by Ava Hunt
“Wait,” Vivienne interrupted. “That’s not him, is it?” Kimber turned to see where Vivienne was pointing, at a man who had just walked in and was now being shown to his table.
“No. It can’t be,” Kimber said, even though it was undeniably Justin. She knew this restaurant was a favorite of his, but he was supposed to be at home, working. He had lied to her.
“What is he doing here?” Vivienne wondered. The sisters watched him the whole way to his table, where Elle was sitting.
Vivienne had a few choice names to call him, but Kimber just sat there staring, her eyes brimming with tears as she watched him kiss Elle on the cheek. “I can’t watch this,” she said, her voice cracking. She got up, pulling her wallet out and leaving cash on the counter to pay for her unfinished drink.
“Wait, let’s go confront him. He needs to know that he can’t get away with stuff like this.”
“I can’t, Viv. I just can’t.”
“I’ll go yell at him for you then.”
“No. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. Right now I just want to go home.”
“Are you sure? I’m pretty good at yelling at people.” Kimber nodded, unable to crack a smile at all. “Okay. Let’s get you out of here.”
As they walked out together, Vivienne’s comforting arm around Kimber’s shoulders, Kimber refrained from looking back. She couldn’t stand the sight of him, tonight, or ever again. She would go to work tomorrow, but it would be her last day as Justin’s assistant and friend.
Justin felt Kimber’s heartache before he even saw her face. When he got off the elevator, she was facing the other direction, and it looked like she was packing things into boxes. His excitement to see her instantly turned to concern, and he approached her slowly, trying to get a read on her thoughts before saying anything.
I knew it was too good to be true. I should never have taken this job. It would have been better if we had gone our separate ways.
“Kimber?” Justin said gently.
She sniffled, wiping at her eyes before she turned around. “Yes, sir?”
Sir. No three-letter-word had ever hurt him more. “What’s going on?”
Kimber wasn’t one to play games. “I was at the bar at Sofia’s last night with Vivienne. I saw you. With Elle.” It took everything in her to be strong rather than dissolving into racking sobs.
Justin suggested that they move to his office for more privacy, and as soon as he closed the door, he said, “Kimber, I can explain –”
“Then why didn’t you?” she interrupted. “You should have explained last night instead of lying to me about where you were going and who you would be with.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”
“How am I supposed to trust you? I’ve heard you lie so many times. I thought that maybe it was different with me, because we were friends. That was definitely not the case, was it? How many times have you lied to me, Justin?”
“More than I’d like to admit,” Justin said sheepishly. “But ask me how many times I’ve lied to you since Monday.” She refused, folding her arms instead and looking at him pointedly. “It was just the one time. I’m trying to change, Kimber.”
“Just one time? You realize that is one time over the course of one day. That is daily. And you’re telling me that’s better than it’s been during all these years we’ve been friends? I can’t live with that. I can’t work for you anymore. You need to find another assistant who doesn’t mind being lied to.”
She tried to walk out, but Justin moved in front of the door. “Please, Kimber. I just need one more chance. I’ll tell you everything.”
“I don’t want to hear everything. I just want you to let me go so I can finally get over you like I should have done years ago.”
“I can’t let you walk out of my life. You mean too much to me.”
“I don’t believe you. Please, let me out. I’m not afraid to scream.”
Looking into her mind, Justin could tell that she was very serious. He knew that he would only make it worse if he continued to push. Thinking fast, he asked, “Could you do me one last favor? As my assistant?”
“I really don’t think –”
“I just wondered if you would stop by the lab for me. I have too much to do here, but I need an update, and I thought you might be intrigued to see what they’re doing. You won’t even have to call me. You can email me the update. I’ll make sure you get severance pay if you do it.”
Kimber hesitated, but Justin knew she was going to agree. She was too interested in the research she had convinced him to fund. “Fine,” she said. “But I don’t want you to pull strings to get me severance pay. I don’t want special treatment.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. Now may I please go?”
In silence, Justin moved out of her way, ignoring the way his arms yearned to reach out and stop her.
CHAPTER 14
After lunchtime, Kimber put a box of her belongings in the backseat of her car, got in, and left Justin’s office forever. She proceeded to follow the directions on her phone to find her way to the lab where she was scheduled to meet with Ken and Gretchen. She wasn’t thrilled about having to complete this one last task for Justin, but when the research team greeted her with warm, friendly smiles, she was able to push thoughts of him to the side. She was anxious to see their discoveries for herself.
They led her to a room where they had various animals caged for the duration of the solar storm and several technicians performing tests and recording their observations. Kimber was surprised by the way the animals all seemed to pay such close attention to her when she first entered. Ken explained, “According to our test results, it does appear that these animals have temporary telepathic abilities. Most animals will size up a new creature on the scene, but right now, they can also sense that there is a new, unique mind in the room, so their reaction is exaggerated.”
