Dying to Live: The Shifter City Complete Series

by Liam Kingsley

  “So you all sleep around,” Logan concluded. “Most of you. To drown it all out.”

  “Yeah,” Hail said, blowing out a breath of relief. “Yeah, exactly.”

  Logan nodded and watched the prairie slowly dry up and turn to desert outside the window. The more he learned about the secluded shifters, the more he had to second-guess his first impressions. The small cluster of actual city seemed more like a fearful huddle and less like a trendy experiment. The overly cheerful colors of the houses were a dare, a challenge in the face of all the darkness they’d collected as a whole. The children were beacons of desperate hope. They’ll be fine as long as they don’t know that, he thought. That kind of pressure can run a kid into the ground.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. He checked the clock and decided that he had seven and a half hours to figure out everything there was to know about Regis Thyme…and that other bothersome question that he hadn’t quite been able to drink away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hail kept one eye on the road and the other on Logan. He thought there was something bothering him, but he couldn’t be sure. Logan had been very quiet for a long time, which Hail had come to expect, but whether it was that Hail knew him better now or that Logan was hiding less, there seemed to be something deeper happening in his mind this morning. Deeper than the usual hint of sadness or anger, deeper even than the guarded animal which lurked under the surface. There was a storm brewing in his eyes. Hail knew better than to ask about it. If he poked at it now, Logan would just retreat.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, Logan shook himself. “You want some more coffee? I want some more coffee.”

  “Yeah, please,” Hail said, handing Logan his cup. It wasn’t much, but at least Logan was talking.

  Logan climbed over the center console and rustled around in back for a few minutes. He returned shortly after, and handed Hail his coffee. They drank simultaneously, and they both winced and choked.

  “Ugh, here, take your sugar,” Logan said, handing him the other cup.

  “Only if you take your bean water,” Hail said, making a face.

  “Bean water is best water, second only to fire water,” Logan said sagely.

  Hail chuckled and rinsed the taste of black coffee out of his mouth with his caramel.

  “Okay,” Logan said, sitting up straighter in his seat. “So we get to the commune…”

  “City,” Hail corrected.

  “City with big walls and no capitalism which is closed to all but a very specific group of people,” Logan amended with a grin. “And they tell us that it’s all sunshine and roses, essentially. Endless food. Endless clothes. Self-sufficient. Best research facility on the planet.”

  “Yeah,” Hail agreed, gesturing for him to go on.

  “Then you tell me that it’s this dark cesspool of unfinished business. Like a suicide graveyard.”

  “Dark,” Hail said, raising his eyebrows. “Not entirely wrong, but super dark.”

  “So which is it?” Logan pressed.

  Hail shrugged. “It’s both,” he said honestly. “We do have the best research facility in the world, our community is self-sufficient, and we do provide our people with everything they need. But the only reason it exists at all is because of this horrible, terrible thing that happened to all of us. It’s a hospital built on cursed land. An active church in a graveyard. Everyone there still grieves the lives they left behind. Hell, I left my parents, but a lot of people left their kids. I can’t even imagine that.”

  “Is that why people started having kids? To replace the ones they abandoned?”

  Sadness and anger swirled through Hail, and he breathed through them. This was how Logan operated, he reminded himself. Shock factor to get the truth.

  “Nothing will ever replace the kids they lost,” Hail said. “Many of the people who came here as parents never went on to have shifter kids. It would have been too painful. Many others did go on to have more kids. A broken family isn’t like a broken TV; you can’t just go get another one and call it good.”

  “Tell that to the system,” Logan said bitterly.

  “The system’s broken from the ground up,” Hail told him. “Always has been. That’s what we’re trying to change, in our little way. It wouldn’t surprise me if Broderick decided to expand even farther as we bring more people in. I heard him talking a few years ago about seceding once the population grew large enough. He was thinking in generations, obviously, but now that we know there are more shifters out here…I don’t know. I don’t really know him that well. If I were him, though, and secession was on my mind, I would definitely be thinking it now. There could be thousands of shifters out there with nowhere to go.”

