“What?” I panicked and started looking for this mud she was talking about. “Where’s the mud? I don’t want these things to suck my blood out.”
She laughed even harder at the sight of my panic. Reaching down, she scooped up a big handful of the soft, dark earth and then walked up and slapped it right onto my chest. Smearing it down my torso, she said, “This is mud, dummy. And you better get to like it because you cannot be naked in a swamp.”
Together, we smeared the stuff all over me. We laughed like a couple of maniacs as she spread it up my legs and I got my arms. I was rubbing it on the back of my neck when I saw her. There – the white wolf. I waved to her to show her it was safe, but she didn’t move.
“Tina! Tina, it’s safe. You can come over here.”
She padded over and looked at me and then at Harper. I knew the two of them had been close friends for a long time, but after the takeover, they stopped speaking. Tina walked around us as we watched, sniffing at us and taking in the whole scene.
Harper kneeled down and looked into Tina’s dark, wolf eyes. “Hi.”
Tina sat, keeping her wolf form. “Hi,” she responded coldly.
“Tina,” Harper said, “I’m so sorry. I should have told you what was going on with me. Instead, I panicked and…well, I hid. You didn’t deserve that. You were a good friend.”
Tina looked at her and then at me. “What happened here?”
“It’s to stop the mosquitos from drinking my blood,” I explained. She nodded slowly, then a noise made her look over her shoulder. She stood, alert and ready to run. She turned back to us, looking very serious.
“I have to get back. I’ll tell the others you’re safe. Come and find us.”
We watched her run in silence. She streaked across the ground like something unreal, like liquid pouring across a floor. Then she was gone.
“What did she mean,” Harper asked, “come and find us? Aren’t they all at the palace?”
I shook my head. “No. It sounded like something’s happened. They could be anywhere by now. Let’s find the others so that we can all get some food and water. Then we’ll start looking for my family.”
Soon, we emerged from our little secret space, leaves in our hair, berries in our bellies, and me looking like a whole new creature with my mud outfit. When Morley and Blue saw us, they went completely pale at the sight. But they forgot all about it when they saw the glistening water diving and swirling into the swamp, the big, red berries, and the happy, dancing birds.
Chapter Ten
Harper
By the time Alex found us, we all looked like non-shifter, uncivilized, wild animals. We were streaked in mud to keep the bugs away, languishing on big, wet rocks and eating big, juicy berries. Blue even got a few of the birds to eat right out of her palm, and they chirped and cooed at her in thanks before stabbing their little beaks at her hand to grab their prizes.
I was the wildest of all. I had a thick layer of mud all over me in place of clothing, my hair was stringy and, I suspected, standing straight up with the help of all the dirt settled into the roots. I got a quick glimpse of myself in a placid section of the swamp and quickly looked away. Yikes.
“What is all this?” Alex stood knee-deep in mud and took in the whole scene. Dr. Morley stood up a little too quickly and slipped and fell into the water. We all died laughing, but Alex did not look amused. “Someone please answer me.”
“We woke up, and you were gone,” Blue explained, joining the doctor in the water. She pulled him up gently and then led him to the more solid side. “We were dehydrated and starving, so we had to find some source of refreshment. And here it is!” She gestured to the swamp and tiny waterfall as if it were a palace. All of it suddenly looked so small and slimy. No wonder Alex was annoyed.
“Well,” he sighed, “I guess you’ll all just have to bathe here. I brought fresh clothes for everyone. You can put them on out here.” He turned to go, and I glared at his back. ‘No, don’t bother apologizing for disappearing on us, letting us think we’d all been abandoned. It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.’
We did our best to get clean under the waterfall, but the problem with swamps is that they have a green skin on top of them that loves to hang off of human bodies. Blue came up with the idea of just shifting and bathing as animals. She went first, sliding her long, graceful snake body into the water and skimming the surface in beautiful s-curves. It was truly beautiful to watch. After a quick rinse under the falls, she shifted back at shore and, sure enough, she was spotless.
“I’ll go,” Morley said as Blue pulled on her clothes. Harper sat and watched the whole scene silently. Behind her back, Alex and I exchanged a quick look.
We couldn’t be positive that Harper was actually on our side. After all, the doctor she’d trusted so completely was her father’s killer. What’s more, we had all plotted against her. Now, she would have to live in a world dominated by shifters with her family legacy hanging over her head. What would she do?
“What do you think?” I mouthed to Alex. He didn’t answer, just shook his head slowly. Harper let out a sneeze, and we both rushed to say, “To Bachmann!” only to catch ourselves halfway through the expression.
“Don’t worry,” she said, waving the moment away with her hand. “It’s just a stupid expression.” She slid off her rock and into the swamp, where she gently scrubbed the mud from her skin. She could have shifted as well, but it wouldn’t have made much impact. Her animal form was very limited. “Maybe we could come up with a whole new expression,” she said, still rinsing. “I think it’s time for a lot of new things for all of us. Right, Em?”
I nodded and gave Alex a smile. He didn’t return it. I got a little chill looking at his face; he had such dogged determination. It terrified me.
