Black Beast

by Nenia Campbell

  Was he that obvious? He lifted a brow, but decided to play along. “That depends. Has she done anything suspect?”

  “No more so than usual. She is working with the other shifter, David Tran. An odd coincidence.”

  “Perhaps not.” He found himself growing agitated. There were too many coincidences. Finn was not one for conspiracies but it was starting to look inevitable. He found himself wondering what the relationship was between the two shape-shifters and cursed himself for it. Karen was intentionally baiting him. “Tell me about the human. What is he like?”

  “A wastrel, even by human standards. He seems rather obsessed with Catherine Pierce.”

  He did not react to her name. “What did he say?”

  “One doesn't need to say anything. One can simply let it be known.”

  “You're speaking in riddles,” he hissed.

  “But you understand.”

  “My understanding has limits,” said Finn. “As does my patience.”

  When they lay together, as was inevitable, the act was quick, passionless—almost cruel. He got no enjoyment from it, and yet the satisfaction it gave him on the primal level was unparalleled. Finn found himself intentionally trying to hurt her, to force her to yield. He knew she was not enjoying it, but she never once told him to stop. As blood spilled, so did magic.

  All the same; neither one of them made a sound.

  •◌•◌•◌•◌•

  It was hard to finagle Study Hall as a class. She had it in lieu of P.E. Her school records said she had severe asthma—that was a lie. But if she had taken P.E., as she'd so desperately wanted, she would have had to spend the entire class period holding back.

  “You're too much of a show-off,” her mother had said. “I know you. If someone taunts you, you're going to feel like you have to prove them wrong. You can't stand being inferior.”

  Which was an unfair assessment in Catherine's opinion. She would have held back just enough so that she would be the best in the class, but only by human standards. All the popular kids were involved in sports, regardless of their reputations. But her mother wasn't having it.

  It was disappointing. She could have used the A.

  Catherine sat down and began to read the dog-eared copy of Don Quixote she'd fished out of the book-bin. They were reading it in Spanish but she sucked at translating, and they'd dumbed down the language so all the morons could read it. All the morons, including her.

  “Catherine.” Someone tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

  She looked up and met the dark, almost black eyes of David Tran. He was wearing a button-down shirt that would have made him look annoyingly wholesome, except he hadn't shaved in a little while, so he had a bit of five o' clock shadow. Not to the point where he looked scruffy—David was never scruffy, damn him—but enough to make him not quite as clean-cut as usual.

  “I always study here,” she said defensively. “What are you doing here?”

  He showed her the book he'd had stuffed under his arm. “Studying for our tests.”

  “But that's not for two weeks.” Her eyes narrowed as her overworked, over-stressed brain slowly began to assemble the pieces he'd handed her. “You have Study Hall, too?”

  Miss Brisk, the librarian, shot them a look. She hadn't said “Shh!” yet but it was forthcoming.

  Without waiting for an invitation, David sat down.

  “I just quit gym. My knee gave out.”

  He winked, just in case she didn't get the joke.

  “Ha ha,” she said.

  “My parents thought it would be a good idea. You know. With what's been going on lately.”

  He had. No. Idea.

  His eyes landed on the book before darting back up to hers. “You're reading Don Quixote?”

  “I found it in the giveaway bin.”

  But David knew her too well. With a strange, feline grin he said, “For school, or for fun?”

  “Right now, for fun.”

  His smile widened into a grin. Men shouldn't be allowed to look good while making fun of you. It was incredibly bad for morale.

  “What's so funny?” She slammed the book shut with a muted thud. “I'm not allowed to read?”

  That got rid of the laughter, but not the smile. “I just don't understand you.”

  She fixed him with a look. “That's not my fault.”

  He ignored the jab. “I don't understand why you aren't working up to your full potential. If nothing else, you're intelligent. Why don't you apply yourself?”

  Catherine scrunched up her nose, letting him see how much she valued that idea. “What's the point? The instructors already have their opinions of me fixed in their brains. I'm not like you. I'm not like them.” She nodded towards a group of teenyboppers chatting gaily away about their plans for the weekend. “That's not something that's going to change.”

  “With that attitude, sure. But you could be, if you wanted to.”

  “Well, maybe I don't want to. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I'm happy with life as it is?”

  “You don't look very happy.”

  “I fail to see how that's any of your concern, Dudley Do-Wrong.”

  He rolled his eyes and opened the book. “Because you need help,” he informed her, turning the pages. “And not necessarily the therapeutic kind.”

  Her mind choked on that one. Was he saying she couldn't take care of herself? She opened her mouth and started to say that at the very least she could definitely 'take care of him', but that would be playing right into his hands. He would only point out in an irritatingly calm voice, as he had so many times before back when she had to tolerate it from him because they were friends, that she was always trying to solve her problems with violence.

