by Mandy Rosko
It was that and a combination of the fact that Cindy had been walking around the campus freely for a couple of weeks now. Her scent was all over the place, realistically.
Then there were the many other scents of the instructors, the cadets, consultants, FUC agents, and all the other new guests who had been rescued from that lab. They all crossed over each other, making it difficult to pinpoint the most recent smell.
The more he looked, the more he felt like he was being treated like a dog, being tricked into chasing the pretend little rabbit, sent off into a whole new direction he didn't want to be in.
He looked up. He couldn't see Albert anymore. The owl shifter was likely broadening his search.
This all felt like a trap, like something designed to make them look where they didn't need to.
It made him want to check on Trisha. Just to make sure.
He'd told her to stay put, but his gut was telling him something was badly off.
The bears noticed his distraction. Chase shifted just enough so that he was a smaller version of himself, not as much hair, and he had working vocal cords again.
"What are you doing?"
Warren also did a semi-shift so he could speak. "I think we're being messed with." He glanced back toward the school. "I think we should check on the Academy."
Chase gave him a bushy-browed look. Mason lumbered up beside his brother, and even when completely in his bear form, he also looked like he thought that might not be the best idea in the world.
"We're being led around in circles, I'm sure of it. Maybe that Cindy girl doesn't want to be found. All I know is that I need to check on Trisha."
Trisha's horn was special. He didn't even have all the details about it yet, but a glowing horn that could make plants act like they'd been pumped turbo grow directly into their leaves had to be something the bad guys wanted.
"I'm going." He shifted back into his full animal form and ran, his fear for his woman spiking within him the closer he got to the Academy. He couldn't talk himself, or the wolf in his head, out of thinking there might be something wrong. The feeling itself was as powerful as if he'd spotted a juicy squirrel within biting distance, and there was no ignoring it either.
He knocked on Trisha's door, jiggling the knob anyway just to make sure it was really locked.
Still locked, but it didn't sound like anyone was coming to let him in.
He pounded again. "Trisha, it's me. Open the door."
She didn't answer, and even as he strained his ears, he didn't detect the soft sounds of breathing or feet walking across the floor.
As though there was no one inside.
He smashed his fist against the door. "Trisha, you'd better be in there. Now open the damn door!"
"I got it. Step aside, Wolfy," Mason said in his human form, brandishing a set of keys.
Where the hell did he pull those from? The guy was naked.
Either way, he matched up the proper key with the room number and got the door open, stepping aside as Warren barged through.
And found nothing.
The room was small enough. Just two beds, the nightstand between them, and a little bathroom. There wasn't anywhere she could hide. Not that she would hide from him, but he could tell right away she wasn't in there.
Just as he could also tell right away that someone had come in shortly after he'd left. There was blood on the carpet. Not Trisha's blood, but he recognized the scent.
The same scent as the snake he saw that first night when he realized they might be being watched, the same scent as the one that had spied on him when he was at Albert's house.
The same smell that always seemed to come and go when it was far too late for Warren to track down the bastard it belonged to.
"You smell that?" Chase said. "Someone else was in here."
"Yeah." Mason sniffed the air audibly. "This that same scent you said you got at Albert and Beverly's house?"
"Yeah." Warren moved toward the window. "This is the one." He put his nose down to the windowsill, taking in the scent.
There was definitely someone who didn't belong, the same creature he'd picked up back at Albert's house. The one he'd scented who had been spying on him and Trisha when they were outside.
It was stronger this time. There was nothing faint about it.
He growled.
"You got something?" Mason asked, though he sounded like he already knew the answer.
"Yeah, move. Now."
If anything happened to her...one hair out of place, one scratch, and he swore someone was going to die.
As slowly and painfully as he could make it happen, they would die.
Trisha shook her head. She tried to back away, but even though TJ was a wiry guy, he was strong.
"What are you... Why are you here? What are you doing with them? TJ?"
And why didn't she smell him?
Actually, she could. He'd taken a shower. He smelled like Irish Spring and pine now.
Was he trying to hide his normal scent?
TJ opened his mouth, which was a bit of a process because his lips were always wide and pulled back, revealing those terrifying teeth. As though the teeth were trying to pop right out of his mouth.
Trisha cringed against her will, and TJ slammed those teeth shut again, his eyes looking mighty sad.
Shit, he was probably just trying to answer her.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I won't...you can tell me. I won't do that again."
"But you would," said the older woman
Reminded she was there, Trisha glared at her again. She looked as smug as anyone could when they were out in the woods in the middle of the night.
"You would cringe away from him; that's why you don't interact with him."
"We're not friends, and he always wanted to be on his own. But we could be friends if you ever wanted to," Trisha said, realizing how that probably sounded.
That sad, pitying expression didn't leave TJ's face.
He didn't believe her.
"I mean it. I didn't know you wanted to spend time with us. You can sit down and eat with Cindy and me whenever you want. Right, Cindy?"
"He can, absolutely," Cindy said, stepping forward and making Trisha heave a massive sigh of relief.
