The Baby Shift: New Mexico
Shifter Babies Of America 27
Becca Fanning
Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Also by Becca Fanning
Chapter 1
“Remind me again why I let you convince me into camping with you?” Molly asked her best friend Lizzy as they attempted and failed to insert the tent pole into their brand-spanking-new tent for the fifth time that evening.
“Because communing with nature is good for you. We sit inside all day, tapping away at our laptops and staring at the blue light of our screens and we lose—”
“All track of our circadian rhythms or any connection to nature,” Molly finished, huffing as the tent pole bent and fell back out of the tent to lie in the dry dirt and mocking her. “Yes, I read the article you sent me. But why couldn’t we have just done an outdoor yoga class or something? Why the need to spend an entire weekend in the outdoors, where there are bugs and snakes and mosquitos and no showers or toilets? Why did we need to give up all modern conveniences and do this, precisely? Why couldn’t we have just gone for a hike near our apartments and then gone home and bought margaritas and nachos from Jimmy’s Taco Hut right down the road. If you go before five, everything is half-price! And it’s a taco stand, which is outside, so that counts as outdoor time,” Molly said, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.
Molly O’Brien hated the outdoors. She had only been camping once, with an ex-boyfriend, back in undergrad when she hadn’t had to worry so much about shifting randomly at odd times in weird places, and she had spent the entire weekend getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and trudging up and down hills for “beautiful western vistas” that were completely obscured thanks to the dense fog and rain that had rolled in that weekend. The relationship had not lasted long after that, Molly did not miss Mr. Outdoor Hiker-Fisherman-Rockclimber one bit, and she had happily avoided camping or extended periods outside ever since.
“Because it’s an adventure! Outdoor yoga isn’t an adventure, that’s just something you do on Saturdays to make you feel better about all the alcohol you ingested the night before,” Lizzy said, rolling her eyes and plopping down on the rock Molly had collapsed onto.
Leaning over and putting her head between her spandex-covered knees, Molly moaned, “We could have done it sober. I would have given up a night of light beer for that. Gladly!” She could see a bug slowly crawling under the rock she was sitting on and tried not to think about the fact that that bug, and its bug family, were three feet away from where she was resting her head for the next three days.
“Look, I know this isn’t your ideal long weekend, but I promise it’ll be fun. I’ve packed loads of tasty food, we have plenty of books to read, and all the hikes we’re doing are less than two hours. I even got you that strawberry peanut trail mix you like,” Lizzy said, bumping against Molly’s shoulder and smiling.
“Really? Can I have it now?” Molly asked, sitting up and suddenly feeling perkier.
“Nope. Not until we’ve set this tent up,” Lizzy said, hugging Molly quickly before jumping back up.
“Let’s read these instructions one more time and see if we can’t hack this,” Lizzy said, walking back over to the misbehaving pile of fabric that made up their tent. In response, Molly groaned. It was going to be a very, very long weekend.
Thankfully, they finally did get the tent into a semi-vertical position after three more tries, and only a few muttered four-letter words on Molly’s part, and after a few failed attempts, even got the camping stove going.
“See, isn’t this great? Just you, me and the great Caballo Lake State Park. I’m telling you, Moll, this weekend is going to change your life,” Lizzy said, adding rice to the pot of boiling water balanced on the stove on the ground in front of where she was crouching.
“Hmph,” was Molly’s response. She was, she had to admit, feeling better than she had two hours ago, but she attributed that mostly to the beer in her hand, rather than any calm gifted to her by Mother Nature. Still, it was nice watching the sunset from somewhere other than her office window for once.She’d been working on the last book in her paranormal vampire romance series non-stop for the past three months and had started noticing that if she went outside for too long, the light started to get to her as if her eyes were no longer used to natural sunlight.
She left her apartment only a few times a week to get groceries or meet Lizzy for drinks, and even then, she felt weird, like the air was too heavy around her, too volatile compared to the temperature-controlled haven of the home office of her one-bedroom apartment in Alamogordo. She never stayed to last call, never even stayed past happy hour, usually too afraid that the longer she was in public, the more likely the chance of her shifting. It was the opposite of most werebears she had heard of, who loved nothing more than spending every waking moment of their lives outside, but then, none of their shifts had caused a nationwide panic to break out.
“I know you’re having fun, Moll, and it’s not just the beer. Admit it—this isn’t so bad, is it?” Lizzy said, emphasizing her point by sticking her hand out to the side and gesturing toward the beautiful sun setting below the mountains.
“Yeah, yeah, you were right, I was wrong, et cetera. Do you need any help with dinner?” Molly asked, peering over the pot to see if the rice was cooking properly. She’d thought bringing all their own food was a little overzealous— didn’t they have foil-packed camping meals you could boil in a bag? — but Lizzy had insisted they cook from scratch for the “full outdoor camping experience.” Or at least, she was going to cook from scratch. She didn’t trust Molly with the stove, and rightly so since Molly couldn’t even handle microwave macaroni and cheese without nearly burning down her apartment.
