Decisions

by Mel Todd

  He gave her one last sneer and strode out.

  Cass looked after him completely confused. If anything, she tended to conservative, even if she registered as independent, and it was a Department of Defense building. Not a business.

  What the hell did I ever do to him? Why is he so focused on putting me down?

  Cass sighed. She was too tired and the spurt of energy the email had given her had disappeared. The only thing that called to her was going home and sleeping, but that meant going home first.

  She shut down and headed out, making it to her car when her sister called.

  "Do you watch the cameras to see when I leave so you call right when I get in the car?" Her voice cheerful. In theory she was supposed to go down there this weekend. It sounded good, the kids helped to smooth her out and make it easier to deal with reality. Heck maybe she needed to rethink her childless status. It would at least give her something to focus on besides work. The idea of raising a child alone however didn’t call to her at all.

  "I hate them, I hate them all." Were the first words out of Helena’s mouth along with an element of panic that Cass had rarely heard from her sister.

  "Helena? What’s wrong? Is anyone hurt?" She sat in her car, waiting, her stomach a tight knot.

  Please nothing can happen to them.

  "Oswald is in the hospital." Helena didn’t wail. Cass didn’t think her sister knew how to lose it to that extent, but the anger and fear laced every syllable.

  "What? What happened?" Her mouth had gone dry as she sat locked in fear. If she lost Helena, Oswald, Troy, Laila, then she’d lose everything.

  "Some idiot rear-ended Oswald at a light. He probably was texting and driving or something. But then got out and started blaming Oswald for stopping suddenly. From what Oswald told me." She took a deep breath then continued her voice a bit calmer. "He said he’d been sitting at the light for almost a minute. It’s at the weird intersection near the house where the cycle takes forever. Well the guy is screaming at him and Oswald keeps trying to calm him down, telling him the damage is minor."

  Cass could believe that. Oswald didn’t do confrontation until he absolutely had to, then it could be like a berserker rage. At six feet, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, he could be a bit intense but most of the time he came across as mild mannered.

  "The guy isn’t listening, almost looking like he was frothing at the mouth and then he changes. Right there in the middle of the road, he changed into a wolf and lunges at Oswald sinking his teeth into Oswald’s leg!" Her voice hit a shriek. "Apparently, someone called the cops when the guy started yelling and Oswald said the clothes tangled the wolf up so he couldn’t keep attacking. But Oswald is in surgery now. It’s minor they said. They’ll let him come home tonight. But that damn shifter could have killed him." Her voice broke then and Cass could see her in her mind, tears tracking down her face and trying to control her breathing. Helena hated crying. They’d both picked that up from her mom.

  "Do you need me to come down, take care of the kids? I can probably be there in three hours."

  A deep sniffly breath, then in a calmer tone. "No. ¿Oswald’s mom is here. They came in yesterday. He was going to take a long weekend." She gave a bitter laugh. "If he’d been working his normal hours he’d not have been there."

  Oswald’s mom, Brun, and Cass did not get along. She couldn’t pin point it but the two of them together were like oil and fire, it never ended well.

  "Are you sure? I can bite my tongue and deal with her."

  "No, but thanks. Mom said she’d be down tomorrow and with both of them in the house you wouldn’t help. Sorry."

  Cass had to laugh at that. They loved their mom, but mom had a bad tendency to make Cass feel like she couldn’t do anything right, that she was never as good as Helena, or as smart, or as pretty. It created stress for everyone, even the kids, cause they started to ask why Aunt Cass should be different. Once a year at Christmas tended to be all she could handle. J`Her mom loved her, but she felt like Cass could be better, be someone else, and at this point in her life Cass just wanted to be herself.

  "Okay. Call if you need. Even just to rant okay?"

  "Thanks. I think I just needed to vent. It isn’t fair you know."

  Cass frowned looking at the phone. "What isn’t fair?"

  "That they get to change. And then they attack innocent people just minding their own business. Why didn’t we all get that ability?"

  "What? Helena?"

  "Nothing, I gotta go. I’ll call and let you know. The doctor is coming now. Thanks, sis." Helena hung up before Cass could say anything else.

  What did that mean? I’ll talk to her later about it. Hope Oswald is okay. Why would a shifter attack? Just that person or something else? See yet another reason for me to stay human and let it all disappear into the past.

  Cass shook her head and headed home, she still had work for the next few days.

  14

  String Pulling

  Unexpected shifting ruin your life? Did you turn into an animal and were unable to control your animal urges or impulses? Call the law offices of Lion & Tiger, and we’ll make sure you’re protected from something you couldn’t control. ~Ad on KWAK

  Work Thursday was an exercise in stress. Cass checked her phone constantly worried she’d missed a message from Helena. She’d even given in and texted her about noon when she hadn’t heard anything.

  Before she walked back into the lab from a fretful lunch, her phone rang.

  "Helena, finally. How is he? How are you?" She slipped outside to talk, needing the fresh air as she tried to convince herself she’d been overreacting.