Gretchen handed Kimber two folders stuffed with papers, printouts of the scan results. In the first folder, each image was labeled according to the creature to whom the brain belonged. There were scans of a rat, lizard, bird, chimpanzee, and bear, all of which had highlighted green areas. “This is where the brain activity occurs that makes it possible for them to hear our thoughts,” Gretchen mentioned. Kimber opened the second folder, which contained more scans, though these were labeled by first names.
“And these are the scans of human brains?” Kimber assumed. She flipped through them rather quickly, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. “So this shows why we aren’t affected. Our brains don’t have the same activity levels as …”
She trailed off, pulling out a single paper. It looked like the other human brain scans, except this one had green on it, just like the animals. Stranger still, the name at the bottom read “Justin.”
“This isn’t … Did my boss volunteer to do a scan? I mean, Justin is a fairly common name, but that would be quite the coincidence if you just happened to do a scan of someone else named Justin,” Kimber rambled, feeling nervous all of a sudden.
“It’s not a coincidence. I volunteered,” came a familiar voice.
Kimber whirled around to see that Justin had entered behind them. Gretchen and Ken wandered over to a technician, giving Justin and Kimber some space, grinning like they were in on some scheme. Kimber’s mind raced, trying to put all the pieces together. “Your scan … It looks just like the animals’. Can you …”
“Read minds? Yes. But finishing your sentence was a lousy example. Anyone could have guessed that. Let me try again. Do me a favor and think about something that I don’t know.”
Almost involuntarily, Kimber obliged. As Justin saw her thoughts, his heart broke all over again. Gently, he said, “You came to my house one night during my senior year. It was dark and rainy, but you had worked up the nerve to tell me that you liked me. You got out of the car to come knock on my front door, but then it opened and I came out with another girl. You hid behin
d the hedge, and you could hear us talking. The girl said, ‘Why do you hang out with her anyway?’ I answered, ‘I don’t know. I guess I feel bad for her. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.’ She said, ‘Everyone thinks you want her.’ I laughed and replied, ‘Yeah, right. Kimber? I would never go for a girl who’s bigger than I am.’”
Biting her lip to keep from crying, Kimber looked down at the floor. Justin muttered, “This isn’t helping anything, is it? I’m so sorry, Kimber. If I had known…” But she hardly heard him. That moment had been playing in her head almost constantly since Justin kissed her. She had definitely been hurt when she saw him with Elle last night, but honestly, she wasn’t surprised. That memory was the moment she should have given up on him. It was the moment she should have revoked her friendship and saved herself from all these years of heartache. But the next day at school, he had been nicer than ever, probably because he could tell something was wrong, and she convinced herself that he could still be a good friend, even if he had said himself that he would never be interested in her beyond that.
She was so bothered by the poignant memory that it took her a few second to realize what had just happened. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You read my mind.”
“Yeah.”
“Because of the solar storm? Just like the animals?”
“Exactly.”
“But how is that possible?”
Justin took the folders from her hand and flipped through the first one until he found the image of the bear’s brain scan. He pointed to the word just below bear. In parenthesis, it said Justin.
Kimber’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “What are you saying? That’s you too?” Justin nodded. She considered him skeptically. “That’s ridiculous. That’s insane! There’s no way –”
“Kimber, I can turn into a bear at will. I’m a shapeshifter.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head, trying to wrap her brain around it. “I can’t take any more lies, Justin. You’ve gone way too far.”
“Do you need me to show you? Or Ken and Gretchen have seen it. They can vouch for me.”
A thought popped into Kimber’s mind, and everything clicked into place. “The bear at the party. That was you. And the bear got shot, I saw it. Your shoulder … It wasn’t from a tree branch, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t. I lied to you then, but I’m not lying to you now or ever again. I couldn’t get you to listen to me at the office, but I thought I might have a chance if I brought you here and showed you the evidence.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“I was born with the ability to turn into a bear, but I couldn’t fully control the change until I was about eight. After that, I also had to learn to control the bear’s instincts. Bears are mostly peaceful creatures, but I wanted to be sure that I would never lose control, no matter how angry I was. That’s why I was homeschooled until high school.”
Kimber’s hand flew to her mouth. “Your parents. Their scars. You told me they had survived a bear attack.”
Justin looked grim as he confessed, “Another lie. They actually survived multiple bear attacks. Fortunately, my bear form grew at the same rate as my human form. Bear cubs obviously aren’t as dangerous as adults bears.”
“I can’t even imagine. They must have been so brave. They must have loved you so much to deal with all that.”
Floored by how she was empathizing with his parents, even after getting hit with such earth shattering news, Justin smiled at her adoringly. When Kimber looked up at him, she almost returned the smile, mostly out of habit, before stopping herself.
“Not so fast, Justin. I can understand why you lied to me about all this bear shapeshifting stuff. But what about last night? Why did you lie so you could be with Elle? Do you still love her?”
“No way. I never loved her. Seeing her last night was torture, especially when I knew I could have been with you instead.”
“Then why did you meet her?”