“Nope. Rice is almost ready, and then I’ll stir-fry some veggies, and we’ll be ready to dig in!” she said, in her overly bright, enthusiastic tone. Lizzy Friedman was one of those always-smiling people that Molly never thought she would have gotten along with, but when they met at a writer’s group held by the local library three years ago, Molly had felt an immediate kinship with her. Lizzy was bubbly, true, but she was also funny and witty and always seemed to find the positives in life, something Molly was not particularly adept at even at the best of times.
Together they had bonded over their shared trials and tribulations with their traditional publishers before both deciding to try their hands at indie publishing, which had been a gold mine for both of them. Lizzy’s romantic comedies were now consistently on the USA Today Bestseller’s list, and the paranormal vampire romance series Molly had just finished writing had such a huge fan following that there were whole Wiki pages devoted to the characters.
But despite all that they had in common, there was one vital difference between Lizzy and Molly, and that was Lizzy’s belief that in order to be fully functional adult humans, they needed to go outside and commune with nature, to get out of their comfort zones and “shake things up a bit.” Oh, Molly believed in testing limits and being intrepid—it was just that she preferred to do those things in the comfort of her own home. She loved watching foreign TV shows, trying different kinds of online fitness classes, dying her hair wacky colors, but all of those things could be done at home, where s
he was safe, and there was no chance of anyone seeing her shift into her true self. But out there, in the real world? What would happen if she suddenly went full-on bear in front of everyone at Jimmy’s Taco Hut? There went any chance of ever getting an additional free fish taco on BOGO Thursdays again.
No, Molly was just better suited to the indoors. Sure, it was a coping mechanism, but people like her, were-shifters like her, needing coping mechanisms. It was how they survived in the crazy world they had been born into. Some escaped to the elements, and others, like her, retreated inside and made hibernation an all-year activity.
“Okay! Dinner’s ready! Hand me those bowls, will you?” Lizzy said, pointing to the special metal camping bowls she’d bought from a local hardware store. Molly reached over to grab the bowls and accidentally knocked over a fork in the process, causing the utensil to make a loud pinging noise as it hit the spare frying pan laying beneath it. The sound echoed in the silence of the park, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t the only thing making that sound. A deep snuffling noise sounded from somewhere in the distance, but thanks to Molly’s shifter abilities, she could detect a rustling leaf fifty yards away.
“Geez, that’s loud. Moll? The bowls?” Lizzy said, gesturing to the bowls in Molly’s hand. Molly was sitting straight up, her eyes wide and alert as she listened closely. The pinging of the fork had stopped, but she could still hear the snuffling, and she swore it was getting closer. It couldn’t be…could it?
“Moll! Earth to Molly!” Lizzy said, waving her hand in front of Molly’s face to get her attention.
“What, huh?” Molly said, turning back to her friend with a dazed look on her face. She could still hear the sound, but Lizzy’s voice had gotten loud enough that it temporarily overwhelmed her senses.
“Are you okay? I’ve been calling your name for the past few minutes, and you’ve just been staring off into space,” Lizzy said as she pried the bowls from Molly’s hands and started filling them up with rice and sautéed peppers and green beans.
“I just…” Molly said, trailing off. She listened for the noise, but it seemed to have stopped, suddenly. But where had it gone? She was so confused.
She’d hadn’t heard of any bear sightings in Caballo Lake for three years. She’d even checked the news before she left to go meet Lizzy this morning, making sure there was no chance she would run into one of her fellow fluffy mammals during her weekend away and accidentally go full-on bear herself as a result. So how was it possible that she had just heard one making its way toward her? How was it that she could still faintly smell the particular musk that only a brown bear emitted?
“You just what? Come on, Moll, finish your sentences. You’re starting to scare me. Are you having a stroke or something?” Lizzy asked, putting the bowls down and scooting closer to Molly. Gently turning Molly’s head, Lizzy scanned her friend’s face and found her staring blankly. She felt Molly’s pulse then checked her pupils before finally leaning back and waving her hand in Molly’s face again.
“Moll? You look really freaked out. What’s wrong? Did you see something? Is it the beer? I got it from that discount liquor place down the street, but it didn’t look like it had expired…if beer can expire? Wait, can beer expire?” Lizzy shouted, suddenly patting the pockets of her jacket for her phone, before realizing that she had locked it, along with Molly’s, in her Honda Civic in the parking lot down the hill.
“Fuck...” she muttered, looking around before coming back to face Molly again. Taking her hand, she squeezed gently and said, in a soothing voice, “Come on, Molly. Talk to me, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Molly shook her head, suddenly coming out of her trance-like state. Not only had the snuffling abruptly stopped, but she also could no longer catch the whiff of a scent that had seemed to invade her senses just moments ago. Suddenly, they were all alone again. There was no bear. Maybe there never had been. But she could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, could still feel herself on the precipice of a shift, her claws aching to come out, her back wanting nothing more than to curve itself over until she was down on all fours, covered in hair and growling ferociously.
Molly looked over at her friend, and the worry on Lizzy’s face made her stomach flip uncomfortably. Fuck. This was not good.
