“Looks like you were wrong,” Robert said.
“Thank you, captain obvious,” Mariella snapped. “Jose, what was he doing right before he collapsed?”
“Walking,” Jose said with a shrug, not meeting her eyes.
“Before that,” she asked.
“Just, you know…hanging out and whatever.”
George might have been an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid. He whipped his head around and glared at Jose, squaring up to tower over the smaller man.
“Hanging out and whatever,” he repeated incredulously. “You were fucking?”
Jose winced and cowered in the space between Robert’s bunk and the wall. He didn’t confirm or deny it, and that was enough for George.
“Leave him,” George said, turning his back on Jose. “Leave both of them. Whatever this is, they deserve it.”
“We can’t just….” Mariella was cut off by a backhand across the face.
“I said. Leave him.” George said between clenched teeth.
Mariella pulled herself to her full height and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. A streak of blood marred her skin, and she glared at George.
“No,” she said. “You leave if you want to. I’m getting him help.”
“Help,” George scoffed. “Help from where? You think you can just walk into a hospital with him and tell them he has some kind of freaky space bug STD? They’ll lock you up! They’ll lock you all up. They’ve got a prison just for people like us, did you know that? Yeah. That’s where the originals were sent. They’ve got them locked up behind a massive wall with steel spikes. Nobody in, nobody out. It’s shifter Auschwitz. You really want to go to shifter Auschwitz?”
Mariella just shrugged and kept her defiant gaze steady. George took a step toward her and shook a finger in her face.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “If I walk out that door and you don’t follow me, I’m gone. I’m gone forever. If you don’t follow me now, don’t you even think about trying to find me later. Because if you try to come crawling back, I swear to god I will crush you like the pathetic worm you are.”
Mariella said nothing. She just crossed her arms, daring him with her blazing eyes. George waited for three beats, then turned on his heel.
“Jose!” He barked. “Two shifters isn’t a pack. Get your ass over here. But I swear to God, if I so much as see you checking guys out, I will rip your eyes from your skull with my own claws.”
“Yes, George,” Jose said, beaming like a puppy who was just called a good boy. He trailed along after George and Robert as they collected their possessions and provisions, leaving nothing behind for Mariella and Logan.
“It’s called Regis Thyme,” George called to her as he walked out the door. “Scariest place on earth for a shifter. Last chance to avoid it.”
“I’d rather avoid you,” she muttered under her breath.
“I’ll be outside for two minutes,” George told her. “Come with me or get fucked.”
“Redundant,” she retorted.
George glanced a question at Robert, who told him that she meant that the two options were one and the same. George turned back to her and shrugged.
“Your funeral,” he said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He slammed the door so hard that the hinges ripped out of the top. Mariella took a deep, shaky breath and swallowed against the hot lump of enraged tears in her throat. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and searched the name he gave her. She spelled it wrong, at first, but eventually figured it out. To her surprise, the facility was close. She read the entry on her phone, comparing it with George’s characterization of the place.
Regis Thyme, NE. Pop. 10,024
Originally a research facility, Regis Thyme declared independent city status on June 18th, 2015. It is considered a safe haven for shifters* who were sent to the facility in the early spring and summer of 2013. This location is closed to non-shifter humans due to safety concerns. This is the only known location on Earth where shifters exist.
“So nothing about gas chambers or starvation,” she muttered to herself. She gazed at Logan’s sleeping form for a long moment before punching the location in on her GPS. “If anybody will know what’s wrong with you, it’s them,” she told him, mostly for her own benefit. “We can make it in nine and a half hours, if George didn’t take my bike. What am I talking about, he can’t even ride the damn thing,” she snorted. She went outside to check, and sure enough, her motorcycle was still there. It looked like he had attempted to take it; it was lying on its side in the dirt, with boot-sized dents along the body. She sighed and righted it, the checked it quickly to make sure it still worked. It complained for a second, but it would work well enough.
She grabbed everything that George and his boys had left behind, which wasn’t much, and loaded up her saddle bags. A coil of rope hung on the wall in the little lean-to out back, and she took that too. It had grown to the wall, and she had to use a knife to peel it away, but it seemed to be strong enough for her purposes. Last, she went into the room and lifted Logan out of bed. As a shifter herself, she was stronger than humans, and Logan’s weight was little more than burdensome. She dressed him in his leather jacket and boots, zipping him in securely. She took the only helmet to shield her eyes. Logan wouldn’t need one. Their kind could survive a hundred mile an hour skull skid with no difficulty, and she wasn’t planning on driving that fast.
Once he was dressed, she carried him outside. With a little creative thinking, she managed to get herself and Logan on the bike. Once that was done, she took the rope and bound him to her, legs to legs, waist to waist, with his arms secured around her shoulders like a preppy sweater. She shook her head, second-guessing her decision, and hit the road with Logan in tow. As she drove toward the highway, she spotted George’s truck in front of her. He was driving uncharacteristically slowly, and she closed the gap between them quickly. As she pulled up alongside to pass, he stuck his head out the window.
“I knew you’d chase me,” he sneered. “You know you won’t find anybody like me who’ll take you.”