“She found out about the shapeshifting. She saw me change after the party and she got it all on video. She threw all this at me Monday night, after our elevator adventure, so to buy some time, I pretended that I still wanted to date her. I knew, because I read her mind, that she wanted to blackmail me, and I thought I could find a way out of it before she realized that I really didn’t want to be with her anymore. I met her for dinner last night because I was trying to play the part, but I didn’t even last the whole meal. I told her we were really breaking up this time, she demanded ten million dollars in exchange for her silence.”
“You know what’s crazy?” Kimber inserted. “When I was reading up on all this solar storm stuff, I found out that some people believe that solar activity does affect humans, but just emotionally. Supposedly, the solar activity messes with our circadian rhythms, which leads to an increase in depression, anxiety, and other emotional issues. In fact, they claim that incidences of civil unrest and revolutions and such coincide with the peaks in the sun’s cycle. I wonder if Elle lost it a little bit when the solar storm hit.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Still, I had no choice but to agree. I’m supposed to be meeting her later today to give her the money.”
“That won’t stop her,” Kimber said. “We have to figure out another way.”
“Wait, did you say we?” Justin asked hopefully. Was it possible that she had forgiven him that quickly? Did he deserve to be forgiven at all?
“I did,” Kimber said, finally smiling. “Can I have my job back?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Justin said.
“Why not?”
“Because you deserve a promotion. I want to put you in charge of the operation for the research foundation I’m starting. Would you mind working with Ken and Gretchen?”
“Not at all! That sounds amazing! Thank you!”
“There’s one more thing. I’d like to make your promotion conditional, pending your agreement to this stipulation, but that would be unethical. So the job is yours no matter what, but I was hoping that you might be willing to give me another chance. I want to become the man you believe I can be. I want to deserve the chance to love you.”
A part of Kimber wanted to hesitate and protect her heart, but she had never been one to avoid that risk. She knew she could never be completely happy if she turned him down, so she said, “I would love that. More than anything.”
Feeling lighter than he ever had before, Justin held out his hand to Kimber. She took his hand and stepped toward him, standing on her tippy toes to kiss him tenderly.
CHAPTER 15
“If this were a movie, we’d just kill her off.”
“Kimber!”
“I know, I know, it’s horrible to even say such a thing. But I really hate that woman. I might have suggested it even before I knew she was blackmailing you.”
Laughing, Justin commented, “This is a side of you I’ve never seen. It’s kind of hot.” He leaned in and kissed her neck a few times, just until she giggled.
“Come on, we have to figure this out. You’re supposed to meet her and hand over the money in an hour. What are we going to do?”
“Well, it was a good suggestion, but I don’t think we should kill her. Especially when I’m trying to become a better person, right?”
“That would set you back quite a bit.”
“We could go to the police,” Justin suggested, “but then we risk them finding out my secret. Besides, who knows how many copies she has of that video? Even if she was in prison for extortion, I’m sure she would find a way to leak it as revenge.”
At that moment, there was a knock on the door of the room Justin and Kimber were using at the lab. “Come in,” Justin said, and the door opened to reveal Gretchen and Ken.
“We found something,” Ken said, his face glowing with excitement.
“What is it?” Justin asked.
“If you’ll recall, we took a blood sample last night? We’ve been running tests on it all day, and we
just realized something extraordinary. It has properties similar to blood-borne pathogens. We think the ability to shapeshift might be contagious via blood.”
Justin and Kimber took a moment to soak it in. She whispered, “That’s incredible.”
Ken added, “We took the liberty of mixing your blood with that of another human subject, and the pathogens appeared to thrive. Of course, we have no idea whether it would actually work in practice, but in theory, it seems to check out.”
“Hypothetically speaking, if we wanted to find out for sure, how would you go about it?” Justin wondered.
Ken and Gretchen exchanged nervous glances. “We would have to inject a normal human test subject with your blood and see what happens. I don’t think there’s any other way. That would take us into the territory of human experimentation.”
“In your professional opinion, would it work?”
“I do believe it would. But I’m not sure if we would be comfortable pursuing that route. There is always the possibility that the test subjects could suffer irreparable damage or even death if we introduce the pathogen to their systems.”
“I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you for your candid opinion. I’ll let you know when I’ve made a decision.”
The scientists left the room again, and Kimber’s thoughts floated into Justin’s mind. “Is that really what you want?” Justin asked. “To inject Elle with my blood?”
Kimber looked at him, baffled for a moment before realizing he must have read her thoughts. “I don’t know. It seems like the perfect solution. If it doesn’t work, well, we’ve talked about that briefly. At least it wouldn’t be intentional. But if it does work, she becomes a shapeshifter too. She can’t blackmail you if she is exactly like you. We could even get a video of her transforming, just like the one she’s holding over your head.”
“But I’m afraid she would be dangerous. She might not be able to control her bear impulses, or she might be angry and go on a rampage.”
“Plus, it would be completely unethical.”