Until she finished that sentence.
"But we need you to do something for us, Trisha."
Trisha wet her lips. She tried not looking over at Jonathan and his...boss? His mother? Whatever she was, Trisha put her focus on Cindy.
"Okay, what do you need from me that requires those two to be around? They did this to us, Cindy. They were there."
Not that she could remember it, but the woman's confession was enough for Trisha, and she wanted nothing to do with her or her pet snake.
"Because you have something we need," said Jonathan. "Something that can help so many people."
She was definitely in a clown world. This solidified it. "And helping other people involves kidnapping and experimenting on them? Turning them into shifters against their will, right? I've got a fucking horn sticking out of my head, TJ can't touch his lips together anymore, and Cindy's got scales all over her skin. You did this to us!"
She stopped only when TJ gripped her shoulders again, this time hard enough to really, really hurt.
She flinched, looking up at him, and this time that sadness was replaced with something a little fiercer.
Threatening.
He was already scary as hell even without that glint in his eyes. Now that he was staring at her as though he might bite her head off, it was a whole new level of crazy.
"Cindy?"
Cindy wet her lips. She didn't look threatening, but she did look sorry, which was almost worse.
"They said your horn can help us."
"Help us?"
"Help anyone who can't control themselves!" she clarified, her face lighting up in a way Trisha had only seen the day they were rescued.
"It can make us normal. Even if we all stay as shifters
, TJ won't look so scary; his teeth would be normal again, and he could actually close his mouth. I wouldn't have my scales and gills out all the time, and we could go out in public again. We wouldn't have to hide."
"But...how? I don't think it can do that." She'd seen her horn affect the plants around her, and then there was the glowing, but to fix TJ's teeth? To make herself and Cindy look normal again?
TJ's fingers dug into her arms. A sharp pain shot up into her shoulders. "Ow! Fuck! Will you stop that? I'm not going to try getting away!"
TJ did loosen his grip a little, but she definitely wouldn't be pulling away from him any time soon.
"TJ, don't hurt her. You're just going to scare her," Cindy said.
"What? He does what you say now, right?"
"He doesn't do what anyone says. We just want your help."
"From the people who did this to us in the first place?"
"We were only small beans there, merely working for the bigwigs," the woman said. "I doubt Mrs. Jones could identify either of in a lineup, so insignificant we were to the actual workings of that lab."
"Yeah, great, lucky me. Mother Theresa is here to make sure nothing bad happens in between kidnappings. Fuck you."
Her horn started to glow. Cindy took that as a sign that things really were as she described them.
"Trisha, look at what's happening. You can't pretend that's just a stick of bone or something."
"It's a narwhal tooth, that's all it is."
"Narwhal teeth don't glow, and only the males have them," said the older woman. "You don't look like a man to me."
Trisha hadn't known that about narwhals, but she sure as hell wasn't about to let this bitch have the satisfaction of knowing that either.
"Right. Shifters exist, but it's totally impossible for a human woman to have a narwhal tooth growing out of her forehead. So what is it then if it's not a tooth? You think it's a unicorn horn?"
The way everyone looked at her, as though silently confirming her thoughts and just waiting for her to catch up, brought out a sinking feeling within her.
And the horn glowed brighter.
"We never thought we would see something as beautiful as this," said the woman. "No one believed it. In fact, we did believe it to be a tooth, but too many things happened. The glowing. Any house plants in the facility began blooming with flowers, even when they were previously dying or not in season…"
Trisha shook her head. She barely realized it when TJ let her go.
"That's...no. That's not possible."
Shifters were real. She was now one of them, but this was too much. There had to be some things in the world that were not real. There had to be some things she could point at and say, that was real, that was grounded in reality. Two plus two equaled four, the dinosaurs lived sixty-five million years ago and were currently extinct, and unicorns did not now exist, nor had they ever.
"You're lying. You're so full of shit."
"It may not be an actual unicorn horn, but it's clearly something. The child, I wanted it, it would have made for an excellent study. When we took it from the mother, we used your horn to heal her body. Even with shifter healing, she should not have recovered that fast."
She was talking about Albert's wife. That had to be it. There was no one else.
And it sickened Trisha to think she'd somehow, even without intending it, been involved in what happened to them.
"I don't remember that." Trisha shook her head. "No, that couldn't... I don't remember a lot of things, but I would have remembered that!"
"Mother, this might be too much right now."
"Silence!" hissed the older woman, barely sparing Jonathan a glance. She stepped forward, as though she were a cat that had a mouse cornered.
"Do not be frightened. It was a good thing. I wanted to keep the child, but that became impossible. Regardless, had you not been so nearby, that event could have unfolded with more...unfortunate results."
A chaotic laugh bubbled up from Trisha's throat. "Unfortunate? Is that all? It wouldn't have had anything to do with the fact that you were trying to steal someone's baby? You stupid cunt."
Jonathan's cheeks and neck tightened as he cringed deeply. He tried to signal to her that it might not be the best idea in the world to call his mother a cunt, but Trisha didn't care. She was pissed off.