  "He’s fine. Came home this morning. Brun is here running the place like a military organization, but right now it is actually nice to not worry about anything. He’ll have some nasty scars on the back of his leg but shouldn’t have any long-lasting damage as long as he does the physical therapy." She sighed a bit. "And if anything, his mother is so busy focusing on her ‘wounded boy’ she doesn’t have the energy to point out my failings or change too much in the house."

  Cass laughed. Brun had been known to reorganize entire rooms and usually Helena spent a month after each visit trying to figure out where Brun had decided something belonged.

  "Good. I was a bit worried. You need anything?"

  "Nah. Just going to be busy for a bit. Trying to juggle everything. My assistant is going to take a wedding I had this weekend, but I’ll be fine." There was noise in the background and Helena groaned softly. "I have to go. The kids are wound up because of what happened, plus Brun, and that means they are fighting like little hellions. Talk to you later." She hung up as she started yelling at the kids and Cass giggled.

  And then I remember all the stuff that goes on with kids and I’m fine not having any.

  After a quick trip to the bookstore and the grocery store, she headed home, anxious to read her new novel. The dreams that night were odd. She’d passed all the courses with flying colors and found it strange that some of the knowledge had slipped into her day job but not in a way that she could actually leverage. Not to mention she kept having to stop and double check what she thought was fact. It created a nagging sense of fear at the back of her mind centered around the fact that the knowledge was always correct—so far. Even things she couldn’t have known.

  Tonight, she dreamt about taking a test. How unrestful was it to spend your sleep taking a test on medical stuff for species that didn’t exist?

  It passed in an odd blur even as she participated in taking it.

  Maybe I’m helping my host cheat. Would that be good or bad?

  "Please wait for test results. Your assignments will follow soon after. At this point all candidates but one, have passed. That one will be released."

  There was an odd shuffle behind her and she tried to turn to see what was going on, but she couldn’t. Her body stared straight ahead. The panels were relatively reflective so Cass focused on what she could see. A figure st
ood up as two others came into the room and was escorted out.

  Shouldn’t there be a struggle or anger? Why go so easily to be released? Maybe it isn’t as bad as it implied.

  But from the sag of her bodies shoulders Cass had the sense it meant exactly what she thought it did.

  I don’t like this place, at all.

  The top in front of her sprang to life and she glanced down at it.

  Pass - 97% accurate.

  The voice came again, but this time it only rang in her head. "Your scores have matched what was expected. Proceed to the welcome area. The Commander for your team is scheduled to arrive soon."

  "Acknowledged." Her body rose and turned, moving towards the back of the room, and Cass mentally choked. If she’d been in control of the body, the odds were she would have quit breathing. The room had about ten other occupants. All humanoid in configuration but with fur and muzzles. They looked like really well-done movie special effects on how were-people would look. They didn’t glance up at her as she walked through them, instead staying with their gazes forward without more than an ear flick in her direction as she moved through.

  Oh gods, is that what I am?

  She focused as her body approached the doors and as they slide open, she caught an image of herself. Female from the breasts, which she’d seen out of the corners of her vision when in these dreams, brown fur that matched her hair, with two paler stripes running up from her forehead and over. A muzzle with the same wicked teeth that somehow fit the odd form. Then the doors slid open and she lost the chance to see herself.

  But now she paid attention with a level of focus she hadn’t had since the first night. She had never moved around before. Staying in the same room she arrived in. Other beings with the same form structure, animal and human mix, moved around them. The lack of chatter struck her as odd. Even in the labs people would talk occasionally and almost always when out on break. She tended to be the quietest. But no one spoke, everyone just moved with efficiency. And she couldn’t identify the animals, they all looked odd, different. Colors, forms, movements, didn’t strike her as animals she was familiar with. And that created more confusion.

  Her host moved through the corridors and Cass tried to take in the plain mustard brown colors and style. It came across as a ship more than a building, but she didn’t know why she had that impression. Though when she turned and entered what could only be a hangar of some sort it solidified that impression. Her host headed to where a small group of three others stood coming up and falling in line next to them. The only thing Cass could figure out, before her gaze no longer lingered on them, was black, brown, and spotted. Something about two of them screamed cat to her, but she couldn’t focus enough to figure it out.

  Her host stood quivering with stress. Or was it fear? Maybe excitement? She couldn’t tell, even as she tried to get a sense of the beings to her left.

  "Wait, I want to go back to sleep." The protest burst out as the alarm pulled her out of the dream and she sighed as she shut it off. "Really, my own personal movie where I’m the star and it ends just as it gets good."

  The knowledge and emotions she’d felt haunted her all day. The knowledge seemed to have sunk into her bones and she had the odd thought she should go take the MSAT just for the hell of it and see what her score was.

  The day ended, and she was relieved it was Friday. She wanted to check up on Oswald, maybe run by for a quick visit just long enough to say hi, and then leave before she and Brun could clash too much.

  Even though she left early at four pm, the lot was empty as everyone else had already split for the weekend. She walked out thinking about the commander.

