Still, she felt exposed. Every set of eyes that lifted higher than their teacup or plate seemed to bore into her, questioning her, doubting her. Every Bluetooth headset made her wonder who listened on the other end of the line. And if that someone would shoot on sight.
Conversation washed over her, but she froze at the word “shifter” drifting on the wind.
A haughty feminine voice sneered and Mila caught the woman lifting a cup to her lips, so full of her own superiority. “They should all be shot.”
Mila flinched, her hackles rising even more at the open hostility.
“Now, now, dear. There are no shifters near.” He tried soothing her, but it was a futile task.
Mila held in her smirk.
“None near? Are you kidding?” She almost stood in her outrage, but her companion touched her hand, patting it until she settled. “A shifter could be sitting at this very cafe and we wouldn’t have a clue!”
“Come now, Beatrix, the government screening is too good for that. Why, the news shows agents rounding more up every day. I saw with my own eyes one of them getting tossed into a van.”
Beatrix grumbled into her cup, but her voice still carried to Mila. “The government couldn’t round up their own asses.”
Mila almost lost it, not sure if amusement or nerves played a bigger part in that moment. As the couple calmed, she blotted out their words. But nothing could erase the presence of two grotesque bigots sitting not three feet from her. It set her on edge, ready to run, ready to fight. She gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to beat the woman upside the head until she really had a reason to fear.
So when her friend, May, approached the cafe even more nervous than Mila, she raised an eyebrow.
Mila had spent her adult life on the wrong side of the law. She had good cause to be cautious. What did her law-abiding, goodie-two-shoes best friend have to fear?
Mila put on an awkward smile and called out, “Hey, May!”
Just like old times.
May’s head jerked up after having scanned the tables and the street, not only looking for her, but also for a tail. Mila recognized it from experience. After all, she’d perfected the technique over the last ten years they’d been apart.
She wanted to apologize for leaving, for not explaining at least. Instead, when her life had fallen to pieces, when she had to leave, she left a vague note to her twin in all but blood and walked out. She’d never expected to hear from her again.
Yes, Mila wanted to apologize, but how did one say, “I’m sorry for leaving, but I suddenly turned into a tiger, and I didn’t know how to deal with that?” She almost laughed at the idea, what with the bigot at the next table.
Minutes passed with Mila lost in thought, something she knew far better than social situations anymore. May still stood behind the chair across from her, staring at Mila as if seeing a ghost.
She is, stupid.
Shaking her head at her own idiocy, Mila patted the glass surface next to her cup. “Come on, May. Sit.” Though, honestly, her friend needed a bit more than a coffee and conversation right about now. Tequila shots might be in order.
May stood there, the rift between them heavy in the air. “Where have you been?”
Random abandoned buildings?
“Around,” she said instead.
May scowled, but didn’t push. Mila sat and stared, but the tension never left her friend’s form, that awareness she knew so well feeling so alien on the other woman.
Why was May here?
And why was she so terrified?
Mila laughed. “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have had that second sandwich.” Laughing again lightened her heart.
“Or maybe the half a chocolate cake you had for dessert,” May said with a sly smile. It had taken a while, but May had relaxed little by little as they ate and talked.
It had been years since the best friends had been together. Mila had always maintained ways for the people she cared about to keep in touch with her, but never directly. She hadn’t heard from anyone from her childhood in so long, it felt uplifting being a normal person for an hour.
Okay, maybe two.
“Yeah, but you can’t count cake. Chocolate is a necessity, like air.” A necessity she’d lacked for a long time.
May shook her head. “I don’t understand how you can eat so much and not gain weight. You were like that in high school, but you haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
“No, still got the metabolism from hell.” Of course, May didn’t know the reason for Mila’s freakish metabolism. She didn’t know that Mila needed excess energy to shift shape. Or that it gave her the ability to change fat into muscle. That was something she couldn’t tell her friend. She trusted May, but May was an honest person, and she couldn’t put that burden on her.
It was why she’d left that cryptic note, why she couldn’t say goodbye in person. She loved May more than anyone else in the world, and she couldn’t do that to her. Knowing May, she would have come with her, and at least one of them had to live their dream. Some days, nothing kept her going but that dream, the dream May lived for her.
May shook her head again. “I would kill to be able to eat that much. If I ate even a fraction of that, I’d be five hundred pounds!”
Mila stretched. “Ah, the blessings of being me.”
And the curse…
They paid the checks, and Mila offered to walk May to her car. May had never mentioned why she’d reached out to her, and though the camaraderie had soothed them both, they remained on edge. Leaving the cafe, they turned down a small side road, tall buildings rising up on both sides like a canyon. May’s car sat at the far end, she guessed. Only vehicle in sight.
