Stolen Secret

by Piper Dow

  She glided to the ground a few feet from the tent. She couldn't feel any tremors in the ground that would indicate a guy that big moving. Picking her way cautiously forward, she stared at the tent's entrance, her heart in her throat. He was gone.

  "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU lost him? You said he wasn't going anywhere! You said you were sure he was going to be easy to grab—we need someone new this week!" Carl paced between the living room and the kitchen. He ran his hands through his hair. Kenzi could see he was trying to calm down, to figure out what to do.

  "Carl—I've been watching him every day this week, haven't I? He gets up and cooks something for breakfast. He hits a gas station for coffee, and I'm pretty sure he uses their bathroom to clean up. He goes to a few of the stores in the area, checking out their dumpsters. Sometimes he gets the carts from around the lot and puts them into those corrals they've got. He goes to either the same gas station or the other one for another coffee. He goes back to his camp, he putters around there. He hasn't done anything different in weeks!" Kenzi defended herself.

  "I know, I know," Carl growled distractedly. "I'm not saying this is your fault, Kenz. Just..."

  Kenzi crossed her arms tightly. She leaned with her back against the kitchen counter. It was funny how Carl wasn't blaming her, yet everything he said was about how she said the guy was going to be easy to grab. She waited until he was at the far end of his pacing before she opened her mouth again.

  "I found another one."

  He lifted his head, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

  "I went to Silverton. There's always more of them there, like you said." She soothed his ego by including him. "So, it looks like a few of them have been staying near this empty storage building during the day when the shelter kicks them out. They dragged a few chairs around and they've been using a barrel for burning scrap wood and stuff."

  Carl looked like he was going to argue, so she hurried on. "I know, you want to target single people, not groups, but it doesn't look like they are really a group. A few came in from different directions while I was watching. They were talking about two different shelters, like, what the hours they get kicked out were. And they go behind the building to different spots to pee, and they don't do that together. If we need one this week, we can grab one of them."

  Carl threw himself back into the chair at the table where he'd been eating when Kenzi got home. "Yeah, I guess. It's not the safest way to do it, you know that. I've told you, they do make friends in those places, but if you can get us where we'll be able to grab one off by himself, it'll do."

  Kenzi nodded, unfolding her arms and moving toward the fridge now that Carl had calmed down. She was starving—that chipmunk she'd grabbed while staking out the men at their barrel fire hadn't provided enough to make a dent in the energy she'd burned flying there and back after scoping out the first guy's campsite. She scowled as she cracked a few eggs into a mixing bowl. If she did find that guy again, she was going to convince Carl to grab him whether they were ready for another one or not. She'd spent the last couple of weeks on him. She'd rather not have wasted all that time.

  "Hey, Kenz?" Carl stepped around her to put his dish into the sink. She lifted her head, waiting. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. "Thanks." He dropped a kiss onto the top of her head and released her. "Roger thinks he will have an empty cell either tonight or tomorrow, so eat up."

  Kenzi nodded, sticking a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. She was going to eat this because it was quick, but she had thought the whole flight home about the package of stir fried shrimp mix in the freezer. It was supposed to feed three people, but tonight it was going to feed one very hungry wereaccipi.

  Chapter seventeen

  Kelly smiled at Tim as they approached the Dome from different paths. "Are you ready for today?"

  Tim returned her smile, nodding. "I'm excited. We don't get this opportunity often!"

  Kelly kept her smile in place, though inwardly she dissected his words. 'Didn't get this opportunity'—did that mean Tim was a Shade? They climbed the steps together. She would know soon enough.

  Mr. Staples had suggested they take the evening to think about what they knew of each other, to see if they could determine which students in the group were Shades and which were Lights. Kelly was only positive on three—herself and the Johnson twins. That meant there were five more Shades. She thought of the other possibilities. There were six guys in the class. Even though Bizzy was a Shade, and the sweetest person Kelly could imagine, she still caught herself feeling like males and Shades both meant increased danger. She had tried to puzzle it out, but was ready for the answers to be revealed today.

