by Bree Moore
“It happens, you know. Couples fight.”
“On their honeymoon?”
Tyson laughed. “All right, you have me there.” He looked at her as she peeked out the window again. “You see something?”
“I’m not sure,” Harper admitted. She backed away from the still-dark window and burrowed under the scratchy blanket. Her heart slowed. Tyson shifted and pulled the quilt over himself, staying above the scratchy blanket. Personal preference or chivalry? Either way, Harper’s heart responded with an uptick in beats. She took deep breaths, willing it to calm down. There was no reason to be nervous around Tyson. He knew what she was capable of, and he respected her.
Rain pattered on the roof above. Harper expected Wendy and Fred to return any moment, but the RV door remained shut. She couldn’t hear voices anymore, either.
“Tyson?” she whispered.
Tyson faced her, expression obscured by the pitch darkness. “What?”
“What are you thinking about?” Harper swallowed, moistening her dry mouth.
Tyson sighed. “I was thinking how things were at the camp. Losing Fletcher and the camp leaders in such a short time…” He paused, then coughed. “It’s a lot to deal with.”
“You’re worried about the residents?”
“I am.”
Harper thought about that. “But Violet wasn’t a good leader. She wasn’t protecting residents. She actively sent them to be tortured, encouraging them to give up everything for some stupid laws.”
“You only knew her a short time, Harper. Don’t judge her so harshly.” His voice sounded rough.
Harper flexed her hands under the blanket and faced him. “What about your friend Reya?”
“What about her?” He moved, seeming uncomfortable. Did it matter what had happened to his childhood playmate? Harper hadn’t known the fox-shifter, but she knew the girl was important to Tyson. Reya was, in fact, one of the reasons he had become a paranormal counselor.
“You never told me what you found out.”
“There wasn’t time.” He paused. “The records in the apothecary indicated that she died.” His clipped voice hid his true emotions.
“Died? Of natural causes?” Harper couldn’t believe that, not for a minute.
“No,” Tyson admitted. “Lethal injection.”
Harper sat up in the bed. “And you still defend her? Violet? How can you?”
“Because grief makes people do weird things.” Tyson faced Harper, who shook her head furiously.
“You aren’t going to explain away that witch’s behavior with grief. Who was she grieving when she killed Reya? Are you going to excuse that away with your psychology degree? You don’t have any proof she or James wasn’t involved, and everything points to them being there. Violet wasn’t innocent. You don’t have to mourn her.” Harper clenched the blankets.
When Tyson finally spoke, his voice held a dismissive tone. “None of us are innocent.”
Harper heard the words, felt them pointed at her. She wanted to say something to rid herself of the feeling of his disappointment in her. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she had aimed the gun, so to speak. Violet and James were dead because of her.
Harper lay with her back to Tyson, fighting back the swell of emotion blocking her throat. Tyson adjusted the covers, staying on top of the bottom blanket. Warmth radiated from his back, a small comfort against the pain and guilt of what had happened the past few days. Fletcher had ended his life after his wings were surgically removed. The orb had taken something from her, and Harper didn’t know what. She didn’t want to think about the empty patches in her mind that felt sterile and empty. She wanted to shut her eyes and dream of finding her parents, of reuniting with them in a safe and secret place where they could live out their lives in their raven forms without fear of persecution or restriction.
Despite her resolve to stay awake until Wendy and Fred came in and went to bed, Harper’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier until they finally sealed. She slept in fits and bursts. Gravelly voices muttered. A door clicked open, then shut even more quietly.
A snuffling sound wormed its way into Harper’s awareness. An acrid stench wafted through the room. She moaned and turned onto her back, pulling the covers higher, only they wouldn’t move. Something held them trapped. She tugged harder. A cackling filled the RV. Harper paused and breathed in. The smell overwhelmed her, making her eyes water, her senses tingle.
A heavy object landed on her chest, crushing the wind out of her. Harper opened her eyes but could see nothing. There was something pressing against her eyes, a blindfold of sorts. She thrashed and screamed against a fabric gag in her mouth. A set of hands with an impossibly tight grip pinned her hands to her sides.
