by Ellie J Duck
“Some of them,” Greg says, and I catch the expression of surprise on Hilton’s face. Clearly, he was thinking I’d begun to dislike all paranormals after this debacle. “Most of them only really find paranormals if those paranormals are breaking the law and killing humans anyway. There was a cult a few decades ago that began wiping out particular species of paranormals unprovoked, but they were dealt with swiftly.”
“So even when humans kill paranormals they are usually dealt with in the same way we deal with paranormals who hunt humans?” I clarify.
“That’s right, if a paranormal being kills a human with malicious intent they are expired. The same goes for humans who kill paranormals out of malice. Most of the religious groups who do it are brought into the organization and taught how to work with paranormals on their teams. It’s unsafe to leave them hunting because sometimes they kill the innocent,” Greg informs me.
“Then why the hell is everyone so up in arms about me being on this team?” I demand. “If it has happened in the past that humans have been put on teams like this, why am I being targeted?”
Greg sighs at that question, leaning against one of the stakes in the ground that he’s been trying to wiggle loose from the dirt.
“In the past the hunters from the groups I mentioned have never lasted long enough in their training to even go on their first mission. They fail to cooperate with paranormals and are usually dealt with accordingly.”
A chill runs down my spine.
“Accordingly?” I ask.
“Most of them go rogue and have to be expired. In those kinds of situations, they’ve simply been brainwashed too long to look past the inherent differences between paranormals and humans. For example, there was a case in Colorado where three human men were put on a kill squad and trained with the Shifters on that team. However, when they realized how much faster and stronger Shifters are, they grew jealous of the abilities and then fearful that their lives were in constant danger. Knowing you share a base with predators, especially predators you’ve hunted in the past, is not an easy thing for humans. As a species, humans are, at their core, petty and violent. Many of them cushion their actions in the laws that govern their lives and most convince themselves of their own entitlement and their own humanity.”
Greg explains this all to me seriously, his arms folded and a small frown creasing his brow.
“In the large scheme of things, under the conditions most humans live their lives, as a species they have mellowed and even developed a greater understanding of the world around them. But at their core humans are as violent and ruthless as any paranormal predator. Fear is a driving factor which has seen the extinction of thousands of species on this planet since the dawn of humanity. More still have been wiped out by human greed. Putting them on a team with beings who are faster, smarter, stronger and all around better than they are stirs, first, that inherent greed and second, that deadly fear. The case I mentioned resulted in the termination of the three human men after they tried to break into the enclosures of their team during the full moon where the Shifters in question were also slaughtered.”
“So, the community at large is reacting to me joining the team this way because they fear I’ll envy your abilities and eventually kill you for it out of fear over those abilities,” I surmise, nodding my head with better understanding despite my continued antagonism over the whole situation.
“Essentially, yes,” Greg nods his head. “As a community, the paranormals of the world have experienced the horror and devastation humans are truly capable of and most of us live a good deal longer than humans. We have long memories and tend to hold a grudge. Not all the humans were killed in the instances where they joined teams like this. Some of them simply grew too unstable psychologically to continue to do the job. In those instances, a Mind-Sweeper was brought in to rectify the damage and to ensure they wouldn’t be a danger to themselves or others ever again.”
“Mind-Sweeper?” I query, returning to hacking at the carcass, though with much less vigor.
“They are usually members of the paranormal community with the ability to affect the minds of others. In some cases, they are vampires – you’ve experienced the effects of being compelled by a vampire already. In others they are members of the fey who can essentially wipe their minds clean of all knowledge about paranormal beings,” Greg explains.
I take a long moment to absorb that information before I lift my head, having come to a conclusion.
“I’m an experiment, aren’t I?” I ask Summers softly, holding his blue eyes steadily.
“Yes,” he admits seriously, “though with you there are extenuating circumstances. The fact that your mother was a true-born Bruin and that after your third birthday you were raised by a Bruin father gives you a unique repertoire of skills that allows you to coexist with the rest of the team.”
I nod my head.
“So, I’m not messing it up for you so far?” I ask sarcastically, rolling my eyes at the idea of being an experiment to these people. It’s more than a little degrading but also a necessary evil.
“Actually, you’re giving the higher-ups on the Council hope that humanity is not entirely a lost cause,” Greg informs me. “The fact that you respect and like the team without envying them their skills and without fearing they’ll turn on you is giving them hope that eventually humanity will grow to embrace paranormals.”
“Wait…, what?” Tara asks, her eyes widening at that. “Why do you say that as though they’re planning some big reveal?”
“Because they are,” Greg informs us seriously. “Not right now, but eventually the scientific advancements of humanity will outstrip our ability to hide our difference from them forever. There will come a time when we will either willingly “out” ourselves as paranormals or we will be discovered anyway and hunted for our secrecy. Current trends in humanity toward tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, ethnicities, races and orientations look promising, but the Council won’t risk unveiling our world to the humans without assurances that we’ll be tolerated and not hunted.”
“As if that’ll ever happen?” Hilton scoffs darkly. “It didn’t work out so well last time.”
“Last time?” I ask, curious now.
Greg sighs heavily again and the team look mournful.