  Mr. Staples had finally explained the mist they walked through each day when they entered the gym. It was a means of leveling the playing field for this exercise—the mist had the effect of hiding their scents so that the Shades wouldn't be able to use scent to identify the other Shades.

  Inside the Dome, the gym doors were already open. Music was playing inside. Tim shot Kelly a curious look before heading in. Kelly followed, noting the absence of the mist. At the far end of the room there were curtains sectioning off one area of the room. Two long tables covered with sandwiches and platters of goodies were arranged on the side near the benches. Mr. Staples waved them over and handed them each a paper plate.

  "Have at it! Plenty to go around." He lifted a hand to catch Drew's attention as he came through the door. "Make sure you all have enough to eat."

  Kelly selected a roll filled with tuna salad and a chocolate chip cookie. She found Bizzy and Tyler already sitting down with their plates and joined them.

  "What's with the food and music? I thought we were supposed to be doing a Shades and Lights thing?"

  Tyler grinned as she settled herself on the bench next to Bizzy. "Shades burn a lot of calories when we shift."

  Kelly's startled gaze flew to his face. His smirk was mischievous, but held no ill will.

  "You won't get past whatever it was that happened to you if you only ever associate shifted Shades with that experience," Bizzy said. Her voice was muffled around the turkey sandwich she was chewing. "This class is about being vulnerable and honest, right? You must want to get past it, or you wouldn't be here."

  Kelly glanced down at her plate. She wasn't a Shade, and wouldn't burn a lot of calories shifting. Also, she wasn't sure she wanted to risk tossing her cookie, literally, if Tyler was right.

  "Remember to breath, and ground yourself. You'll be fine." Tyler studied her for another moment, then returned his attention to the roast beef sandwich he was polishing off.

  She gazed around the room, still trying to figure out which students were Shades. Brad and his girlfriend Jamie Lee stood laughing with Drew. Kim was talking with Bill and Amy at the other end of the benches. Ashley and Tim were at the table adding food to their plates. Kelly watched Tim add two brownies to an already full plate. He must be a Shade.

  Her attention returned to Tyler and Bizzy. "Do you guys know who is a Shade?"

  Bizzy held up a finger, indicating the bite she had just taken.

  Tyler cocked his head to one side, surveying the others in the gym. "I think I've picked out most of them. I'm pretty sure Drew is. I think big cat, maybe leopard, but Bizzy thinks smaller. And, either Brad or Jamie Lee is definitely smaller cat but I'm not sure which one. Ashley is a Light."

  Kelly's eyes found each of the students he named.

  Bizzy swallowed the bite she had been chewing. "One of the girls is aquatic. I could tell after we'd been in the locker room. I agree with Tyler, it's not Ashley, and we know it's not you, so either Kim, Tracie, or Amy."

  Kelly stared at her. "Aquatic—as in, mermaid?" She couldn't keep the shock out of her voice.

  Bizzy smiled, shaking her head. "No, not mermaid. Probably mereswine or pinniped. Forms of dolphin or seal, or that line, anyway. I'm not sure which, yet. Guess we'll find out soon!" Her cheerful tone was light.

  M
r. Staples walked to the middle of the room and called for their attention.

  "You all remember the discussion we had yesterday regarding the hierarchy of needs? Lowest on the pyramid are your basic needs, including physiological needs—your food, water, etc., and safety needs. Then are the psychological needs, including belonging, love, feelings of accomplishment. At the very top of the pyramid is self actualization, or meeting your full potential. When we are talking about motivation and this class, we can see that we've been working on meeting those needs. Your physical needs are met. We have been working for two weeks on building friendships, working as a team, seeing the strengths and, yes, the weaknesses we all have. We have worked to establish an emotionally safe space together. Today, we're going to go further."

  He was back to pacing the floor in front of them. Kelly had a sudden image of the bears pacing in front of the bars of their cages at Clark's Trading Post in New Hampshire when she'd visited as a kid.

  "I asked you to see if you could determine who is a Shade and who is a Light. Does anyone want to take a shot at it?"

  Tim raised his hand. At Mr. Staples nod, he looked around and pointed. "Shades are myself, Bizzy, Tyler, Bill, Brad, and Drew. I'm not sure about the last one. The rest are Lights."