“That’s the idea,” she shouted back. She sped up and passed him, then took the turn which led away from the lake and toward the interstate. George pulled up beside her again, and she tried to ignore him. She could feel Logan’s body weight starting to shift, and she didn’t want to go any faster for fear of him falling off and dragging her with him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” George demanded.
“Regis Thyme.”
“Ha, funny. Seriously, where are you going?”
She clenched her jaw and didn’t respond. If he didn’t want to believe her, that was his problem. She eased the throttle open a little farther, trying to get ahead of George. He sped up, then pulled around in front of her to force her to stop. She slowed, looking for a way around, but the road they were in cut through steep, rocky hills on both sides. Her bike wasn’t cut out for that. Begrudgingly, she pulled the bike to a stop. She set one foot on the ground and lifted her visor, glaring at George as he stepped out of his truck and slammed the door.
“Move,” she said. “I don’t have time to play with you.”
“I ain’t playing,” George shot back. “You go to Regis Thyme, you blow our cover. All of us, me, Robert, Jose, everybody else who’s under the radar. I’m not goin’ to no shifter Auschwitz.”
“It isn’t,” she snapped. “It’s a haven for shifters.”
“Yeah, that’s what they want you to think.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“You’re an idiot! I’m not letting you go. You gotta go through me to get there, and there’s no way in hell you’re gonna take me with that dead weight on your back.”
She raised an eyebrow and smirked. He really shouldn’t have challenged her. She loosened the cords which held Logan to her back, and undid the button on her loose, stretchy pants. George leered.
“You think you’re gonna fuck your way out of this
?” He said, swaggering toward her with an exaggerated arrogance. “Sorry love, but I can get pussy anywhere.”
Mariella only smiled. She checked that everything was loose enough, and was satisfied. She kept her eyes locked on George’s as she let adrenaline and rage build up in her blood, making her heart race. She recalled every shitty thing George had ever said to her, and how much she’d wished she could have done this ages ago. The switch flipped, and her body exploded. Thick, curly black fur crawled over her body as her bones lengthened and her muscles thickened. Her teeth grew in her forming snout, dripping with saliva. She stood and walked toward George, who was still smirking at her incredulously.
“What are you gonna do, hump my leg to death?”
“Move,” she growled in a bass too low for human ears to interpret.
“Sorry? What was that? You’re a dumb ass bi….”
She backhanded him in the chest, sending him crashing into his truck. He bounced off, gasping for breath. Mariella cocked her head curiously. He should have shifted before now, what was he waiting for? He wiped his bleeding mouth and chuckled condescendingly. He met her eyes, then suddenly lunged into the cab, pulling out the sawed-off shotgun he kept in the driver’s side door.
“Silver bullets baby,” he said, breathing hard. “You really want to test me?”
“Shit, George, put that down!” Jose shouted. “You’ll kill her!”
“She’ll kill us all if she gets past me!” George retorted, turning his head toward Jose just enough for Mariella to get into his blind spot. As he turned his head back to face her, she slammed into him from the side, ripping the gun out of his hands as she kicked him to the ground.
“Why you walking around with a shifter killer?” she demanded, forgetting that he still couldn’t understand her. She pointed the gun at his head and shifted back to human, jolting against the relative weight difference of Logan on her back. She pointed the gun at George’s face.
“I said,” she repeated. “Why the hell are you walking around with a shifter killer?”
“Kills humans too,” George said, his voice going high. “Just covering all the bases.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “Shift.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m holding the gun, dumb ass,” she snapped. “Shift!”
George paled and held his hands up. She could see his pulse fluttering frantically in his pale wrist.
“Shit, boy,” she said disgustedly. “You ain’t even a shifter. Hear that, Robbie? Boy George here is human. Move that damn truck before I take a bite out of him.”
Robert slid over to the driver’s seat and stared at George.
“Is that true?” He asked, his voice cracking slightly. “Are you human?”
“We were all human once,” George snapped.
“Yeah,” Robert said slowly. “But are you still human?”
George swallowed hard, suddenly and utterly aware of his position. Surrounded by four shifters, all of whom would tear him to shreds for this particular betrayal. They’d shared their lives together for the last eight months, every moment of every day.
“Get up,” she told him. He scrambled to his feet, and she kept the gun leveled at his face. “Run,” she said.
“The…the truck’s mine….”
“Run!” She roared, shifting as she did so. George’s face turned paper white, and he raced off down the street. Mariella shook her head in disgust.
“Come on,” Robert said. “We’ll get your bike in the back, you two can sit up here. Just tell us where to go.”
She cast him a suspicious glance, and he shrugged. “I was always loyal to the pack,” he said. “Way I see it, we just got ourselves a new alpha. You have my loyalty.”
Mariella nodded, and slid her razor-sharp claws along the ties binding her to Logan. He fell to the ground with a thud, but was unhurt. She shifted back into her human form, and she and the boys loaded her bike into the truck and secured it. Then they piled into the cab with Logan on Jose’s lap and Mariella in the middle.
“Head south-west,” she said. “We’re going to Nebraska.”
