them the truth, my parents would think I was crazy. “I could, you know, shift for them. Show them that I’m sane.”
“And how would you do that?” He raised his eyebrows and sucked on his soda straw.
“I’d just, you know . . .” I made a swiping motion with my hand, as if it were a claw.
“And if you could shift at will into a tiger, how would you go about shifting back?” He crumpled up the foil from his hot dog, aimed out the car window, and threw it right into the garbage can outside.
I looked at him, exasperated. “I changed back just fine before.”
“You were unconscious the first time,” he said. “And the second time you had no idea how you got those claws or why they went away.”
“You think I’d get stuck?” I said.
He shrugged, rattling his bag of chips to get the last bits at the bottom. “It happens all the time to shifters when they’re young. That’s why their families keep close tabs on them or send them to experts. I’ve never heard of a shifter like you, growing up without knowing their heritage, having no one to teach them the basics.”
“I’m an orphan,” I said, thinking of the passage in Lazar’s notes. “My biological parents are dead,” I said. “My mom adopted me when I was eighteen months old from an orphanage in Russia.”
“That starts to explain it,” he said. “I was wondering what you were doing living in Burbank.”
“Yeah, you said that thing about me speaking good English. . .”
“Because tiger-shifters live only two places on earth—northern India and eastern Siberia. I’ve never met one until you. My mom traveled all over the world and met every other kind of shifter, but even she never met a tiger. They went to ground decades ago. Some people think they’re myths. But Mom said that’s probably what they want us to think.”
I took the keys, started the car, and drove us a few feet to the gas pump. As he stood at the gas tank, I tried to lean out the window. The brace pinched my thigh. I had to open the car door to get comfortable. Caleb didn’t notice, but stood staring at the ground, frowning.
“So this place you’re going—you’ll be safe there, right?” I asked.
He nodded, but didn’t look completely certain. “My mom told me to go there in case of emergency. No money, on the run from armed Tribunal members . . . I guess this qualifies.”
“Won’t the Tribunal tell the police someone stole this car?” I asked.
He shook his head. “The Tribunal is obsessed with secrecy. They never rely on what they call ‘heretic’ agencies to do their work for them. If they called the car in as stolen, they’d have to make a report, give a name, an address, make up a story. And then there would be a record of their existence somewhere. Questions might be asked. No. They’ll deal with us in their own way.”
“Once we get to my place, I can sneak you some money to pay for more gas,” I said. “Make sure you get where you need to go.”
He raised his dark brows at me. “I can always find money. Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Worry about yourself.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I couldn’t tell if it was the look on his face or the implication of his words that made me shiver. I forced myself to harrumph derisively. “Find money? You mean steal it. Better if you take my cash,” I said.
He shrugged. “Let’s see how it goes. You might change your mind about staying home.”
“Stubborn,” I said.
He replaced the pump and
closed up the gas tank. “Move over,” he said. “I’ll drive the rest of the way. You can take a cat nap.”
I groaned as he shot me a mischievous smile. “Thanks. I think.” I started to get out of the car, but with him standing over me I couldn’t. He didn’t realize how hard it would be for me to haul my unbending torso over to the passenger seat. “Um, I need to get out and go around. Sorry.”
“Oh, sure.” He stepped back. I sidled past him. Comprehension dawned on his face. “It’s that brace, right? Must be hard to move in that thing. I should’ve realized.”
“It’s okay.” Talking straight out about it like this made me nervous. I glanced up at his face, dreading the inevitable look of disdain and pity.
Instead, he looked mildly interested. “How long have you had it?”
“Two years.” I swallowed hard, trying to act like this was normal. Today had hit a new high in abnormal. “My spine is curving wrong, and this is supposed to stop it before it gets too bad.”
“Can’t you just take it off?”
I wish. “I have to wear it twenty-three hours a day until they’re certain I’ve stopped growing,” I said. “If I don’t, it could really mess me up.”
“If I hadn’t seen it, I never would’ve guessed you wore one,” he said, walking around the car to open the door for me. “You carry it off like it’s nothing.”
“Really?” My nervousness drained away in surprise. “I feel so stiff.”
“You move like a cat,” he said. “All grace and power. I guess nothing can change that.”
“Thanks.” I ducked into the car so he wouldn’t see the deep flush that traveled from my heart to heat my neck and face.
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep after all that had happened, but I must’ve nodded off after we hit the road. I woke to see that we were on the 5 freeway, just a few miles from Burbank.
“Hey, sleepy,” Caleb said. “Did you know you snore?”
I straightened and stretched. “Are you sure I wasn’t purring?” I brought the seatback up to its fully locked and upright position. Caleb must’ve reclined it during the drive so I could sleep more comfortably. The clock read 5:46 a.m.
He threw a manila folder onto my lap. The label read: “Grey, Desdemona.”
My stomach plunged. Of course worldly thief-boy had found it.
“You found it in the trunk?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, very quietly.
“You could’ve shown it to me, you know.”
“But it’s a file on me!” I sputtered. “I thought my life was mine, private. But they’ve been following me, making notes, planning to take me down like I’m some rare animal for their zoo. It’s just such a . . . a . . .”
“Violation,” he said. “I get it.”
“Yeah, that’s it.” The buzzy lump in my stomach settled a bit at his words.
“I’m sorry.” He kept his eyes on the road, but he reached over and took my hand. “It’s a lot to take in.”
“No shit,” I said. I wasn’t big on swearing, but right now it felt necessary. And he was flustering me. Should I interlace my fingers with his or move my hand away? “That’s my exit coming up—Olive Avenue.” I moved my hand to point at the big green sign. “Get off there and turn left.”
“Got it.” He cast a sideways glance at me. “Who’s this guy in the file they talk about, the one who walked you through the park? Your boyfriend?”