  Brad stepped away from the cluster he was in to survey the others. "I'm not a Shade, but Jamie Lee is. So, Shades are Jamie Lee, Tim, Bizzy and Tyler, Drew, and Kim." He looked at Jamie Lee, one eyebrow raised. "Oh, yeah, and Bill, right?" Jamie Lee nodded and smiled at him.

  Mr. Staples clapped and nodded toward Brad and Jamie Lee. "Nice job, you two." He turned and addressed the rest of the class. "How did the rest of you do?"

  Chapter eighteen

  It turned out that, despite the scented mist, the Shades had managed to identify more of their classmates than the Lights had. Mr. Staples pulled out a different ball covered with prompts than the one they had used the first day. This one asked the Lights to reveal how they had learned of the Shadows, how long they had known about it, or share a short story about a Shade experience. The Shades were asked what their Shadeform was, how many had revealed themselves to other Lights, or if they'd had any experiences with other Lights.

  Kelly's wasn't the only scary experience. They learned that Jamie Lee had been picked on by a couple of Terat boys in high school who had seen her father shift behind her house. They had cornered her after school behind the equipment shed, trying to force her to shift in front of them, when Brad heard them. He hadn't known her well, but it hadn't stopped him from defending her. She smiled softly when she admitted that it didn't take her long to reveal her Shadeform, a rufus malkin, to him. She knew she was safe.

  Most of the discoveries had been accidental. Steve had been walking home late one night and seen someone shift in the park. Amy had been hiking past a clearing and saw Bill shift into his wereaquila form and fly away.

  Kelly caught the ball from Bizzy. She looked at the question on the ball, then back at Bizzy, whose eyes were encouraging. She took a deep breath.

  "My sister was attacked by what looked like a pack of animals. My brother and I went to her apartment, looking for clues to what was going on, and uncovered a smuggling ring run by a werecoyote who was trafficking humans. He came after me." She felt the familiar panic rising and pushed it away. She looked around at the others, smiling tremulously. "I wouldn't have been able to just ignore the Shadows after that, anyway, but now my sister is a Shade."

  She threw the ball to Tracie, the last to get a turn. Tracie had seen her next door neighbor shift into a wolf through the bedroom window. At first she thought she was seeing things, but after the third or fourth time it happened she asked the son, who was a couple of years younger than she was.

  "He tried to make out like it was a magic trick, but his dad was a plumber. I was like, 'seriously?' Somehow it was more believable that he could turn into a wolf than that he could be a magician."

  Mr. Staples stepped forward and motioned for Tracie to toss the ball to him. He held it loosely under his arm and let his gaze sweep the group. "There are some scary experiences in the group, but you have all spent a couple of weeks getting to know each other, to trust each other. Remember that."

  A few of the students nodded at each other. Kelly took a deep breath, staring at the floor. Was she ready for this? She thought about the floor under her feet and how her wool socks felt snugged around the bottom of her pant legs. She took a slow breath, feeling steadier than she had yesterday at the thought of seeing her friends in Shadeform.

  Mr. Staples directed their attention to the curtained area at the far end of the gym. "In the interest of modesty, we've got the curtained area set aside for shifting, for the Shades who feel comfortable enough to. Are there any takers?"

  Drew stepped forward. He had already revealed that he was a nimrav, a type of large cat. When he sauntered out from behind the curtains, Amy let out an appreciative murmur and Kelly could see why. His fur was lightly spotted, like a leopard. His body was sleek and muscular. His claws made light clicking noises on the floor as he walked. He had large canine teeth that protruded over his lower jaw. He was powerful and intimidating.

  He sashayed toward the group in a decidedly New York runway model manner, flicking the end of his long tail from side to side as he walked. He reached a spot ten feet from the group and gave an exaggerated snap of his head, turning away from them the others and looking back coyly over his shoulder. Kelly joined the others in laughter, which Drew had plainly been seeking. He strolled toward the ropes course, where the platform hung from the ceiling of the dome. Crouching, he gave a powerful leap into the air and landed on the platform 16 feet in the air.