  “What would he do? Buy all of Nebraska?”

  “He could,” Hail said seriously. “His Uncle left him damn near a trillion dollars, and the lab’s been turning a profit ever since.”

  Logan whistled. “How many zeros are there in a trillion?” he asked.

  “I don’t even know,” Hail laughed. “Hell of a lot more than I’ll ever see on my paycheck. It’s actually really cool to be getting a paycheck. When I was a kid, my fourteenth birthday loomed like every Christmas rolled up into one. There was a little diner at the end of my street, and my mom was friends with the owner. From the time I was six, the owner would tell me that as soon as I turned fourteen I could have a job bussing tables or washing dishes. I kind of pinned all of my hopes on that. I figured if I worked for two years, I’d have enough to buy myself a car, and then I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and my dad couldn’t do a thing about it.”

  He felt a deep, dormant rage begin to stir, and he pressed it down. Logan changed the subject, and Hail was secretly grateful.

  “How many babies have been born to shifters, inside RT?” He asked.

  “Twenty-two,” Hail said with a smile. “It took a long time before shifters were comfortable with the idea of having kids. Sven had the first, then Annie, then Sven again. Then nobody for a couple of years. I think they were all waiting to see what terrible twos with a shifter looked like. Once other people started successfully raising shifter babies, there were more of them. They’re still very scattered. Dr. Snow and Dr. Bottom are putting together a parenting class. They’re hoping that if they can teach shifters that they can be parents, then the ones who want to will.”

  “Who’s Dr. Bottom?”

  “Head pediatrician, she’s great. Not that there’s much to be head of, really. She teaches school when she doesn’t have appointments, which is nearly every day. Twenty-two kids who are immune to basically everything and heal faster than any human on earth…yeah, she doesn’t get a lot of business.”

  “Good thing she doesn’t need it to live,” Logan said thoughtfully.

  “True. It would be extremely difficult to build a functional capitalist society with what we have now. There really aren’t enough things to do, and not enough people to do them for. The commune method is best, for now.”

  “You see that changing?” Logan asked absently.

  “No idea,” Hail shrugged. “I never was interested in economics or sociology. I only find Regis Thyme interesting because I live there.”

  “Makes sense,” Logan murmured. “Has anyone ever tried aborting a shifter baby?”

  Hail’s heart jumped into his throat, and he turned to Logan in shock.

  “Watch the road,” Logan said calmly.

  Hail whipped his head around just in time to slam on the brakes. Mariella had slowed to a crawl in front of them, as they’d hit a rush hour. She flipped them off through the back window, then waved. Hail waved and tried to mime an apology, but she just laughed at him.

  “Shit,” Hail breathed. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Curiosity,” Logan said nonchalantly. “Trying to figure out how it all works.”

  “We did have one,” Hail said slowly. “A mother of six who had been taken from her kids by force. She
got pregnant, and wanted us to end it. Literally nothing worked. The pills were metabolized and flushed without ever affecting the pregnancy, and her body stopped all attempts to get inside. Fortunately, she fell in love with the baby when she was about six months along. That’s Lucky, the second shifter baby. His name is actually Lucious or something, but she calls him Lucky.”

  “Naming kids after dogs,” Logan said, clicking his tongue. “What will they think of next. Okay, so I get that the second change adds things, eggs and uterus or whatever, but how does the baby, you know…get out?”

  Hail shot him an amused glance. “You didn’t notice?” He asked.

  “Notice…?”

  “So what happens is, the uterus grows, and so does the birth canal. The birth canal sort of…fuses with the anus. Sort of. It’s more complicated than that. Essentially, the one opening you do have is now wider, more elastic, and lubricated. There’s a sort of valve that moves depending on what’s happening down there. Seriously, you didn’t notice at all?”

