Wild

by Meghan O'Brien

  The man spent the rest of the drive in silence. Selene watched out the window, paying attention to their route through the city. He appeared to be heading south, and when he got on 101, she realized that he was driving them out of the city. It was little wonder that she’d never been able to track him successfully in the past.

  Slamming his hand against the steering wheel, the man roared, “Fuck!”

  At that moment Selene comprehended just how precarious her situation was. She hadn’t really thought at all before deciding to disguise herself as the killer’s dog so she could go home with him. Trapped inside a car with a furious psychopath, she might be in real danger. Though Selene rarely feared for her personal safety, confident that her physical abilities would enable her to escape from serious harm, a very real sense of fear crept up her spine. She wanted to do two things before she made her escape—learn the killer’s name and memorize his address. How she would convince Eve that the information was good was a problem for another time. Selene hoped she could find what she needed, then make her escape in one piece.

  Only a few miles from the exit to the San Francisco International Airport, the man pulled off the highway and drove into the well-lit parking lot of an expensive-looking apartment complex. Without moving, Selene mentally prepared herself for what was about to happen. She hoped he’d carry her upstairs to his place, then put her down and let her explore. From the anger and adrenaline that obviously continued to surge through his veins, he might take out his desire to hurt something on her. She needed to be ready to react to whatever happened.

  The man parked his car then pocketed his keys. He zipped his backpack, grabbing it as he opened the driver’s door and got out. Selene waited in the passenger seat, unsure whether she should follow. He gestured impatiently.

  “Come on, you fucker.” As she scrambled onto the driver’s seat he reached out and hauled her up by the scruff of her neck, shaking hard. “I’ve got plans for you.”

  Selene bared her teeth on instinct, shaken by the malice in his voice. She knew she was about to have to fight for her life and steeled her nerve. But she didn’t shift yet, or attempt to run away. She needed to learn more so she had something solid to tell Eve.

  He shook her again. “Don’t you growl at me. I’m bigger. I’ll win.”

  With effort Selene relaxed her mouth. If she pushed him into snapping her neck right here in the parking lot, everything she’d done tonight would be a waste. If he managed to kill her she would shift back into human form, she assumed, and with an inexplicable naked female corpse on his hands, who knew whether the man would retreat into hiding. She needed to flush him out so he could be captured, not send him running scared.

  He carried her under his arm like she was an inanimate object, with absolutely no tenderness. Climbing the stairs to the third floor, he moved quietly. For a man of his height, which she would put at just over six feet tall, he was incredibly light on his feet. Clearly stealth was a real strength for him.

  When they got to a door marked 12C, the man stopped and dug his keys out of his backpack. He unlocked the door and literally threw her into the darkness of his apartment. A hard object caught her across the hip and sent her tumbling to the ground. Whimpering in pain, Selene forced herself to stand and scamper behind the couch. She wanted to be out of sight before he turned on the lights. Perhaps that would also put her out of mind.

  The overhead lamp came to life, illuminating the apartment. From behind the couch, Selene couldn’t see much except worn brown carpeting and a couple of massive dust bunnies. She hunkered down and listened, hoping he would simply decide to go to bed. Best-case scenario, he’d give her some time alone to gather information so she could sneak out and fly home to Eve. If she could discover his name and address, it would be over. Eve would be safe.

  Selene didn’t move as he stomped heavily out of the room. The sound of his backpack hitting the ground startled her, and then a door slammed. A moment later she heard water running. That meant he was probably in the bathroom. This could be her chance to look for evidence.

  Poking her head out from behind the couch, Selene took a tentative step away from safety. She scanned the room frantically as she searched for some clue as to what she should do next. She’d undertaken this mission with very little thought about the best way to get what she needed.

  A banging noise came from a distant room, followed by an angry curse. The muffled, indistinct noise reassured Selene that he had indeed locked himself in another room. She spotted the corner of a magazine hanging over the edge of a coffee table and scurried over, eager to explore. There could be an address label on that magazine. If not, maybe she’d get lucky and find a stack of mail.

  Too short to see what was on the surface, she hopped up and braced her paws against the edge of the table. The magazine had been discarded cover-down, obscuring any possible evidence of a subscription. Aware that she had very little time to act, Selene weighed her options. It would be far more difficult to conduct this search as a small terrier mix. She didn’t have height, but, more important, she didn’t have hands. Clearly she would need to move things around and really dig through this guy’s belongings, fast, if she wanted to get something useful before he returned to the main room.

  Taking a deep breath, Selene quickly shifted back into human form. Even without a canine’s keen senses, she should be able to hear when he left the bathroom. As soon as that door opened, she’d simply shift. If necessary she’d try again later, after he’d gone to bed. Being discovered in his apartment—naked, no less—wasn’t an option. She had no doubt he would know who she was, since he’d obviously been watching Eve. Even if she escaped unharmed, her presence would surely alert him to danger and send him running.

  All too conscious that this opportunity was rapidly passing her by, Selene quickly turned over the magazine. No label. Probably purchased from a bookstore. She shouldn’t be surprised—this was a man with a keen interest in staying off the grid. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some other piece of evidence hidden in his apartment. It hardly seemed possible that anyone could completely divorce himself from modern society to the point where he didn’t at least receive a utility bill, or something.

