by Lane Hart
Since rental properties were abundant in the area, we quickly found a nice little three bedroom ranch home. We paid six months of rent plus the security deposit up front and in cash, so our landlords had an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with us.
My parents and Ben’s folks had also found homes within a few miles from ours. It was nice being so close to the beach, but I rarely made it out of the house.
Our son, Lucas, was seven-months-old and he had zero control when it came to shifting. Every time he was around an animal for any length of time he'd shift. It was rather difficult to find clothes, toys, bedding and even bath supplies without animals on them. TV was mostly a no-go as well, and taking him out in public was a hell no.
It wasn’t so much that we didn’t want Lucas to shift into an animal, as we didn’t want him to get away from us or hurt himself. That’s why the birds in Florida were such a pain in the ass. You couldn’t turn around in a circle without seeing one of those bastards.
Since birds were probably one of the most dangerous things for Lucas to shift into at his age, keeping them out of his sight was almost impossible. If he was to shift into a bird while outside there was no way for us to predict where he’d flying off to, or when he’d shift back to being a baby again. If he shifted back to normal from five feet in the air he may not survive the fall. That’s why I was not a fan of birds.
All the days in our new home were nerve-racking and boring. We couldn’t make friends for obvious reasons, so the only visitors we ever had were our parents. I loved them all, but none of us were real great company due to the current circumstances of our life. We were all afraid to look at a neighbor or the mailman wrong for fear that they would recognize one of us.
A little more than two months ago we up and left Charlotte after two FBI agents paid me a visit at our home. A nurse from the hospital had figured out that Ben could shift into an animal, and she had actually seen him as a cat after Lucas's delivery.
That meant that Ben was currently public enemy number one. His picture, along with mine, had been broadcast worldwide. The media didn’t know the real reason we were being hunted. They only knew from the government that it had something to do with the fact that we were “last seen with a five to six-month-old baby boy with light hair and blue eyes.” That’s right, the world thought my husband and I were baby snatchers.
There was no way that we could call a press conference to let everyone know the baby was actually our son, and the real reason law enforcement was looking for us was because my husband was a shapeshifter. Yeah, that would happen right around the time monkeys flew out of my ass.
Photos of our parents had also been flashed up on television, but the coverage on them was minimal compared to us. I seriously doubted that anyone would recognize one of them since all four looked so nice and harmless. It also helped that they pretty much looked like all of the other billion retirees running around this state.
My once blonde hair was now a plain blah brown, and I'd been wearing brown contact lenses to hide my green eyes. Ben’s sandy blonde hair had been darkened until it almost looked black, and his baby blues that I loved so much were also covered with brown contacts.
There wasn’t much we could do to disguise Lucas’s appearance. Well, only really one thing we could do, but Ben went ballistic every time I did it – dress him like a girl. It’s not like he’ll ever remember wearing pink dresses, and since he was still a baby his gender could pass as unknown right up and until you changed his little diaper. I wasn’t proud of cross-dressing my son, but the very few times that we've had to take him out in public I was damn well going to do anything I could to prevent someone from recognizing us.
I'd been a stay at home mom with Lucas since our move, however I was rarely ever alone. I wouldn’t complain about the companionship though. Our parents took shifts staying with me and Lucas while Ben was at work. Their visits were welcome, since I was afraid to be alone.
The FBI agents that had showed up to our house the day we fled were anything but warm and fuzzy. I had a feeling that at least one of them, Special Agent Rhodes, lived and breathed searching for us, because we had made him look like a fool when we got away. I prayed every day that we were safely hidden and would stay that way.
Chapter Two
It was getting late on another Wednesday night, and the sun had already set. I looked at the clock which said it was after nine o’clock. I knew Ben would be walking in the door any minute from his long shift at the park. I tried to convince him to stay home since we could live off the money he’d been saving for at least a year. I worried about him going out in public everyday where someone might recognize him. The man was pretty hard to miss.
Even when Ben tried to blend in, he stood out. With his height, muscular frame and gorgeousness he turned women’s heads on a regular basis. I wasn’t insecure, well not excessively insecure. The problem was that his face and body were not things that were quickly forgotten by anyone. His unnaturally darkened hair and eyes only made him sexier and more mysterious. Shoot, even men noticed him, when they did double takes in envy of his sheer magnitude. But Ben was determined to work and have some sort of income so we wouldn't burn through our savings. He assured me that he was never noticed by many people because he mostly worked behind the scenes of the park.
I put Lucas down and kissed him goodnight, hating that Ben would miss seeing him again tonight. If he didn’t hurry home, he wouldn’t be seeing me awake either. This nightly routine had been going on for weeks.
My parents had only been gone about an hour. They didn’t want to leave me alone, but I shooed them out knowing Ben would be here soon. Well, at least I had thought that an hour ago. Besides, our house was locked down with security tighter than Fort Knox. Our landlord didn’t know, and probably wouldn’t mind, that we had upgraded their standard deadbolt locks to state of the art video monitoring and surveillance that required a fingerprint scan to open. Seriously. It may have seemed like overkill, but after what we’d been through we were not willing to take any chances.