  “I just thought you were small,” Logan grinned.

  Hail slapped him playfully, and Logan laughed. A worry began to worm its way through Hail’s mind.

  “Interesting choice of questions,” he said as neutrally as possible. “Any particular reason?”

  “Just interested,” Logan said innocently. “Trying to figure out how everything works. Figure since you’re a doctor and all, you’d be the best one to tell me.”

  “Alright,” Hail said. He slid a sideways glance at Logan, who was looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. “You sure there’s no other reason?”

  “Do you want there to be? I could make one up,” Logan said lightly.

  Hail shook his head. Talk turned to different subjects over the next hours, but Hail’s mind was stuck on that line of questioning. After the abortion question, Logan had seemed more cheerful. The turmoil had leveled out into a sort of resigned peace, which only sharpened Hail’s suspicions. He didn’t feel right just coming out and asking, since Logan had dodged his previous questions so expertly. Whatever was going on, he obviously wasn’t ready to talk about it. So Hail tapped in to his deep well of patience, and talked about nothing for hours.

  Hail began to notice the landscape change. Great spires and plateaus of colorful rock scraped the azure sky, contrasting sharply like something out of a painting. The landscape, though it looked flat, boasted sudden and dizzying cracks in the earth, wide enough to require a bridge and deep enough to kill. The high sun beat like a drum on the sand, and the air shimmied a dance in response. The desert was welcoming him home with a dramatic performance. As he let the baking heat lull him into a sleepy satisfaction, his pendant buzzed on his chest.

  “Gonna make a pit stop,” Mariella said. “Rest stop up ahead.”

  “Copy, Red Leader,” Hail said.

  “Nerd,” she laughed, and ended the call.

  Hail grinned over at Logan, who was frowning thoughtfully at him.

  “What’s up?” Hail asked.

  “You like coming back to the desert?” Logan asked. “Figured with a shitty childhood, you’d want to be as far away as possible.”

  “Nah, man. The desert… it’s bigger than that. Bigger than pain and memories, bigger than family. It’s the very epitome of second chances.”

  “How so?”

  “Once upon a time, this was an ocean, teeming with life. Then it was a forest, with great rushing rivers. Then a sea. Now it’s a desert, still teeming with life. It gets reborn, again and again and again, and it just does what it needs to do, and finds the most brilliant, fabulous way to do it. Whatever happened to me here is meaningless, in the grand scheme of it all. This place is what it is, and it will go on being just that no matter what people do to each other.”

  Logan paused for a long moment, gazing out at the breathtaking scenery. “Didn’t know you were a poet,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Hail laughed. “Guess I’ve just missed this place.”

  He followed Mariella off the road and parked beside her. The heat radiating off of the asphalt cut through his boots as if they weren’t even there, and he quickly made his way to the covered picnic tables. His body had forgotten how to thrive in this environment, he realized wistfully. Logan followed with an armful of water bottles, and Mariella and Robert came after him.

  “Okay, yeah,” Mariella was saying. “But I don’t get why you didn’t just say something.”

  “Didn’t have a death wish,” Robert said wryly. “Besides…George…” Robert trailed off, and Mariella grabbed a water.

  “George?”

  Robert nodded, his eyes wide.

  “George what? Are you having a stroke?”

  Robert pointed behind them. “No,” he said. “George.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Logan, along with everyone else, whipped his head around to follow Robert’s shaky finger. George was leaning against the wall around the bathrooms, leering at them.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, examining his fingernails. “Now how did I know you’d be headed this way, Mare? I’m actually surprised you waited so long.”

  “What’s it to you, asshole?” She was on her feet now, her eyes blazing.

  “Just saying,” George shrugged. “I wouldn’t have left my mother defenseless after pulling that shit. Pissing off someone like me. Nope,” he clucked his tongue and shook his head. “No, I would not.”

  Mariella was at his throat, pinning him to the wall, before anyone knew what was happening.