“The witch trials and before them, the werewolf burnings were a result of certain species amongst the paranormal world beginning to unveil the truth of our existence. In both instances they were persecuted so severely that the Council had to act to hoodwink the rest of the human populations that there is no such things as monsters.”
“Oh,” I blurt, unsure how to respond to that fact.
“Yes,” Greg agrees, “your place on this team is being monitored much more closely than you might think Anna, and the results thus far look promising. How useful they’ll be in the long run remains to be seen, and your extenuating circumstances do color them somewhat, but you are the only human to have come so far with a paranormal team without incident.”
“Without incident?” I scoff, unable to keep from laughing at that. “You mean aside from being tagged and compelled by a vampire; and aside from the fact that Shifters are hunting me and leaving grisly messages that they mean to kill me.”
Greg smiles a little, “I mean without incident where you turn on the team out of fear or envy.”
“Coveting that lack of body-fat doesn’t count, right?” I ask, grinning despite the grisly situation and Mitch begins to laugh, coming over to me and confiscating the cow I’ve been chopping, picking it up with unnerving ease before lobbing it away into the forest beyond view.
“I’d be more worried if you started coveting my mane,” Mitch informs me, slinging his arm around my shoulders and steering me back inside the gates of the base.
“That scraggly thing?” I poke fun at him, unable to keep from laughing when his hands leap to his mane and he yowls in horror at my words.
Chapter Twelve
Two days later
there has been no mention on any of the scanners about any supernatural activity that needs attending and I begin to grow restless. The full moon is right around the corner and I’ve been dreading it since being bitten. I’ve also sleep-walked into the woods both nights since the incident with Hilton, though this time I’ve been lucky enough to not be followed by a too-sexy-for-his-own-good werewolf. I’ve been avoiding him whenever possible and I don’t doubt that he has even more questions about my behavior because he keeps lingering and loitering, trying to get me alone. But I’ve been careful to avoid letting him. I make sure I always have Tara, Brody, Mitch or Greg with me at any time when I’m not in my bedroom with the door locked.
My reaction to learning about the surveillance cameras has only made him more suspicious that I know more than I’m saying and it’s all I can do to keep away from him. Just last night he tried to corner me when Tara and the others were in the training room and I was making dinner for everyone. He snuck up behind me in the kitchen and trapped me against the bench, demanding answers.
I’ve been daydreaming about the kisses he gave me before he lost control the other night and wolfed-out, so it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience to be cornered by him. Although, having him lose his temper with me and call me a liar and some other names that I don’t like to think about felt uncalled for. Of course, the fact that I lost my temper in return and smacked him with the wooden spoon I’d had in my hand at the time hadn’t been the wisest decision. Totally worth it, though, because the expression on his face at being disciplined like a child for swearing was utterly priceless.
Things with the team have been a little bit odd since the grisly message was left at the gates and Tara’s been driving everyone insane. I don’t know what her problem is but she’s been wandering about the base whining and complaining almost constantly and it’s been driving me around the twist. Just this morning she came up to me and leaned against me, invading my personal space and pressing her forehead to mine, her front pressed rather intimately to mine as she asked what I had planned for the day. She then started nagging me that she wanted to drag me with her into town to go shopping and hit on boys.
I was completely freaked out by that, though when she did the same thing to Brody a few minutes later after I told her I wasn’t that big on shopping, I felt mildly better. He took it better than I did too, since I’d been reaching for my knife to drive her back when she began wiggling against me like a total weirdo. I figure it must be a were-tigress thing because she did it to Brody too, and he just rumbled at her in mild annoyance. I still can’t work those two out. Sometimes they squabble like siblings and other times they’re even more touchy-feely than lovers.
“That’s it!” Tara announces, sauntering into my bedroom where I’ve retreated to read in peace without her yowling like a she-cat in heat.
“What’s it?” I ask her, frowning in her direction as she goes toward my closet and begins digging through it.
“We’re going to town. I’m not allowed to go by myself - according to Greg – despite the fact that I AM AN ADULT!” she shouts toward the door, clearly intending to annoy Greg further with her whining. “And since he’s being unreasonable, and Mitch said he would come with me but only if I paraded around a lingerie store in granny panties, I’m taking you with me.”
I level a glare at her for that.
“I’m not going shopping Tara,” I tell her adamantly. “I hate shopping. I will literally drag my feet the whole way and I’ll tell you that you look awful in every outfit, even if you don’t.”
“Like that scares me?” Tara rolls her eyes. “Up until now I’ve only had the boys to drag with me and let me tell you, it will be literally impossible for you to outdo Brody, Mitch and Tobias when it comes to making their unhappiness known. Especially Mitch. He once molested the shop assistant who was helping me so much that I had to leave out of embarrassment. I kid you not, if he wasn’t so good looking, he’d have been charged.”
“Since when does being pretty get someone out of sexual assault charges?” I demand, disgusted.