As I was about to fall asleep on the couch watching TV I finally saw headlights reflect on the living room wall, and sighed in relief that Ben had made it home safely. I threw my blanket off, and jumped up to open the front door for him.
“Hey baby,” he said with zero enthusiasm as he came up the front sidewalk. I could tell he was exhausted and it wasn't just from working all day. It was an exhaustion caused by weeks of not sleeping, and having nightmares when he happened to doze off. I knew the feeling, but at least I was able to nap during the day when our parents were here baby-sitting.
I knew another reason Ben had insisted on working even through the fatigue was because he felt guilty. I was sure he wouldn't be able to sit around the house all day, every day, with the amount of guilt he carried on his shoulders. I didn’t blame him for anything that had happened. I knew he hadn't made the choice to be a shapeshifter, and it wasn’t his fault that the overwhelming stress of Lucas’s birth had caused him to lose control and shift in front of someone.
Despite how many times I tried to tell him he should blame the idiot nurse who had to run her mouth, or the bastard agents who thought he was dangerous, he just wouldn’t listen.
“Hey, I missed you,” I told him with a smile before he swept me up into his arm.
“I missed you too,” he said as he hugged me and then put me down.
I shut the door behind us and entered the code in the security system to lock it back into place.
“Do you want me to heat you up some dinner? My mom made chicken potpie.”
“No, no thanks. I ate something at work,” he said without looking at me.
I was pretty sure he was lying. Even though he was still at least two hundred pounds, he’d lost about twenty or thirty pounds over the last few weeks. His clothes were looser, and I was starting to really worry about him. Between not sleeping and not eating, all he did was work and sulk.
I was hoping tha
t one day, eventually, he would start relaxing and quit worrying so much. Even though we could never assume we were safe, it seemed that so far we were in the clear and off the radar. I of course still worried, but I wasn't going to let it take over my life.
Ben hadn’t said anything to me yet but I was pretty sure he wanted to move. It was not something I was looking forward to doing again so soon. Our parents were probably not going to be too thrilled about it either.
There had been a wall creeping up between Ben and I, which I despised. I was waiting for everything between us to get back to normal, but that was probably not something we'd ever really have again. At least not as long as we continued to play hide and seek with law enforcement. After what we'd been through in the past year, I thought we'd grow closer together and not further apart.
The days came and went in the same pattern until a few weeks later. Instead of keeping to himself and basically ignoring us, Ben came home early from work and finally sat down at the table to eat a meal with me and Lucas. If my time with Ben was sparse, then Lucas's time with him was non-existent. He was usually asleep when Ben left in the mornings, and in bed when Ben got home from work.
I should have been happy that Ben had made it home earlier tonight and was spending time with us, but instead it worried me. My suspicion was immediately confirmed after I sat down to start in on my lasagna. In between bites I was quickly spooning jars of fruit and vegetables into Lucas's mouth. He, unlike Ben and I, was as happy as he could be, rocking and cooing urgently between bites to remind me to keep shoveling it in. There was also a steady stream of cute "dadas" coming from him. I knew he was excited to see Ben for more than five seconds, but Ben seemed so consumed in thought that he hadn't really noticed.
"So, I've been thinking," Ben started. "It might be time for us to leave Orlando."
Well, I had called that one.
Chapter Three
Looking at Ben, I barely recognized the man sitting across the table from me. He looked sick, exhausted and edging on angry. I knew that he worried so much because he loved us, but this wasn't any way to live.
"So, what do you think about moving? I have a bad feeling about staying here much longer," he asked when I didn't immediately respond.
I tried not to get upset and make things worse.
"It seems like you've already decided what you want to do, so it doesn't really matter what I think."
"Emily,” he huffed. “What's wrong? Talk to me. I haven't decided anything yet," he said softly.
"I'll do whatever you think we need to do. It's not like it matters to me. Sitting in the house all day, every day, will be the exact same somewhere else regardless of the zip code," I said to my plate. Okay, maybe I was a little upset about the fact that it felt like I was under house arrest.
"I really don't need you to make me feel any worse than I already do," he said through clenched teeth.
"I doubt that's possible." And that did it. In a loud clatter than made me jump, Ben threw his fork down on his plate.
"Please yell or curse or scream!" I told him. "Any of those would be a nice change of pace from your four months of depression and silence." I knew it was a low blow but I was tired of him ignoring me and Lucas because he felt guilty.
Instead of doing any one of those things he just pushed his chair back from the table and walked away. Damn it, I wasn't done yet.
"Oh, no you don't!" I yelled. "As soon as I finish feeding Lucas you are going to talk to me!" I heard the bedroom door shut and then the shower come on. Good. Maybe it would cool him down.
Lucas finished up his jars of food and I gave him his bedtime bottle. He could barely hold his beautiful blue eyes open by that point, so I carried him into his room and tucked him into his crib I gave him a kiss, and then turned on his moon and star mobile to soothe him to sleep.