  Her problem, according to him, was that she never thought things through.

  “Listen,” she said, after thirty seconds spent envisioning calm blue oceans. “Maybe I actually do need your help with something.”

  “Like what?” He looked suspicious, like he thought she meant cheating or obtaining drugs.

  Just goes to show how little he does know about me. She tried to dismiss his scorn but it still brought her pain.

  “It's about the vivisection we're supposed to do on Thursday.”

  “Oh man,” David said. “I still need to review that chapter. What about it?”

  “I can't tell you here.” She glanced pointedly at the librarian. “It's personal.”

  David got up. Just like that, without even another word on her part.

  Okay, that was kind of nice.

  Outside the library there was a small enclave next to a large glass window. It had a magnificent view of the soccer field, which was currently empty. Catherine stood next to the heater, which emitted just enough white noise to mask a whispered conversation from human ears.

  “Jeez,” David said, looking around a little nervously. “What's with the cloak-and-dagger stuff?”

  “I can't do it.” There it was, the blunt truth.

  “Do what?”

  “The vivisection.”

  He stared at her like she had gills peeking out from her shirt collar. “You have to do it,” he said slowly. “Labs are worth ten points each. With your grades you can't just—”

  “I'm going to panic,” she told him flatly. “When I think about cutting into one of those things, I get physically ill.”

  “Then I'll do the dissecting,” he said briskly. “Is that all? You could have just told me—”

  “You're smart, David. Put it together. If I start freaking out, what's going to happen?”

  His eyes widened. Bingo. “Oh. Oh crap. Can't you have your mom write a note excusing you?”

  “Hauberk'd probably think I forged it,” she said bitterly. “It would have to be a doctor's note. And the only doctor who would write me one is—” Catherine glanced around, lowered her voice “—a shifter. And my mother's being super paranoid and trying to sever all our connections to…that. She
wouldn't take the risk. She'd deem it unnecessary. Tell me to suck it up and do the lab.”

  “What do you want me to do? I'm not a doctor.”

  “You're going to help me break into that lab and steal the crickets.”

  David said a phrase that would have gotten him kicked out of most classrooms—after the teacher had recovered from his or her heart-attack, of course.

  “Careful,” she said. “If a teacher hears you carrying on like that, you're going to get a demerit.”

  “You are insane,” he hissed. “You can't just break into the lab. Have you lost your mind?”

  “I'm not going to take an F. I don't do Fs.”

  “That's the least of your worries.” David pinched the bridge of his nose, like he was trying to hold something back. More cursing, probably. “Don't you get it? With our numbers dwindling, the bounty for our kind has gone up considerably. They won't stop until they've wiped us all off the face of the earth. The Council is more active than ever in making damn sure that nobody draws attention to our community. We've got one of their daughters in our class, and you want to pull a stunt like this? You must have a death wish.”

  “It's not a stunt,” she cut in savagely.

  “Karen's not stupid, Catherine. Don't you think she'll be able to put two and two together when the crickets go missing? Even you have to admit that your reputation as a rule breaker precedes you.”

  “That's why it's so brilliant,” she argued. “It's so reckless that nobody would believe we did it. Trust me, I've got it all worked out. You're the school's Golden Boy—” his frown deepened at that. She pretended not to notice “—and I'm…well, I'm more subtle than that. I've got finesse. I'll botch it up when I break in and make it look like a bunch of punks did it. They'll think it's someone pulling an end-of-semester prank. Mr. Hauberk isn't exactly one of the most popular teachers.”

  “I can't believe I'm hearing this.”

  “I can't do it alone David.” She smelled weakness, and pressed on. “I need someone to watch the tanks while I fly the crickets out. You know, to make sure they don't escape. I'll be doing all the legwork. You don't even need to Change. And I know you don't want to do this lab any more than I do. I mean it's basically torture.”

  He flinched. “No,” he said. “No way.”

  “David, please—”

  “Don't worry, I'm not going to turn you in, if that's what you're afraid of.”

  The thought hadn't even occurred to her. But now, remembering her mother telling her how the Trans wanted to report her to the Council, she felt a sudden chill. How could I be so stupid?

  How could she not? It was practically second-nature to her at this point.

  “Even though I should—even if that's what the Golden Boy should do—”

  Catherine closed her eyes. She shouldn't have said that. But it was too late now.

  “I won't. For the sake of old friendship, and because I don't want to see you killed or sent to the keep.”

  Killed? That was enough to make her choke out a humorless laugh. Someone already wanted to do that. “Thanks a lot.”

  “You're welcome,” he retorted, with equal brevity. “Here's hoping you get some common sense.”