A shout next to her—Tyson. He struggled the same she did, a gag muffling his shouts for help.
The weight on top of her shifted, and Harper bucked. The object— or being—flew off with a thud. Harper rolled off the bed and landed on her shoulder, striking a ledge on the uneven RV floor. Her hands scrabbled at the blindfold and tugged it partway up.
In the nearly pitch dark of the RV, a lumpish, squat figure crouched a few feet away from her. A slight gleam off its teeth and eyes telling Harper betrayed its position. It snarled and leapt for her. Harper ducked and rolled under the hide-a-bed, scraping the top of one shoulder. A sharp pain radiated from her skull and she realized the creature had grabbed her hair. She screamed through the gag as the creature pulled at her from under the bed.
Tyson’s cries were growing quieter as Harper reached back and pulled against the creature’s grip. Another creature sat on top of Tyson’s chest, bouncing and chuckling with dark glee, leaning close to Tyson’s face and sniffing loudly.
Tyson would suffocate if Harper didn’t act. She let her wings out, feeling them thrust through her back near her shoulder blades. One hit the wall with a sharp pain, the other folded against the cupboards on the opposite side. The tug on her hair released. Harper stood, folding in her wings. She grasped the gag to remove it and sing a Song that would send these creatures to an early grave, but the creature sprang up from the floor and rammed into her head, sharp claws scrabbling for purchase on her face.
Harper grabbed its hands and fell into a kneeling position. She felt around for something to hit the creature with and touched the rough fabric of Tyson’s backpack on the floor. She slipped her hand through the gap in the zippers at the top and grasped the curved bone handle of the ulu knife. It hummed strangely beneath her fingers. She jabbed it backward, striking flesh and making the creature shriek in pain. It fell from her shoulders and she stood, panting.
“Tyson!” she screamed. He had managed to get his blindfold off and wrestled hand-to-hand with the dark form still sitting on his chest. Harper started toward him with the knife, but the injured creature jumped onto the bed in front of her, howling in rage.
Harper tossed the ulu knife at Tyson over the creatures’ heads. The moment his hands touched the knife, it burst into a bright multi-colored light. The creatures dove for cover under the bed. Tyson stood. Bleeding from a dozen scratches on his face and arms, he held the knife in front of him and shouted in a tongue that Harper had heard before, but didn’t understand.
The creatures squealed like pigs. Harper crouched down and the one nearest to her, bleeding from a gash on the side of its face, hissed.
She looked at Tyson. “I don’t think they like your knife.”
“You think?” Tyson laughed breathlessly.
An irritated chittering came from under the bed, and two pairs of yellow eyes glared out at Harper. Now that she had light, Harper could see the mottled, lumpy grey skin, like toads’ skin, and the thin, gangly arms and legs supporting portly bodies.
Goblins.
⇺ ⇻
Chapter Six
Becca
Becca suffocated in a pale pink fog. It clung to the folds of her mind, weighing down her attempts to rise into consc
iousness. The throbbing, pulsing pain in her head broke through the mist obscuring her mind and brought her back to the surface of the conscious world.
Her eyelids fluttered open. She glimpsed a face above her, and felt arms cradling her.
The pain turned to more of an itch, burning furiously. Becca reached to scratch it, but her hands wouldn’t separate. Her eyes widened. Quinn’s grip tightened on her and she stopped struggling, looking into his brown eyes.
“Why—” Her voice croaked, and she stopped to clear it. “Why am I tied up?” She looked down. “And where are my pants?”
“Do you remember anything?” Quinn’s low voice rumbled through her side pressed against his chest.
“I turned into a snake.” Her chin felt wet as she spoke. She rubbed it against her shoulder, embarrassed Quinn had watched her drool in her sleep.
“That hasn’t happened before, has it?” He handed her a pair of neatly folded jeans, and she relaxed slightly. But when she offered her tied hands, he hesitated, and doubt crept in again. Did he trust her?