Chapter Three
The deeper they drove into Nebraska, the farther apart the towns were. The closer they drew to Regis Thyme, the more things began to look unkempt and abandoned. Soon they were bouncing over cracked, disintegrating roads through ghost towns overgrown with prairie grasses and coated with dust. It looked like something out of a history book, and all chatter ground to a halt as the despondent atmosphere permeated the cab of the truck. Logan was still unconscious, and every half hour or so Mariella would check his pulse. Having no training, she compromised by comparing his pulse to her own. His was racing at least twice as fast as hers, and the red spots on his skin seemed to be darkening. Finally, after hours of nothingness, they came upon a wall.
Robert whistled. “That’s got to be fifty feet high,” he said in awe. “And look at those spikes! Are you sure this isn’t, you know…what George said?”
“George doesn’t know shit about shit,” Mariella said. “Drive around it, find an entrance.”
They drove for another ten miles, parallel to the wall, before they found the ominous metal gate. It stood twelve feet tall and seemed to be locked securely. Bronze letters over the top announced that they had indeed reached Regis Prime.
“How do we get in?” Robert asked.
Mariella felt anxiety build in her chest, and shoved it down violently. “We knock,” she said. “Let me out.”
Robert slid out of the truck, and Mariella followed. He walked half a step behind her as she marched up to the metal doors. As she drew closer, she could see seven-foot-tall cutout doors within the massive doors. She tried pulling one open, but it wouldn’t budge. Neither did the second one. She put her hands on her hips and blew out a frustrated breath, looking around for anything that would help.
“We could try this,” Robert said. He pointed to a small, rusty box on the wall which contained a button and a speaker. A camera was trained on the spot just in front of the button. Mariella shrugged and moved over to the box, her skin prickling under the cold, unblinking gaze of the electric eye. She pushed the button. Nothing happened.
“Maybe it’s like those things at apartments?” Robert suggested tentatively.
She pushed the button again. “Hello? Is anyone in there? We’ve got a sick shifter out here, we need help.” She released the button and stared at the box. After a long moment, it crackled and hissed, then a voice spoke.
“Nice try, kid,” it said. “Every shifter on earth is already in here. Go bother someone else.”
She jabbed the button again. “I told you, I got a sick shifter in my truck out here, now you gonna let me in or not?”
The box hissed and popped again. “Look, kid, we’re real busy. If you want to ogle danger, go buy a Ouija board.”
“Stupid mother….” Mariella took a breath and stepped back from the box until she was directly in the camera’s eye. “Push the button, Robert,” she ordered. “Tell him to watch the camera.”
Robert did so, and Mariella shifted. She stood at her full seven feet and glared at the camera, baring her fangs. She’d neglected the button on her pants, and it popped off violently as her body changed. She stared at the camera for a moment, then stepped over to the button.
“Let me in,” she snarled into the box, making it whine and crackle as it tried to compensate for her inhuman vocals.
There was no answer from the box, but the two massive doors beside them began to creak. They swung inward, giving them plenty of room to drive through. Unwilling to press their luck, Mariella shifted as she ran back to the truck and slid inside. Robert followed and pulled the truck in through the gate. The other side was dazzling. It was as if all of the life had been sucked out of the surrounding areas and transported right here. The town bustled with shifters, walking, running, riding bicycles; children darted across playgrounds and meadows, in and out of human form. Mariella rubbed her eyes.
“Kids?” She asked incredulously. “They had kids?”
“You wanted kids once, didn’t you?” Robert asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Before I got bit. Not about to bring a kid into this mess, hell no. Pull over there, looks like a parking lot.”
“Looks like a welcoming committee,” Robert said grimly, nodding at a line of shifters standing in the parking lot. They were in wolf form, and they were terrifyingly gigantic. A nine-foot shifter with wild red fur stood in the center. On his right, an eight-foot silver shifter. On his left, a seven-foot brown shifter. Four shifters flanked these three in groups of two, in varying shades of black, brown, and white. Mariella’s heart thudded in her chest as Robert pulled the truck into a parking space. He slid out and Mariella followed. She put a hand on his chest, telling him to keep back. She was the alpha of this pack, and she would do the talking. Since the others were in their beast form, she shifted as well. It was the only way to ensure that everyone was understood.
“My name is Mariella,” she told them. “Alpha of this pack. One of my shifters is sick.”
“Shifters don’t get sick,” the chestnut shifter said.
“Well then why don’t you follow me, Mr. Doctor man, and tell me just what the hell you call this?”
She marched over to the truck and yanked the passenger door open. Logan tumbled out off of Jose’s lap, and she caught him. She snarled at Jose for letting him fall, and Jose winced apologetically. She turned and presented Logan to the chestnut wolf.
“Tell me he’s not sick,” she challenged the shifter.
The chestnut shifter immediately morphed, and his clothes shrunk as he did. Mariella, in spite of her concern over Logan’s well-being, was instantly intrigued. She melted into her human form.
“How did your clothes do that?” She asked.
“We have a lab on site. Does all kinds of things. Bring him to the hospital, I need to get him on a monitor.”
Mariella didn’t move. “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.
Burning Transgressions (Shifter City Book 1) Page 2