  Selene raced around his apartment, quickly flipping through various papers stacked here and there. For some reason she’d expected him to keep a tidier home—too many serial-killer movies featuring meticulous psychopaths, Selene supposed—but in reality he had a dizzying array of books, journals, and loose papers stacked precariously on nearly every flat surface. He even had a copy of the book Eve had written, Listening to the Dead. Since it was dog-eared and worn, he had obviously read it over and over. It took tremendous willpower not to pick it up and destroy it, if only because she knew it fed his obsession. But he would surely miss it, and she didn’t want to tip him off.

  Spotting a small window above the kitchen sink, Selene took a break from her search and ran over to pry it open a few inches. Better to ensure she’d have a clear escape route later than leave that important detail to chance.

  Finally Selene found exactly what she was after, an electric bill that he’d opened and cast aside on the kitchen counter. She picked it up with shaking hands, groaning when she saw that he’d reinserted the bill into the envelope the wrong way, making it impossible to see the address through the plastic window. That’s when she realized how quiet the apartment suddenly was. The sound of running water had stopped.

  Jerking her head around, she searched the hallway down which she assumed the man had gone. Empty. Surely she would have heard the bathroom door open if he’d emerged. That she hadn’t meant that she might have just a bit more time. Nerves shot, she fumbled with the envelope, tearing the folded sheet of paper from inside and clumsily manipulating it until she could read the text.

  A door opened somewhere beyond the empty hallway. Heavy footsteps approached. Selene searched numbers and letters that looked strangely like gibberish, desperate to locate the information she n
eeded before she was forced to shift out of human form. Breathlessly, she spotted it just as she caught a glimpse of the man’s shadow moving across the threshold of the room he was about to exit.

  Kevin Pike. 106 South Third Street, Apartment 12C, Burlingame. Selene repeated it to herself even as she transformed into the poor little dog. Kevin Pike. 106 South Third Street. Apartment 12C. Burlingame. Who knew if it was his real name or an alias? Selene wasn’t sure it mattered. She had somewhere to lead the police. Soon Eve wouldn’t have to live in fear.

  “Dog.” The man’s voice cut through the silence of the apartment, sending her already-accelerated heartbeat into near arrest. He spoke with a light, singsong tone, but Selene easily read the malice within that single word. “Come out, come out. I’ve got something for you.”

  Selene cursed her impulsive decision to change back into his dog. Becoming an insect would have been better. Though that form was awkward to control, it worked well for staying hidden. Aware that her opportunity for escape was slipping away, Selene called up a mental image of a housefly and sent her body a silent command to mimic its form. Usually the transformation happened automatically. All she had to do was think it to make it so.

  Usually, but not this time.

  Horrified when her body refused to obey her mind, she skittered backward across the kitchen tile. Still trapped in a small dog’s body, she could do little to protect herself. She could bite him, sure, but probably not hard enough to dissuade him from harming her. Certainly not hard enough to stop him. Her only real option for escape was to shift. Either because she was exhausted or the universe had decided to turn against her, she seemed to have run out of juice.

  Selene closed her eyes and tried again. When she shifted, her body would tingle as though someone was passing a current through her bones, and sometimes her stomach would flip-flop in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. She’d discovered how to do it by accident when she was eight years old. Watching the family dog tear around their farm chasing butterflies looking like the happiest creature on earth, Selene only had to wish for that happiness to transform into a dog. Delighted, she’d spent nearly an hour playing with Daisy the border collie in a whole new way. From that day forward she knew how to shift, whether she wanted to or not. It had never failed her before.

  Until now. No matter how badly she wanted to become a fly, her furry paws remained stubbornly planted on the cool kitchen floor.

  Ironic that the ability she’d always yearned to lose would go away when she needed it most. Maybe the first time she’d ever truly needed it. She dashed under the kitchen table, buying herself perhaps only seconds more. She closed her eyes tight. Fly. A fly. She needed to be a fly.

  “There you are.” A foot caught her behind her bottom, sweeping her forward across the kitchen floor. Selene used the momentum to propel herself down the hallway into a dark bedroom. She crawled beneath the bed, heart thumping against the sour-smelling carpet. Trembling, she listened to Kevin Pike storm his way into the bedroom. “Let’s see how fast you run when I pin you to the fucking door with this knife.”

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Selene moved to the very center of the bed and curled into a tight ball, hoping he wouldn’t be able to reach in and grab her. Getting caught would put Eve’s safety in jeopardy. And the thought of never seeing Eve again was too painful to bear. Finally Selene had something to live for, just when she was closest to death.

  With that thought in mind, she focused on an image of what she wanted to be. A housefly: red eyes, sponging mouth parts, translucent wings. Tiny. Capable of escaping the nightmare she was currently in.

  A thrilling jolt of electricity shot down to the tips of her paws and her perception of the world changed. The carpet rushed up to meet her, the underside of the mattress suddenly far above her head. A dark shape appeared to her left, and a frighteningly large hand reached toward her.