Mila couldn’t take the tension anymore. She had enough stress. She didn’t need May’s as well. “So, why did you really call me, May?”
May jumped and twisted sheepishly toward Mila. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t contacted me in ten years. Suddenly you reach out and you’re skittish as a mouse? Something’s wrong.”
May wrung her hands, fidgeting from foot to foot, but she didn’t speak. Mila gave her space, waiting her out. The words would come with patience.
Crashes of metal on metal, cheers, and lewd comments erupted from behind her. She turned as May’s eyes grew wide. The raucous youths careened closer, pointing to the two women. Then cat calls echoed off the walls.
“Back slowly to the car, May.” Mila’s every nerve ramped up to a razor’s edge. After ten years on the streets, she could sense trouble like a sixth sense. And these guys were bad news, big time. She started backing up, not watching where she was going, simply putting distance between her and the hooligans.
“Hey, don’t leave!” one of them called.
“Yeah, we just wanna play!”
Cheers and crude gestures followed. Mila knew they were in trouble.
“Run,” she whispered and turned to dash for the car. She shoved May before her and fled to the pounding beat of men in pursuit.
Her heart pounded anew, this time from exertion and fear rather than anxiety. As she ran, she focused on what she would need to survive this if it got messy. Strength. She’d need strength. She shifted every tissue she could to skeletal muscle. Years on the run, years spent hiding in old warehouses for fear of being seen, left her an expert at shifting.
As her arms pumped at her sides, she noted the increase in size and definition. It wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t have enough mass to get massive. But she had skill on her side. Another advantage of spending all her waking hours in a hole. She’d spent her free time practicing the martial arts she’d learned as a child and teenager.
Someone grabbed her arm and yanked it, pain shooting up her shoulder. A yelp flew from her mouth and she turned with the motion, using the guy’s own grab against him and twisting him into an arm lock. She jerked her head to and fro, looking for other attackers, as the guy in her hands yelled and flailed. Crack. She slammed him hard on the back of t
he head and he crashed into the pavement.
Mila spun, searching for May, and screamed. “No!” She ran as the knife pulled from May’s body, the red blood pouring out. She ran as her best friend’s body fell in slow motion to the ground. Her limbs dragged at her like swimming through cement.
Mila skidded on her knees to her friend, grabbing her and pressing on the wound that pumped that life-giving liquid. Pump, pump, pump. “You’ll be okay, May. You’re gonna be okay.”
Wetness coated her cheeks before she realized she’d been crying. She tried to wipe the tears away, but her sticky hands smeared blood across her face.
The pace of that pumping slowed, slowed, and stopped. An eternity stretched as she waited for it to pump again, for more blood to gush out, but nothing. “No. No. She can’t be.” She covered her face with her bloody palms, shaking her head and denying the truth before her. “No, no, no.”
After a time, the tears ceased. Numbness settled in as she rocked her friend, her other half. Soon, the numbness evaporated too, and the fog in her head dissipated, her predicament becoming clear. She couldn’t call the cops. As a shifter, they would either arrest her or shoot on sight, depending on the officer. There was no ambiguity in the law on shifters. The government didn’t know what to do with them, so they’d passed a law making it illegal to be a shifter.
Not like she had a choice in the matter.
Mila would never go to those camps. Even living her entire life in abandoned buildings held more appeal.
She couldn’t call the cops. She couldn’t report May’s murder. Besides, Mila believed May wouldn’t have wanted Mila to be taken. Not for her. She took a deep breath and hated herself a little. She grabbed May’s keys and popped the trunk.
What else could she do?
Hours passed as she found what she needed, found the right spot, and laid her friend to rest. She thought of leaving her friend’s body somewhere conspicuous, but it felt wrong to abandon her that way. She cried the entire time she dug the hole. Patting down the last of the dirt, she tilted her head to the dark sky. The same words kept passing through her mind like a marquee.
I’m sorry.
Mila sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the bag next to her. When she’d been deciding what to bury May with, she’d gone through it.
May had a verified ID.
Her conscience warred with her logic. Her conscience told her it was wrong. Her logic told her May wouldn’t need it anymore. What was the harm? Her conscience just kept telling her it was wrong, but her brain, her logic, kept coming up with new reasons to do it. She wouldn’t have to run and hide. She could have a normal life. May was a pilot just like she’d trained to be. Nobody would ever have to know. She could have a life.
Pulling the ID from the bag, she stared at it. She stared until it almost mesmerized her, until her vision blurred, refocused and blurred once more. She knew she would do it. The ship left in less than twenty-four hours.
No one would ever have to know.
And one of them had to live their dream…
Read More…
Shifting Cargo (A Shift in Space Book 1) Page 21