As I shut his door behind me I heaved a sigh. I wasn't looking forward to my talk with Ben, but it was one that was necessary and long overdue.
I turned off all the lights in the house and went down the hall to our bedroom. The bathroom door was cracked open so I knew when I didn't hear water running that Ben was out of the shower. I sat down cross-legged on the foot of our bed while I waited for him to finish up. My head was starting to pound from the increase in my blood pressure.
I was rubbing both sides of my temples when the light from the bathroom flooded over me as Ben opened the door all the way. I looked up and was momentarily paralyzed by the sight of him in nothing but a white towel dipping low on his hips. His leaner but still chiseled chest and stomach glistened from the small drops of water still drying on him, and his dark hair was spiked up from being towel dried. Jackass.
I finally looked away as I closed my eyes and kept rubbing my head. "Put some damn clothes on. You know I can't argue with you when you're naked."
When he didn't respond, and I didn't see him move from the corner of my eye, I looked back to where he’d been standing. He raised an eyebrow and grinned at me. I knew he had been waiting for me to look at him again because as soon as I did he let the towel fall to the ground.
"You bastard, you don't fight fair."
"I'm sorry," he said as he came over to stand in front of me. He rubbed his hands down my shoulders and arms and when he got to my waist he pulled me up off the bed. "The last few months have been miserable. I don't like living this way. I hate that I've put you through this mess, and I can't stop worrying," he told me.
Standing there with him holding me, my anger weakened. I gave in and put my own arms around his waist.
"I shouldn't have been upset with you earlier. If you think we need to leave, we can leave," I told him without letting go of him.
"I don't want to, but I think I'd feel a little better if we did."
I nodded against his bare chest. "Where should we go?" I asked.
"I don't know. I thought when we came here the more crowded it was the better, but maybe we should try somewhere quieter in the mid-west."
"When do you want to leave?" I wanted to know how much time I had before I needed to start packing again. Maybe this time we could at least get a U-Haul and take everything we'd bought to replace our old belongings with us this time.
"A week or two?" he asked.
"Yeah, I can do that," I sighed against him. "I just have one request."
"What's that?" he said as he pulled back to look at me.
"Will you stop blaming yourself? I don't blame you and I never have. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that before you will finally believe me."
He blew out his breath and ran his hand through his hair. "I'll work on it. That's the best I can do."
"Thank you," I told him as I leaned back against him and stood on my tippy toes to kiss him.
The time had been stretching further and further between the real kisses, leaving only the quick "hello" and "goodbye" kisses.
When Ben started pulling up my pajama top I raised my arms so he could slide it off over my head. I was so lost in his kiss that I didn't notice we weren't alone until I heard the gun safeties click off.
Chapter Four
I screamed and Ben froze for an instant before jerking around at the sound of the gun. Oh God! I couldn't speak or breathe as panic filled me. I tried to get a better view of who was in our house but Ben was standing protectively in front of me, blocking most of my view.
"Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my house?" he bellowed at them.
His back muscles tightened, and I knew he was a second away from losing it. It wouldn't do any good, since, from what little I could see, there were at least three guns pointed at us within a distance of maybe five feet.
A voice that still gave me nightmares answered him.
"Mr. Hunter, I've had the pleasure of meeting your lovely wife, but we've never officially met. I'm Agent Rhodes, and if you so much as twitch we will fire on you. Don't even think about shifting because you'll both be dead before you touch us."
I kne
w the next few seconds were going to decide the rest of our lives. I didn't want Ben’s rage to be responsible for doing something impulsive, without thinking over the consequences.
"Ben, please," I tried to say but my voice was shaky from the adrenaline racing through me and from being on the verge of hysteria. "Please don't," was all I could say.
I had no clue what he might be thinking of doing, but I didn't see any good way to get us out of this disaster.
"That's right Mr. Hunter. You should listen to your wife. It's a shame we interrupted you two. I told Agent Barnes we should have waited another ten or fifteen minutes. We've been watching your security camera feeds for a few days just waiting for the right time."
Wow. I think he wanted to kill us, right here and now. And if he kept it up Ben was going to end the standoff in a matter of seconds. I wanted to reach out for him to try and calm him down, but I was afraid that if I touched him he'd lose what little restraint he had. The stress alone was going to make him lose control and shift soon. The dumb asses probably didn’t know that.
"So here's what's going to happen, Mr. Hunter. You are going to turn around and put your hands behind your back, then you're going to come nice and quiet with us, without causing a scene. Don't test me," Agent Rhodes ordered him.
Ben hesitated for a minute before finally turning around and facing me. His eyes were filled with a terrifying wrath I'd never seen before, but he held still as I heard someone snap handcuffs on him.
These guys were idiots if they thought they could hold him in handcuffs or even a jail cell. The man could shift into almost any animal, big or small. Not that I'd seen him do it many times, but I knew he had a lot of choices for this particular situation.