  Selene took off, zipping out from beneath the bed on the opposite side from where Kevin Pike crouched, searching for his dog. She flew to the ceiling, exhilarated by her narrow escape. Below her, Kevin grunted in frustration, banging his head against the bed frame with an angry curse. He fumbled with the lamp on his nightstand in an effort to turn it on. With the room dimly lit, he dropped back to the floor and searched under the bed.

  “Where are you, little fucker?”

  That was enough for Selene. She didn’t want to stay inside his apartment one moment longer than necessary. She had what she needed. Kevin Pike. 106 South Third Street, Apartment 12C, Burlingame.

  As she flew out the kitchen window, she heard a loud crash in the bedroom. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d bet he was tearing the place apart looking for that poor little dog. Pleased with the knowledge that she’d saved one life tonight, Selene used her last bit of energy to shift into a bird and pointed back toward San Francisco, ready to save another.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Still in her pajamas at ten o’clock in the morning, Eve stretched out on her couch with a large bowl of cereal and an oversized spoon, ready for a long, pathetic Saturday at home. Going out was hardly worth the effort. She didn’t want to do anything outside her own four walls badly enough to justify dragging San Francisco’s finest along. Besides, in her apartment she didn’t have to worry about watching her back. Out in the city streets, everything seemed ominous these days.

  Picking up the remote, Eve clicked on the television just as her cell phone buzzed its way toward the edge of the coffee table. She sighed, muting the sound of the black-and-white movie playing onscreen. When she looked at the cell phone’s display and saw Selene’s number flashing, her stomach twisted. Two weeks had passed since their argument and this was the first time Selene had called. Their only communication had been the text message Selene sent the morning after, saying she loved Eve and wished she had the courage to explain. Eve had taken that as good-bye. Not having expected to hear from Selene again, she was torn about what to do.

  Part of her wanted to ignore the call. If their relationship hadn’t been important enough for Selene to fight for two weeks ago, Eve didn’t know what Selene could possibly say to fix things now. But the bigger part of her, the part that desperately missed the way she felt when they were together, wanted to give Selene a chance to try.

  Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Eve answered the phone. “Hello.”

  “Eve.” At the sound of Selene’s voice, so full of emotion, the lump grew bigger, nearly choking her. “Thank you for taking my call.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay.” Eve set down her bowl of cereal, no longer hungry. “Talk.”

  “Not on the phone. May I come over?”

  Eve closed her eyes. She wanted Selene to do just that more than anything. But not this Selene—she yearned for the Selene she could trust, the one who could somehow make all her troubles melt away. Who shrank the world down to just the two of them, so connected in the safety of their little bubble that nothing else seemed to matter. Eve didn’t have the energy to deal with Selene the liar, the coward who refused to take responsibility for her actions.

  Eve shook her head. “I can’t do this, Selene. I really can’t. There’s too much crazy in my life at the moment to deal with what happened between us. Maybe later. Just not right now.”

  A long, uncomfortable silence stretched out before Selene spoke. “I deserve that, I know. But I need to tell you something important about the man who’s stalking you.”

  “What?”

  “Let me come over and I’ll explain—everything. I promise.”

  Shocked, Eve tried to imagine what information Selene could possibly have. Even knowing that Selene had called in the first victim’s body to the police, never once had Eve truly believed that Selene knew more than she let on. It had seemed impossible that she could hold back, knowing Eve’s safety was on the line.

  Clearly she’d never really known Selene at all.

>   Wary, Eve said, “If you have information about the case, I can set up an interview for you with Detective Battle. You can tell Jac whatever you think we should know.”

  “No, I can’t.” Urgency permeated Selene’s tone. “This is something I need to tell you. Then you can help me decide how, and what, to tell Jac.”

  “How about you talk to me with Jac present in the room?”

  “Some of what I need to tell you, Jac can’t know.” As though aware of how much she was asking, Selene sighed deeply. When she spoke again, she sounded on the verge of tears. “Please trust me, Eve. You know I’d never hurt you. Right?”

  Funny thing was, Eve did trust her, even if she didn’t want to. “Okay. Why don’t we meet somewhere for coffee?”

  “I’d rather have some privacy. Either your place or mine.”

  Exhaling, Eve said, “You’re not making this easy, Selene.”

  “I know. But some of what I have to tell you really needs to stay between you and me. It’s…there’s something I’ve never told anyone, about me. Something you need to know. I hope…I hope it helps you understand.”

  Eve couldn’t ignore the earnestness in Selene’s voice. She sounded resolute and passionate, crumbling Eve’s determination to keep her distance. She told herself that didn’t mean she was a fool. This was a woman she’d fallen for, hard, uncharacteristically quickly. There had been something real between them. Maybe there still was.

  “I was planning to spend today on the couch,” Eve said, “watching old movies. Come over whenever you want.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Beneath Selene’s relief, Eve sensed an undercurrent of fear. “I’ll be over soon.”

  “I’ll need to tell Jac and the others that you’re coming,” Eve said, before Selene could hang up. “So they’ll let you through.”