  Catherine grabbed her bag and marched out of the hall. She felt like a submarine with a crack in one of its windows. All the pressure building up from the outside, leaving her to explode in a cascade of water and fire and sparks at any moment. She blinked angrily. The last thing she needed right now was for someone to see her cry. Nobody at school had ever seen her cry.

  Because if they did, if they knew that Catherine Pierce was capable of crying, the slander and taunts would grow even more vicious. It was the same reason sadistic kids put beetles in jars to shake around. Shaking a pebble was pointless, because pebbles didn't feel any pain or fear—and that was the point of the whole exercise, when it came down to it: to see how much the poor, hapless creature could withstand. Butterflies flopped around like discarded rag-dolls, and yielded to a cruel hand in a crush of broken wings and dust, but beetles had those tough exoskeletons that crunched so satisfactorily. It took effort to kill a beetle, effort and time.

  The witch had already rattled her around inside the proverbial jar. She'd survived—but for how much longer? Would it be hopelessly cliché to say that she was only human?

  Chapter Nine

  The parking lot was full of shouting and honking as students raced each other for the exit. Catherine shot a few death glares around as she cleared a path for herself through the crowded sidewalk in front of the school. Most people looked away from her searching eyes. A few met her gaze—with anger, fear, contempt. It varied depending on the person and their mutual history.

  She was not popular with the humans; they scorned her for being different, and for not caring about it as much as they cared; they scorned her for being a female, and for not submitting to the false dichotomy of femininity set by the unspoken, hypocritical mandates of their society; and they scorned her for knowing herself, when they were too afraid to dredge the depths of their psyche and brave the beasts that swam within.

  The contempt made her think of David and his final words to her. Final in more ways than one. When his parents had kept her from speaking to her, that hurt, but it was impersonal. This time, David had taken the reins, and taken the initiative upon himself.

  He couldn't have just said “no.” He'd had to insult her, too. To drive every nail in the coffin that held the putrefying remains of their friendship.

  Predator snarled. David must be a small man, small between the legs, to overcompensate thus.

  The thought made Catherine feel a little better. Predator was usually good for that much.

  But not for this.

  Back when they were friends, David had been the one who was in her corner. The one who had never given up on her. Her parents loved her, but they were realistic. Lucas was the successful one, the one they poured all their efforts and energies into. He was the son, the heir. She was the one they worried about. Shape-shifter instincts died hard. But she'd thought David was past that.

  …But no, eventually, even David had given up.

  Maybe he was right, maybe her scheme with the crickets was far gone, even for her.

  Maybe.

  Tires squealed from somewhere ahead. People were always zipping through this street like it was the Indy 500. Humans were one of the few species on Earth who habitually tempted Fate. One did not see gazelles playing games of chicken with the lions, trying to see how close they could get while the large cats as they slept.

  As though responding to the mental image of the lions, Prey uncurled and yelped, Run away!

  That was a poor choice with cats. They loved to give chase. Just like the witch.

  Prey screamed, and screamed, until her ears threatened to burst from the weight of its terror. Catherine almost didn't hear the voice—an actual, human voice from outside her head—as it cried, “Look out!” Didn't even register whether it was male or female.

  “Fuck,” she said hoarsely.

  A truck was heading straight for her, a streak of silver lightning. She was on the sidewalk, and so was the truck—and it was set on a collision course for Catherine.

  Her life did not flash before her eyes. She did not see a white light at the end of the tunnel. Wasn't that what was supposed to happen? All she saw was the truck, and the pulsing of the veins in her eyes as they throbbed with the very life that was about to end. She was afraid, but it was a helpless sort of fear tinged with resignation. She was surprised, but in a mild, detached sort of way. This was not how she imagined dying. She had always pictured herself older, gray on top.

  Ironic, really. Most shape-shifters had a fairly short life-expectancy.

  It seemed as if she were about to join them as just another statistic.

  The headlights burned themselves into her retinas. Goddess help her, this was it.

  She was going to die.

  Catherine closed her eye
s. A wall of heat and air sheared through the iciness of her paralyzed body, knocking her backwards with all the force of a bulldozer. She felt herself hit the ground and the breath escaped from her lungs in a disbelieving wheeze.

  Was it over? Was she…dead?

  She did not feel dead. Her chest was still pumping air, in and out, and the frantic drumbeat in her head hadn't ceased—yet.

  The shriek of tires moving abruptly in reverse made Catherine lift her head. She was nearly twenty feet away from where she'd been before. But—how? Why? Not even she could jump that high. Had she somehow been at the perfect angle to receive a glancing blow that, in a thousand-to-one chance, not only failed to kill her, but also knocked her out of harm's way?