Suddenly, Molly realized just how much danger she was putting her friend in by being here. She should have never let Lizzy convince her into going on this trip. It was way too dangerous. If that bear had gotten any closer, Molly wouldn’t have been able to keep herself from shifting, and while there wouldn’t have been any photographers around to catch her this time, something much worse would have resulted from the shift: she would have terrified her best friend. Lizzy might like reading about shifters in romance novels, but Molly seriously doubted she was interested in meeting one in real life, especially when she was without a cellphone in the middle of nowhere with no one to help her, and her best friend had become a grizzly monster.
Clearing her throat and rubbing her head absentmindedly, Molly turned to her friend with a penitential frown on her face. “Sorry, I don’t know what happened. Must be the sleep deprivation. I didn’t conk out until like five this morning, so I’m running on coffee fumes.”
Lizzy eyed her wearily, but since Molly knew she did, in fact, look a little sleep deprived, she saw Lizzy’s eyes clear with understanding, and the normal grin she always had plastered to her face returned.
“God, you had me worried I forgot how weird you are when insomnia hits you,” she said, shaking her head and leaning over to take hold of the bowls of food. Passing one to Molly, she took the other for herself.
“This looks delicious, Lizzy. Let’s dig in!” Molly said, an extra-wide smile on her face as she grabbed the fork that had fallen into the frying pan and took a big bite out of the fried rice. It was actually really good, and she was suddenly ravenous. Molly finished off not one but two helpings while Lizzy looked at her with a nonplussed expression on her face.
Eventually, however, Lizzy began eating as well, and after a few bites, seemed to forgive Molly for her weirdness. As the sun set to the west, casting the sky in a brilliant watercolor smear of red and orange and gold, Molly and Lizzy sat huddled on their rock, drinking beer, eating rice and talking about books and movies and what their latest fan emails had said.
“So, I got a letter from a fan this week who teaches sex-ed at a progressive school in Texas, and she said she used my last New Adult rom-com to explain how consent can be sexy to her students,” Lizzy said, serving herself a bit more of the fried rice.
“Nice. Any bad ones this week?” Molly said, who took perverse pleasure in the truly terrible fan emails they both received.
“No! Thank God. I’m not sure I could handle another one after that mom who emailed me last week and said I’d given her daughter ‘advanced ideas’ after she read my first book. The one that barely had any sex in it!” Lizzy said, obviously still mad about the note. “What about you? Any hate mail?”
Molly nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah. You’ll never guess. A grandma bought the first three books in my Bite Me series because an employee at the bookstore told her they were a good follow-up as Twilight. Which, I guess is true,” Molly said, tilting her head as though thinking critically about the idea. She wrinkled her nose. “Or maybe not. I like to think Rian is not as feckless as Bella, but anyway, the woman told me she was horrified to discover that the vampires “engaged in sexual practices suitable only for those over the age of eighteen and married in the eyes of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Molly used her fingers to emphasize the quotation marks on the last bit.
“It’s definitely going on my hate board,” she continued, swiping her finger through the leftover sauce in her bowl and licking it off. It was a bottled sauce, some combination of soy sauce, ginger, and garlic, but it tasted so good Molly would have happily drank it straight from the bottle.
“I still can’t believe you even have one of those. All my hate mail, even
the funny stuff, makes me die a little inside. I can’t imagine keeping any of it. My first hate letter almost made me stop writing entirely.”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know, I think it makes me feel like the words have less power over me if I scrapbook them. Nothing looks intimidating once you put a fuck-ton of pink glitter on it and hang it on a zebra-print board with “Hate Mail” written in curlicue letters.”
“‘Nothing looks intimidating once you put a fuck-ton of pink glitter on it,’” Lizzy said, boxing each word with her hands like it was on a neon sign. “That should be a t-shirt. You should make that and sell it to your fans!” she said. “And add it to your author profile on Twitter.”
Molly went to reach for her phone in her jacket pocket but frowned when she remembered it wasn’t there. “Okay, well, remember that, and I’ll write it down on Monday when we’re heading back home. I want to add that to the merch I’m selling at KissCon,” she said, grabbing the six-pack behind her and opening another beer.
“You want?” she asked Lizzy, holding up another bottle.
“Nah, I’m good. I want to be clear of eyes and mind when we go on that sunrise hike tomorrow,” she said, grinning mischievously at Molly.
Molly pointedly took a long pull from her beer. “Yay,” she whispered half-heartedly when she had finished. “Can’t wait…” To herself, she muttered, three more days, three more days, three more days. It seemed like an eternity.
Chapter 2
Later that night, or really, early the next morning, as Molly and Lizzy slept soundly in their haphazardly-set-up tent, with the dawn still an hour away, two miles away park, ranger Graham Hendricks was already awake. He had been for hours, actually. Insomnia had plagued him since he was a child, but it had gotten particularly bad in recent weeks. It always did this time of year. The previous night, for example, he’d slept for only three hours, and two of those had been while getting repeatedly kicked in the stomach by his sheepdog Fergus, who thought that Graham’s bed was, in fact, his bed. Even though Graham had spent over $500 on the nicest dog bed he could find. Pets—they just didn’t know how to be grateful.
The Baby Shift- New Mexico Page 1