“They want you to stay tied.”
They. Becca didn’t care to know who right now. She wanted to get dressed and get back to normal. Would she ever feel normal again?
“Put it back on if you have to. Otherwise, you’ll have to dress me.”
Quinn obliged, untying the rope and throwing it across the van. “I’m sorry I let them do that to you. We don’t have to…”
Becca wriggled under the blanket, tugging the jeans back on, then came out from under it, combing through her hair with her fingers. She paused, looking at Quinn, who avoided looking at her. How could he see her in the same way after seeing her like…like that? She squeezed her eyes shut.
“How do you feel now?”
Becca opened her eyes. His concerned expression hadn’t changed, at least not to the one of horror she had imagined.
“Hungry,” she said at last. Quinn breathed sharply, and Becca laughed. “Human-hungry. I want a sandwich or something. Do you feel this hungry after shifting?”
His face broke into a relieved smile. “Sometimes. Depends on how much I fly.”
Becca glanced at her hands. “What happened after I shifted? I was…scared. I don’t remember much.” She remembered too much. The weird reddish-blue heat vision, the disorienting sounds that had been nothing like human voices, the molding of her legs as they pressed together and became a serpent’s tail. It was both amazing and terrifying. How many hours had she spent as a child imagining what it would be like to turn into a wolf, or a bear, or a bird? How many birthdays had she wished that she could be a were-anything?
Now it had happened. She could turn into a snake. But could she control it?
She turned her arm over. The itching had faded, and a crinkly, off-white casing of dead skin surrounded it. She brushed at it, and the dead skin fell away, revealing her entire forearm covered in a swath of green scales.
She had shed. Like a snake. A choked laugh escaped her lips.
“Becca?” Quinn’s tone, like that of a concerned parent, brought her out of her anxiety and back to the present. She blinked and smiled at him.
“I’m all right.” She would be all right. Especially once she got some food. Then she could think clearly. “Is there anything to eat?”
Quinn reached to a plastic sack beside him. He rustled around in it, pulling out a sandwich wrapped in plastic. “They stopped at a gas station a while back.” He unwrapped the hoagie and handed it to her.
Becca eyed it and looked at him. “You already ate?”
“Yes.” His eyes held too much guilt for him to be telling the truth.
Becca chewed in silence, eating just half of the sandwich. She held the rest out to Quinn.
Quinn shook his head. “No, I think you need it more than I do.”
“Take it.” She waved the sandwich in front of him, lettuce dropping into her lap.
He gazed stone-faced at her, lips pursing.
“If you don’t take it, I’ll put it on the floor. Wouldn’t want good food to go to waste, now.” She lowered the sandwich.
Quinn grabbed it out of her hand. “You’re terrible. I was trying to be a good boyfriend.”
Becca smiled. “You are a good boyfriend. And now I’m being a good girlfriend by making sure you don’t starve just to feed me.” She batted her eyelashes and Quinn laughed. He obliged her, taking out a bite and letting out a small moan.
“See!” she crowed triumphantly. “You were hungry.”
“I never said I wasn’t hungry.”
“No, but you did lie to me.” Even though he had been trying to provide for her, she couldn’t handle lying. “Just be honest next time, okay?”
Quinn swallowed and nodded. He finished the sandwich in silence.
“So, who’s driving?” Becca tilted her head toward the front of the van.
“They are…” Quinn shifted as if uncomfortable. “They seem to be like me. Raven born.”
Becca touched his arm. “That’s wonderful though, isn’t it? It’s what you’ve been searching for. Do they know your parents?”
“They did.” Quinn looked at her hand on his arm. “But they don’t know what happened to them. They say my grandfather still lives.” He took a breath. “I think I want to meet him.”
“But?” Becca turned her head, trying to catch Quinn’s eyes, but he wouldn’t look at her.
Quinn sighed. He put his hand on hers, rubbing warmth into her chilled fingers. “But I’m afraid of what it might cost. I don’t think they’ll let us be together. They even…He swallowed visibly. “They suggested that the chief of the village might have you killed.”