  What did that mean? Who would that be? At this rate I might start reading sci-fi novels.

  She heard nothing behind her before arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her back against a hard chest. Panicked she opened her mouth to suck in air to scream when a hand with something in it slapped over her mouth. Now in full blown terror mode, she started to thrash trying to get loose and not breath. But whoever held her didn’t even seem to notice her struggles to break free.

  "Take her down. The drug should take effect in a minute. The van is coming up now. We need to secure her until we grab the others."

  Drug? Take her? What the hell?

  Her thoughts began to grow cloudy as the need for oxygen, and the drug she’d inhaled without wanting to, started to kick in.

  "Stubborn isn’t she." An amused male voice.

  Male. They are both male. What else?

  Cass tried to pay attention, feeling the lumps of things under her back, the odd fabric she’d grabbed while thrashing. Focusing, she tried to lift her arms and pull down the arm that held the drug clamped over her nose.

  "Very, but it won’t do her any good."

  Those words echoed in her head as she took a shuddering gasp of air, tainted with the sweet drug. Her world started to fade as she felt them lift her up. Even though the hand didn’t move from her face, she felt her hands get secured and she was dumped into the back of a van.

  The hand left her face, and she tried not to react. She wasn’t unconscious so maybe she could get free.

  "Here, dose her." A painful prick in her arm and that hope fled. "Done. Let’s get ready. The others are scheduled to be grabbed tomorrow, early afternoon. We need to have her already prepped for transport. That mission will be at a dead run once we have them."

  "Agreed." There were more words but as dark gray pulled her down they faded, and she couldn’t climb back to the surface. She knew nothing more.

  15

  The Places You Go

  Stockholm syndrome is the feelings of trust or affection felt towards a kidnapper or hostage taker by the victim. Usually this only happens over long periods of time where a relationship builds between the two. If the hostage and the taker have similar goals or attitudes, it can increase the likelihood of this being created. It is not common with only eight percent of victims developing this, per the FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System. ~ KWAK News commentator

  Unfamiliar voices pulled Cass out of the darkness. Her mouth and throat felt dry, parched, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in days. She lay there, not moving, trying to figure out the words even as it registered that she lay naked on the dirt.

  She sat up quickly and moaned as it felt like fireworks exploded in her head. Cass rubbed her head pleading for the pain to stop. The rubbing helped, and she dropped a hand to her lap and her eyes flew up as she remembered she was naked and there were people there. This time she didn’t try to be brave. She covered herself and tried to scoot backwards.

  "Why am I naked? Why are you naked? Who are you?" That last part came out in a shriek as moving caused a very tender area of her rear to hit something and she dropped the hand across her breast to rub the large knot.

  Feels like a tetanus lump but worse. What the hell is all this?

  "I think that is our question. We all know each other and were taken at a BBQ at my house. So, mind telling me who you are?" It was a woman who was spoke and glared at her. Cass couldn’t help but notice her muscled body and that she looked vaguely familiar.

  Why do I think I know her?

  Her gaze drifted to take in the others, all with muscles and she felt even more uncomfortable with her curves and chubby belly. Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the more important part. Who where they and why was she here?

  "Why do you two look familiar? Like I should recognize you?" Her voice came out slow and halting. Suddenly Cass was not sure if she really wanted the answer to that question.

  They all stared at her. She didn’t know if she should run or fight, so she sat until nerves, not to mention her sore ass, forced her to move. She rose, trying to cover herself, even though everyone seemed to be keeping their eyes on her face. It was a hell of a lot more intimidating than one bored ranger.

  "Um, well." She didn’t know where to look. "My name’s Cass. Uh, well, Cassandra Borden. I’m a r
esearch biologist. I work for a private research lab, Demeter, LTD, on small stuff mostly."

  "You working with the shifter virus?" The woman demanded and Cass wanted to squirm away but tried to hold still.

  "No. I don’t work with viruses, just plant-based biology, mostly working on new compounds to be found from plants and ways to harvest new pharmaceuticals that won’t exist if we destroy their ecology."

  Cass fought down her rising panic and the idea this had something to do with the lichen.

  "So, who are you? Why are we here? And really? No clothes?" She asked wanting to demand but the men looked like they could break her without trying. Besides right now she really wanted to break down in tears.

  "What do you remember?"

  Cass swallowed and tried to clear her head. None of this made any sense.

  "Remember?" Cass frowned, then her eyes widened. "I’d just left the lab. It was late, and I was distracted. I walked to my car, and I heard something and then someone slapped something over my mouth, held me until I went fuzzy, then they carried me to a van. I think they gave me a shot. They talked about picking up others but then it all went dark. I don’t remember anything else." She tried hard not to start freaking out but really, compared to her dreams and shifting, this seemed too real, too scary.

  "Hey, it’s okay. We’re all in the same situation."

  It was the man who spoke, the huge one. She let her eyes linger on him and something in her relaxed. He wasn’t handsome, the opposite in fact, but something about him made her want to hide behind him, sure he’d protect her from everything.