  "Holy canolli," breathed Ashley.

  Tim glanced at Ashley before heading toward the curtained area. His Shadeform was a large bear. Jamie Lee's rufus malkin was a form of large bobcat, smaller than Drew's nimrav but larger than any bobcat Kelly had seen at the zoo. Bill's wereaquila was a golden eagle. Kelly had never been up close to an eagle, but his Shadeform was larger than any she could imagine.

  Kim looked at the others before addressing Mr. Staples. "I don't suppose you have a pool back there?" When he shook his head apologetically, she said, "I'd love to show you all my Shadeform, but I'm a mereswine. I do best in water."

  "How come you don't live near the ocean?" Steve asked. "Like, I mean, I would think..." He trailed off, grimacing, apparently unsure if his question might be considered inappropriate.

  Kim shrugged. "I'm going to school. We go to the Cape on weekends, so I'm doing okay. I mean, a lot of Shades only get to shift a couple of times a month, so this isn't horrible. My father isn't a Shade, and my grandmother doesn't know about my mother or me. She wanted me to go to school in Arizona. That would have been..." She shuddered.

  "We're last. Want to see if they can guess who is who?" Tyler grinned mischievously at Bizzy, who rolled her eyes at him but joined him behind the curtain. When they came out, Kelly grinned. She could easily distinguish between the pair, though she knew that, like any of the other Shades, if she didn't know their human forms, she wouldn't know them in Shadeform.

  Vulpies, it turned out, were large foxes. Bizzy's fur was as pale as her human hair, though her back and the base of her tail had a faded red tint. Her eyes remained blue, though the pupils were vertical slits instead of the round ones Kelly was used to. Tyler's coloring was darker, more like a red fox, but he had a blaze of white on his face and irregular white patches on his legs and feet. His eyes also remained the color of his human eyes, one blue and one amber, with vertical slits.

  They paraded past the others, weaving through the loosely assembled Lights. Tyler came and sat in front of Kelly, gazing into her face. Kelly met his eyes and smiled self consciously. He cocked his head to the side and tapped her boot with one paw. She wrinkled her nose at him. "I am—I have been!" She wiggled her toes inside her boot. "They're warm, my boots are snug, and there's a seam on the boot where my foot bends when I walk that rubs
the top of my foot."

  She got the distinct impression from his jaunty step on the return to the curtained section that he felt personally responsible for her not getting light-headed today.

  When the Shades had resumed their human forms, Mr. Staples called for their attention again. He directed his words to the group while putting his hands on the twins' shoulders. "Normally I wouldn't single anyone out but Bizzy and Tyler have agreed to allow me to explain their particular anomalies. You've seen their distinctive coloring, and how similar their Shadeforms are to their human forms—that doesn't typically happen. You saw Tim, who is blonde, turn into a black bear. Yet Bizzy, who is platinum blonde, turned into a fox with white fur. Tyler has heterochromia," he indicated Tyler's eyes, "and that is the same in his Shadeform."

  Mr. Staples dropped his hands and started pacing again, drawing the group's attention with him. "The twins have genetic mutations that are responsible for their distinct coloring. The mutation affects their pigmentation. Bizzy has leukism, meaning that her hair produces no pigment. Tyler has piebaldism, which is a limited form of leukism that results in patches of hair and skin without pigment."

  Suddenly the nicknames the twins occasionally called each other when they were feeling feisty made sense to Kelly. Her father had started calling her "Kelly Belly" when she was little and volunteered her jelly beans when she learned they were his favorite Easter candy. She had thought Bizzy calling Tyler "Pie" was somehow similar, though she hadn't understood Tyler calling Bizzy "Lukie."

  Chapter nineteen

  Matt stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and shrugged his coat higher around his neck. He preferred snow to this biting cold, but so far, he was able to manage whatever the weather threw at him. Once in a while, if he heard it was going to be too cold or miserable, he got a motel room for a few days. Then he was able to shower, relax in a real bed, watch the television. He didn't do it often—didn't want to go soft and find it harder to return to his tent, but sometimes that hot shower was just heaven.