“It’s not safe to read while driving.”
“Just answer the question.”
I laughed. “Jake Peters my boyfriend? No way.”
“I don’t know. He sounds interested in you, even in Lazar’s bad handwriting.” He moved us into the right lane. “It says you ran away from him. Did you guys have an argument or something?”
“Not exactly.” I didn’t want to revisit those moments with Jake.
“But he put his arms around you, right? Something like that?” He looked at me again, then focused on the road as we took the off-ramp.
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “He just, yeah. He grabbed my waist. Not a good idea with me, you know, because of . . .”
“The brace.” His voice hardened, almost angry, protective. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. I just left.” My insides felt dry as dust. Empty.
“Oh.” He relaxed, easing his hands on the wheel. “You assumed he’d reject you, so you pulled away first.”
“What else would he do? I mean, look!” I made a fist and knocked on my stomach the way you rap on a door. “Boys don’t want to literally knock first before you let them in.”
“How do you know?” he said.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. He cleared his throat. “I mean, this guy’s obviously not that smart or he would’ve come after you. But don’t just run away out of reflex. Someone might surprise you someday.”
Silence fell. As we headed into the Burbank Hills, a peach-gray hint of dawn smudged the sky. I was just a few minutes from home, but for a moment I didn’t want to go. I wanted to keep on driving and see what happened.
CHAPTER 6
My house lay sleeping in a patch of fog on the corner of Delaware and Kenneth. Caleb parked the BMW across the street. “You sure about this?” he said. “You can still come with me.”
“You won’t even tell me where it is you want me to go!” We’d been arguing about this for the past three minutes.
He shook his head. “No offense, but I can’t tell you unless you promise to come with me. If I tell you and you don’t come, the Tribunal might get the information out of you.”
I thumped my head against the headrest and stared up through the moonroof in exasperation. “And I can’t promise to come with you without knowing where I’m going!”
“Impasse central. Here.” He leaned across me to open the glove compartment and took out a pen. He didn’t touch me, but I could feel the warmth from his arm like a low-banked fire. “The Tribunal took my phone along with my wallet. Give me your phone number. I’ll call you as soon as I get a phone, make sure you’re okay.”
He wanted my number. What did that mean? Were we going to stay in touch? I didn’t want to think that this might be the last time I’d see him. He looked up at me expectantly. “Okay.” I grabbed the pen, scribbled my cell phone number on a corner of the folder, then tore off the corner and handed it to him. “Did you try to take them on all by yourself? That seems like something you’d do.”
“Noticed that, hunh?” He inhaled deeply. “I got my butt handed to me.” He leaned into me, very serious. “Look, I just wanted to say thanks. You risked your life to free me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in that cage.”
“And without you I never would’ve gotten past the parking lot,” I said. Our faces were very close. The dark womb of the car enfolded us. Deep in his black irises I saw a glint of gold. Faint stubble roughened the tan skin of his cheeks and neck. Under his shirt, his broad chest rose and fell.
“You’d be safe with me.” His warm voice was soft, as if he’d reached out to caress my cheek. “Come with me.”
For the briefest moment everything stopped. My breath, my heart, the turning of the earth, everything paused, awaited my reply. I saw myself falling into him, pressing my mouth to his, his hands on my skin.
But as I leaned farther, the edge of the brace cut up under my breast. I blinked, jolted back into the real world.
I looked away, adopting a light tone. “I bet you say that to all the girls you meet in cages. I need to hurry up and get money out of my dresser for you before Mom and Richard wake up and start yelling at me.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, running a hand through his wild hair. Then he got out of the car. “What are you going to tell them?”
I got out too. “No idea.”
He walked to my side of the car, staring at my house, a typical low-slung, California ranch–style three-bedroom. I could just see the tops of the tomato stakes in the side yard where Lazar had stood. M
om and I had started planting there when I was six. The plants liked me. They grew at a wild pace, clustering close to my bedroom window. “What was it like, growing up in a place like that?” Caleb asked.
“You know, normal, boring,” I said. “Or maybe you don’t know.”
“I think I saw it in an old TV movie in a hotel room in Singapore once,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait here. I’ll be right out.” I started across the street.
But he followed, his long coat flapping behind him. I stopped at the curb, whispering, “What are you doing? What if they see you?”
“I’m walking you to your door,” he said. Unlike most people, when he lowered his voice, it just got quieter, not whispery. The effect was strangely intimate.
I struggled to keep my own voice down. “Now is not the time to be a gentleman.”
“I can’t help it. My mother used to smack me on the arm if I didn’t stand up whenever a woman did, open doors for her, all that stuff.” He shrugged.
“Then she must’ve taught you it’s not polite to make so much noise that a girl’s parents wake up and ground her,” I said.
“Maybe you deserve to be grounded.” He smiled. “You were out all night with a strange boy.”
I gasped a quick laugh and smacked him on the bicep.
He gave an exaggerated wince and rubbed his arm. “Ow. Okay! I’ll stay here.”
“Good. Thanks.” He stepped back into the long shadows of the cypress trees along the driveway. With his black coat, dirty face, and dark hair, he blended almost seamlessly into the darkness. Throwing a “not bad” look at him, I tiptoed up the walkway to the fat pottery Buddha my mom kept by the front door. It lounged next to statues of the white rabbit in a waistcoat and a pot of overflowing azaleas. I tilted Buddha and slid the hidden front door key out from under him. Looking over at the cypress trees, I put a finger to my lips. I thought I saw Caleb nod, but it might have been the wind in the branches.
I unlocked the front door, then put the key back under Buddha. With one last glance in Caleb’s direction, I silently entered and shut the door behind me.