I was last. Thank goodness, I could do a full shift. Otherwise, I would have gone into the city a total mud monster. After I shifted back and did my best to comb my hair with my fingers, I caught Alex staring at me.
“What’s on your mind?”
“What was that today, the whole adventure in the mud? Why did you do that?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, after everything we’ve all been through, it felt amazing to just have a little fun. In case you’ve forgotten,” I added a bit angered, “I have been a prisoner for the past few months. I’m sure my family back home is worried sick about me.”
He grunted some kind of response and then went back to staring. I tried to ignore it, but after a while, it got under my skin.
“Hey, could you not?”
“Not what?”
I sighed, exasperated. “Could you please not stare at me? It’s weird.”
His face went red, and he stood up quickly. “Oh, sorry about that. Sorry I’m so weird. I’ll do my best to be normal around you from now on.”
He stomped off to the big car he had waiting for all of us, while I tilted my head back to the sky. Boys. What on Earth were we supposed to do with them? Or without them? I honestly didn’t know.
As a group, we packed into the car as Dr. Morley took the driver’s seat. As I much as I prayed he wouldn’t, Alex sat right next to me. I turned my face to look out the window so that I wouldn’t have to speak to him.
The dry, brown landscape I remembered was long gone. We passed one green hill after another. Little purple things dotted the green, and I instantly wanted to run out and touch them. What sort of plant were they? Perhaps something that tasted wonderful or felt silky under a pair of feet. But we drove on, and the landscape got more and more lush the closer to the city we got. It appeared that nature would no longer be ignored. She wanted to put on a show, and there was nothing we could say about it. It made me smile; I liked that the Earth and the little plants were so determined to come out and participate in whatever life there was around them.
Alex saw me smiling and gave me a nudge. “Sorry about earlier.”
“Me too.” I put my arms around his shoulders and gave him a kiss on the c
heek. “Weirdo.”
Soon, we could see the taller buildings of the city and all of us gasped. The walls of each were breaking apart, thanks to one aggressive plant after another stabbing their strong, green fingers into the man-made brick and mortar. Anywhere that had a window or an extra space for a giant leaf or stem was quickly filled. Some buildings had even fallen, taken down by a silent, natural killer.
We got out near the center of downtown, where the damage appeared to be the worst of all. I stood outside the car and just took it in.
The air was humid and heavy and big. Slow bugs buzzed by my head. I swatted them away, and one of them yelled at me. A shifter! I tried to talk to it, but it continued on its way. I smelled the air to learn more about it, but I didn’t know those smells. It was so odd to see a creature I couldn’t identify. It was the first time that had happened.
“What is this?” I looked at Alex who was staring out the other direction, his back facing mine.
“It happened just after Bachmann took you all. Nature just suddenly got angry. It’s why he moved so far away; it was the only place that hadn’t gone berserk.” He motioned with his head. “The group we’re meeting has a safe place underground. Let’s head this way.”
I had no idea whom we were meeting, but I was anxious to see what would happen next. I followed him without any additional questions. ‘If the city looks like this,’ I thought to myself, ‘what does the mountain top look like? What could have happened to the palace?’ Of course, the palace was full of non-humans, so they wouldn’t panic. They’d be able to adjust. So I hoped.
Alex lifted a big, metal covering that revealed a large, metallic tunnel. Several shifters were milling around by the entrance to greet him.
“Alex! My human. How are you?”
“You brought friends! Oh, shifter friends. Hello, lady boar.” A male hawk extended his hand, and I shook it. Everyone seemed friendly enough, but I still wasn’t sure what was happening. I didn’t say anything–no reason to announce to the world that I was lost.
“We’re meeting with the Alliance to decide our next move,” Alex explained to us as we walked with our hosts leading the way. “We want to create better connections between the shifter and human communities.”
“You can start by burning down the watcher clubs,” Blue said softly. Everyone turned to look at her in surprise, but she kept her gaze forward and her jaw set. I blinked at her in shock. I would have guessed she’d loved her life in the spotlight.
We arrived at the main section of the tunnels. It was right where they intersected in a big star shape, tunnels radiating out in every direction. I turned slowly to take it all in. It was massive.
“Do these go all over the city?” I asked Alex, and he nodded.
“Shifters were forced to build them. They were supposed to help the humans move large amounts of food, water, big machine parts without stopping the traffic in the road. They worked all right, I guess. But for some reason, the humans forgot about them.”
“Human boy” a host interrupted, “learn your history. These were for the fancy families. No one knows about them because only a few people ever got to use them. And they were not sharing. That one down there,” he pointed north east, “leads to a bunker. That’s in case the world ends. Their plan was to crawl into a metal-walled room, hunker down, and just let everybody burn, while they ate from the fanciest cans you can imagine.” He snorted and then added, “humans.”
I kept the small talk as small as possible after that. This group was the exact opposite of what I had been raised to be–angry, loud, ready for a fight. They had clothing they had cobbled together from scraps, so everything they wore had odd flashes of color peeking through large sections of neutral fabric. They all wore something on their heads–some kind of fabric rolled up and tied around the top to keep their hair in place. The girls all wore their hair loose and free, and the guys also had longer tresses than I was used to seeing.