  “What did you do, you son of a bitch,” she demanded, her gritted teeth centimeters from his face.

  He grinned, then started pulling on her arm. She released his throat slightly, letting him slide down the wall. He gasped for breath, then coughed. The cough became a laugh, and there was murder in Mariella’s eyes.

  “Saddest part?” George croaked. “Is that you will never know what I did to your poor, poor mother.”

  Chaos erupted. Robert and Hail leapt over the table shouting, even as Logan’s feet were moving across the pavement. Mariella’s arm was cocked back to punch George in the face, and all of her attention was on that swing. She didn’t notice the swarm of hunters moving in behind her. An instinct burned Logan’s spine and he stopped cold and dropped to the ground as Robert and Hail rushed past him. More hunters came around the other side, flanking the three. None took any notice of Logan, each assuming that one of the others had already dropped him.

  The air prickled with shifter hormones and the dangerous scent of mistletoe oil. Logan heard the distinctive sound of bone daggers ripping through shifter flesh, and the noise of battle grew to a fever pitch. Logan took his chance. He rolled over and over between the tables until he was just out of sight, then raced to the van. They’d been stupid, so stupid, twice now.

  “Never leave your weapons behind,” Logan muttered as he ripped the doors open.

  He considered the sniper rifle for a brief second, but there wouldn’t be time to use it. He loaded all eight hand guns, then strapped them to his legs, three on each thigh. The last two he would carry. He loaded four bombs in a holster which he clipped onto his belt, tied his hair out of his eyes with a bright orange bandanna, and grabbed the last two guns. There was a gently sloping ditch on the left-hand side of the bathrooms, and he made a beeline for it, crouching below the ridge as he quickly crept around. He stuck his head up just enough to see, and found that he was behind the frenzy. He emptied both tranquilizer guns into the crowd, freeing his three partners from their most imminent threats. Mariella saw the first dart hit, and knew what was coming.

  As soon as her second accoster fell, she grabbed Robert and Hail and hit the dirt, pulling her shirt up over her mouth and nose. Hail did the same. Robert didn’t, but Logan didn’t have time to wait for him. He armed the bomb and tossed it while the hunters were still trying to figure out where the darts were coming from. Purple smoke exploded from it, engulfing everything around. Mariella crawled on her belly down into
the ditch, and Hail followed. She reached Logan, and he handed her a full dart gun. He gave the other to Hail, and he was left with only the brass rounds.

  “Robert!” Mariella realized, almost standing up. Logan pulled her down into the ditch. The purple smoke lay like a thick blanket over their heads.

  “He’s fine,” Logan told her. “He’ll sleep it off.”

  “But he just recovered!” Mariella said frantically. “What’s twice gonna do to him? Hail! What’s twice gonna do?”

  “I…” Hail shook his head. “I don’t know. He had a rough time coming back from the first round.”

  “Goddamn idiot,” Logan grumbled. He ripped his bandanna down over his face and held his breath. He crawled over the edge and kept his face as close to the ground as possible. Robert’s last known position flashed in his mind, and he made for it. At least he thought he did. It was impossible to see anything in the smoke, and he quickly felt lost. Finally, his elbow bumped into something fleshy. He groped around for a belt, found it, then yanked as he crawled backwards. Robert jerked for a second like he was going to fight, then stopped. They wriggled together through the smoke, then rolled over the edge. Robert gasped for breath as tears poured from his eyes.

  “Eighty-four seconds,” Robert gasped. “New personal best.”

  “For what? Holding your breath, turning into a moron?”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Robert said with a grin.

  “Robert! You okay?” Mariella came to him as quickly as she could while still keeping her head under the flat, purple haze.

  “I’m okay,” Robert told her, accepting her panicked kisses with good humor.

  Hail crawled over as well and sat beside Logan. “That was almost heroic,” he said, nudging Logan. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you actually cared.”