Becca’s heart skipped a beat. She licked her lips and unfolded her legs, stretching them out before her. She stared at the floor of the van.
Someone wanted to kill her.
The thought left a funny sensation beneath her ribcage, an uncomfortable prickling. She tried to shrug it off. “Huh. Well, that’s inconvenient.”
Quinn laughed, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable.” His mirth disappeared, and his fingers stopped their stroking across her skin. He finally met her gaze. “But that’s why we’re dropping you off at the next stop and calling you a Ryde. You can take it back to your house. No one knows you’ve Turned. You can live a normal life.”
Becca snorted. “Yeah right. With who my father is? One of his instruments will tune into my signature. Or they’ll start blood testing soon. The tech is being developed, you know. It’s only a matter of time. Home is the last place I should go.” She shuddered at the sudden image of her father putting her in one of the labs he had started as a way to discover more about paranormals. No way she could talk to him. She’d wanted to get away from him as a human.
“But your father sent the mummy. He’ll know what species it is. Maybe there’s a way to get the venom out of your system and change you back.” He sounded so earnest, so hopeful. How could she make him understand she would never wanted to go back to her father? And she wouldn’t leave Quinn to face his tribe alone?
Unless he wanted it.
“You want me to go?” she asked.
Quinn hesitated, just for an instant. “I want you to be safe.”
“You can’t guarantee that, no matter what I choose or where I go.” Becca adjusted her seat on the hard van floor, feeling every bump the vehicle drove over. “I want to come with you. I’m not ready to leave you. And I hate to think of you facing all of this alone. Meeting family members you’ve never met, that isn’t easy. I want to be here for you.”
“But—”
Becca stuck a finger in the air. “Let me finish. I’ll go to this village with you, and if they threaten to take me on the long walk, if you know what I mean, I’ll offer to leave. Surely they’ll let me leave, no harm no foul.”
“You know I trust you, Becca. But it’s this snake thing…I’m not sure you’ll be able to control it.”
&nbs
p; Becca swallowed against the rock-hard lump forming in her throat. “I don’t have anywhere or anyone else to go to, Quinn. If I leave you, I’m alone.” She tucked her bound fists between her kneeling legs and tried to stop trembling, but she couldn’t. “If I lose control and transform and you’re gone and there’s no one else to help me, no one to stop me, I’m afraid of what I might do.”
The silence in the van was deafening. Becca stared at the van floor, swaying as the vehicle turned a corner.
“You’re the only one who can help me through this.”
Quinn closed the gap between them, drawing her into his chest, putting his face in her hair. “I didn’t think of that,” he said after a moment. “I assumed you’d be safer, and other people would be safer, if I went without you. At least if we’re together, I can make sure no one hurts you, and that you don’t hurt anyone else.”
Odd, to be comforted by words Becca knew meant she could transform into an uncontrollable were-snake at any moment, and Quinn might have to protect other people from her. She burrowed in closer to him all the same, grateful at least that Quinn’s perspective of her hadn’t changed as much as she feared.
The van rolled to a jerking halt, and Becca heard the front doors open. She sat up out of Quinn’s arms and brushed her hair back from her face reflexively. The back doors of the utility vehicle swung wide, and two figures with dark skin and matching scowls stared at her. She took in their wide stances, the relaxed way they held themselves as if nothing she did could affect them. Staturing.
Becca stood, unable to straighten fully due to the height of the van. She refused Quinn’s offer to help her, instead walking slowly to the opening on her own, maintaining eye contact with the men at all times.
“She should be blindfolded. And bound,” one of the men said.
“No, Silla. Not bound,” Quinn insisted.
The men turned their gazes on him. Becca couldn’t see much of a resemblance. Besides the obvious matching skin tone and eye color, these men were hardened in a way Quinn wasn’t. She rubbed at an itch on her arm, the smooth scales rippling beneath her fingers. She shuddered and tucked her hands in her back pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