“Since the shop assistant was so ensnared that she practically melted all over Mitch. Honestly, he dragged her into a changing booth and shagged her. Loudly. She lost her job over it but by the end she was so well ravaged that she didn’t even seem to hear her boss shouting at her. Mitch, making the universal symbol for ‘I’ll call you’ didn’t help her concentration either. I’ve not had the courage to go back into that store since,” Tara tells me, as though the most horrifying thing in this situation is her inability to return to a store she likes.
“SHE NEVER ONCE COMPLAINED!” Mitch shouts from somewhere beyond my bedroom, clearly listening in as Tara tries to sweet talk me into going shopping with her.
“YOU’RE DISGUSTING!” Tara shouts back at him and I roll my eyes in annoyance, trying to go back to reading my book. Not that it’s very successful when she comes over and plonks an outfit on top of the open pages.
“You should wear this when we go to town. If you dress like you normally do, no one will want to talk to us because they’ll think you’re going to pull their faces off,” she tells me with the infuriating smugness that only a cat can exude while bossing you around.
“You say that as though it would be a bad thing. Do I look like the type of girl who wants help finding something in a store?” I ask her mildly.
“You look like the type of girl who begrudges when she has to go to the mart for tampons, so, no you don’t look like you want assistance. But without assistance you’ll never interact with people outside of the team. And if you don’t do that you’ll end up with a warped sense of self, and identity crisis issues,” Tara informs me.
“You’re speaking from experience, obviously,” I reply solemnly, and I hear everyone else in the base begin to laugh at that.
“You don’t know what it does to a tigress to spend time exclusively with males you can’t copulate with,” Tara says darkly, kind of freaking me out a little.
“Aren’t tigers supposed to be solitary creatures anyway? Shouldn’t you be celebrating not having to interact with others?” I ask, choosing not to comment on her mention of sex or her way of wording that sentence.
“They are. And ordinarily I am. But I need contact or I’m liable to jump one of the boys. Do you really want that?” Tara asks me seriously.
“I see,” I smirk. “So you’re not dragging me along because you want to take me shopping and spend girl-time with me. You’re dragging me along because Greg won’t let you leave the base by yourself just to get laid? You’re going to ditch me the minute you lay eyes on a hot guy and I’ll be stuck waiting around some mall for you to get your kicks.”
“Anna’s got you pegged, Tara,” Brody comments from the doorway.
“Well…” Tara begins, her cheeks darkening as she blushes. “Okay, so it’s true, but I’m not kidding, if I don’t get laid soon, I’m going to molest someone.”
I begin to laugh when she shoots me a desperate look.
“What am I supposed to do while you get laid?” I ask, not at all wanting to go with her.
“If you go, I’ll go,” Brody offers. “There’s a new movie I’ve been wanting to see anyway.”
“If you’re happy to go, why am I being dragged along?” I ask the Bruin, wanting to stay and finish my book.
“Oh, I’m not going with just her,” Brody shakes his head. “I’ve made that mistake before.”
“What movie?” I hedge.
“Some new action one that’s out. You’ll like it,” he assures me, and I glance at Tara again.
“You’re not really going to insist I wear this, are you?” I ask her seriously, picking up the
dress she has dug out of my closet and eyeing the floral fabric distastefully.
“Why do you own it if you don’t like it?” Tara asks, looking confused by my disgusted expression.
“You’ll have to take that up with Greg. He forced several things on me that I didn’t want
or need when he busted me out of the Academy. That was his choice.”
“Well, I think it’s nice. Besides, I’ve never seen you look like a girl. And how am I going to pick up if you look like my butch lesbian lover instead of my friend?”
“Did you just call me butch?” I ask, frowning now. Compared to the well-built tigress I look like a delicate flower, at least in my opinion.
“Oh, you know what I mean!” Tara whines, stomping her feet childishly. “Just find something that makes you look like a normal girl instead of an assassin for a change and put it on. We’re wasting precious time here people!”
Sighing heavily to let her know how much I really don’t want to leave the base, I get to my feet. Tara and Brody both stare at me when I go to my cupboard trying awkwardly to find something that will make me look like a normal eighteen-year-old girl instead of an assassin.
When I stumble across a short aqua and black plaid baby-doll dress and a pair of ripped up skinny jeans that I was given as a birthday present the previous year, I shrug my shoulders and tell myself it can’t hurt, right? Tara nods eagerly when I hold them up for her inspection and I wait for a moment for them both to clear out of my room, so I can change.
I keep on waiting too, before realizing that they’re so used to stripping in front of each other that they’re not going to give me any privacy. As self-conscious as I am after having seen how ripped they are naked, I choose to walk into my bathroom, closing the door in Tara’s surprised face when she makes to follow me.
“Did she just…?” Tara asks, and I hear Brody begin to laugh.
“She wasn’t kidding about us giving her a complex,” I hear him chuckle and I roll my eyes. I strip out of my cargo pants and t-shirt quickly, having to pause to take to my armpits with my razor when I notice they’re too stubbly to get away with in a sleeveless dress. I feel uncomfortable as I put on the civilian style clothing, and my hands fidget for pockets I no longer have when I don the skinny jeans. Glancing in the mirror I realize my harsh bun will also have to go and I untangle the hair-tie from my long blonde hair, allowing the mass to tumble down my back and about my shoulders.