Alex came and stood next to me for a moment, watching my face.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
He gestured to the crowd. “The Alliance. This is the most active, mixed group fighting for equal rights anywhere in the State. No one can touch us.”
I looked at him and saw him a little differently all of a sudden. “I think I liked you a little better when you were just the guy who worked at the gas station.”
His face dropped and he went a little pale. “What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged and turned back to the crowd. “It means I’m not sure about this whole alliance business. It seems to me like it’s an excuse to get into a lot of fights.”
The comment seemed to take his breath away. He shook his head in sheer shock and walked away from me with a massive scoff. I laughed a little to myself, thinking about how any shifter guy would have had a retort in less than a second if I’d said something like that to them. Were all human males so sensitive? Perhaps.
Their intense nature wasn’t all bad. As I watched the meeting, I saw how they had redirected the anger and the passion of all the shifters and their human friends into an organized force. The meeting was all about different successes they’d had. They’d pulled some human thugs off of a flock of shifter birds, most of whom were children. They were speaking openly with friends and family outside of their group to encourage them to actually meet a shifter, spend time with one in order to change their minds.
Then it was Alex’s turn. He took the space in the center of the group as everyone cheered and applauded loudly. I was impressed. I’d had no idea so many people knew who he was.
“Hello, warriors.” Everyone cheered again. He waited until they calmed down and then gave me a little smile. I made sure he saw me clapping. I really was blown away. He went on.
“Today, I want to tell you about my latest mission–my efforts to eliminate President Bachmann.” This was what everyone had come for. They couldn’t contain themselves. To a person, they screamed for Bachmann’s head, demanded to know how he died, if he had suffered. I looked over at Harper and saw that she had gone green in the face.
“Please, brothers, sisters, let me speak.” Members of the crowd shushed one another until it was quiet again and he could speak. “Thank you. Now, we decided to do away with our enemy, former President Bachmann after a community of shifters got him out of the palace and made him more vulnerable. As you know, I befriended him and made a fake alliance with several of you as if we wanted to once again imprison our shifter family. However,” he paused, looking members of the audience in the eye, “he had other plans. He wouldn’t tell me what they were exactly; he would only tell me he needed a shifter for an experiment far away from the city. He targeted Blue and ended up getting her as well as her friend, Emily.”
He waved us over to him so that we could stand in front of everyone. I waited for them to cheer again, but we were greeted with silence. No one seemed quite certain how to react.
“This is Blue. This is Emily. The president kidnapped the both of them, but I was in the car that drove them off. I had to keep up my act of being on Bachmann’s side, but of course, I was really there to keep them safe.”
A light round of applause. Please–he didn’t do anything to protect anyone. We all sat around and watched movies all day, while he palled around with Bachmann. I should tell them all that.
“Dr. Morley,” the doctor walked up and joined us, “was the one to take Bachmann out. Doctor?”
Morley began shaking his head again, let out a loud roar, and then shifted completely, becoming the enormous lion that had recently eaten the former president. The beast prowled the perimeter of the center circle as the audience held its breath. Ever so slowly, the people in the front row slid their butts back to give the animal more space. He didn’t look like anyone who had recently had a big meal. He looked like he was ready for a hunt.
“There’s only one loose end we need to tie up,” Alex said, smiling in an odd way. I grabbed
his arm. He didn’t seem to notice. “Bachmann’s daughter, Harper, is here with us today.” I turned to see Harper backed up against a wall, inching her way toward the tunnel. She was too late; several big, male shifters of all different species were already there to make sure she didn’t get out. “I think it’s time we ended the Bachmann line. Doctor, if you would please.”
The lion ran down an open aisle in the audience and charged Harper, who stood her ground. ‘Run!’ I thought, doing my best to push the urgency from my head to hers. ‘Run as fast as you can!’ She didn’t take a step. She just stood and waited for the lion to charge. He did, springing from his powerful back legs and straight into the air. Once he was past the point of no return, she ducked and rolled out of the way, and then she sprinted straight through the crowd.
The doctor had smacked into the wall and was shaking his head in a disturbing way, as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was. She took advantage of the moment and grabbed me, wrapped her arm around my waist, and held me to her.
“If I die, she dies with me!”
A few Alliance members stood up to confront her, but a roar from the lion made them all scatter. Blue ran into the crowd, and I lost her after that. Darn it. Everyone who was smart ran down the tunnels away from danger. The not so smart ones pressed themselves against the walls of the giant space as if a lack of movement would make them invisible. Those big, glassy lion eyes fixed on Harper and I, but the beast was done running. He wanted to toy with us, take his time. He padded forward and then circled us, daring us to make a break for it.
“Please,” I pleaded, “Doctor, don’t do this. You don’t really want to kill Harper. She’s been under Bachmann’s control her whole life.” My protests were drowned out in a big, loud series of boos from the people around me. “Stop! She’s not evil. She was just born into the wrong family.”
This made them laugh, and that made me truly scared. That, and the fact that Morley had used the moment to snap at the air next to my leg. The sound of his powerful jaws crashing together made the blood rush into my ears and swirl around like a powerful wave. It was terrifying.
Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Page 49