Jonathan's mother, however, looked like she was a duck letting rainwater roll off her ass. "You say that because you don't understand."
"I understand that you're a real huge cunt." Saying that was getting to her. Trisha could see the little twitch in her eyes, so she said it again just to be bitchy about it. "You don't like being called that, do you? I can tell. If you don't want people calling you a giant cunt, then you should stop acting like one, you cunt!" Trisha rounded on Cindy and TJ. "And you! Are you both out of your minds? You're going to trust anything they have to say? They cut a baby out of a woman's stomach and wanted to experiment on it. They work for the people who did this to us!"
"And they want to make us normal again," Cindy said, helplessness to her voice. "I don't care what science lab experiments they want to do to us, so long as they can make us look better!"
"Cindy, it's not just about your looks. You're both fine just as you—"
"Stop."
Trisha did but only because she was stunned to hear that come from the other woman.
Then there was the utterly hateful way Cindy looked at her. Her shoulders trembled, her fists clenched, and the gills at her throat were opening and closing as if she were struggling to catch her breath.
And for a few seconds, Trisha worried that was exactly what was happening. That she couldn't breathe outside of the water, and it was finally happening.
Nope.
"You don't get to talk about what I look like."
"I wasn't—"
"You look normal! You've got a horn sticking out of your forehead. So what? I'd kill for that to be the only thing off about me. You can still walk around like normal. Pretend that's a headband or something. You think I can go to the mall or the movies looking like this?"
"But you look fine. You're beautiful."
And she was. Even in the extra darkness of the trees, her scales shone in what little moonlight made it through the canopy. She looked ethereal. Her eyes were wide and bright, cheeks glittering as though she was wearing one of those sparkling foundations. She looked like a fairy.
But if that wasn't what she wanted to look like, then maybe it really could be a curse.
"I don't want to look like this. I'm ugly."
Trisha shook her head. She didn't believe it, but Cindy did.
And it broke her heart.
She glanced up at TJ, but she couldn't hold his gaze, not when his teeth were so close.
If Cindy couldn't think she was pretty, then there was no hope for TJ.
"So what does my horn do to help you? You said it helped Albert's wife heal fast, but shifters are supposed to heal fast."
"Not as fast as she did," said Jonathan's mother.
"Who exactly are you in all this? Are you the one who did this to us in the first place?"
She narrowed her eyes. "I told you no already. I didn't lie."
Trisha wasn't sure she believed it, but if she wouldn't come right out and admit it, or tell Trisha who exactly she was, then she couldn't force anything.
"Can I take away Cindy's shifter abilities? Make TJ look more...like himself?"
She'd almost said human, or normal, but that probably wouldn't help anything right now.
"It's possible. Better minds than mine are working diligently to correct the mistakes of nature and the mistakes of science. If we can make humans into shifters, turn kangaroo shifters into pandas, then giving your friends here a chance for control is within reach. With the help of your horn, only a little more study, Cindy wouldn't need to give up her new abilities. But she could control them enough to move among the humans unnoticed. I'm told TJ had a nice singing voice before this little
mishap."
Trisha glanced at TJ again. The sadness in his eyes was enough to make her look away again.
She hadn't known that. She'd been with him in the labs, had memories of him screaming, back before his teeth were this long. She'd never heard him sing. At least she didn't have memories of it.
She'd been so angry at the thought of the people of FUC wanting to do these kinds of experiments, of changing people around. Even after Warren had explained it to her, she'd still not liked the idea. But if it could fix Cindy and TJ, make what they'd gone through a little less terrible, and they were willing to do it this time, then who was she to say no?
"Okay, so what do I have to do? How do I help you with this?"
Jonathan looked relieved. His mother's eyes sparkled like someone finally getting what they wanted.
"We need to cut your horn off. As soon as possible." She reached back into a pack Trisha only just noticed and produced a small hacksaw.
14
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Trisha backed away. "You're going to cut my horn off? With that? This thing is attached to my skull!"
"Some of that might come away as well." The woman handed the saw to Jonathan. "Go and get it."
"Are you guys serious right now?" Trisha looked at Cindy, and while it was a comfort that Cindy seemed just as confused and horrified by the prospect of cutting off Trisha’s horn with a hacksaw, that didn't stop the fact that Jonathan was walking toward her with it.
"TJ, come on, are you just going to let him—"
TJ stepped in the way, blocking Jonathan from getting to her. Trisha's heart slammed, relief filling her up. Cindy rushed to her side.
"I didn't know she meant to do it like that," she promised.
Trisha grabbed her hand and held it tight. She would figure out how angry she was about this whole thing after she got out of there in one piece.
But Jonathan was still standing there.
"TJ, do you want to keep looking like that? My mother's being dramatic. I'm not going to hurt her or get too close to her skin, but we need to get the horn before someone finds us."
It wasn't as though TJ could say much anyway with his teeth so long and his lips stretched so far apart, but the thinking he was doing wasn't a good sign.