One True Mate 4: Shifter's Innocent

by Lisa Ladew

  The cops had shown up to the bus station, and she and Kaci had ultimately had no choice but to go with them. They hadn’t been handcuffed, but they’d both been searched for weapons, their money taken from Cerise’s pockets and put in a tan envelope Cerise somehow knew she would never see again.

  Would she ever see her sister again? Kaci might not be any blood relation, but Cerise considered them closer than sisters. They loved each other with a fierceness that couldn’t be garnered by anything other than walking through hell together. But Cerise had failed Kaci. And it had all started with her trip on Zeus in the dark morning hours, her trip to that unknown man’s house. She began to hate him a little bit in her mind, even though he’d done nothing to her, but her only alternative was hating herself, and she still needed herself, still had to think of a way out of this. A way back to Kaci.

  She’d tried desperately to explain that she and Kaci couldn’t be separated, that Kaci wouldn’t be able to handle it, but the cop had shaken his head and said there was nothing that could be done. He’d seemed harried, overworked, in a hurry to get rid of her, speeding through her fingerprinting and arrest. She still didn’t know how they’d found Myles’s body so quickly, and no one had asked her any questions about it. She’d watched enough cop movies to know someone was supposed to interrogate her, but no one had. They’d ripped her and Kaci apart, ignoring Kaci’s screams and handing her over to a stern-looking officer who had taken her to another part of the building.

  Cerise had held her breath as the two officers had discussed Kaci’s destination.

  “Chief says juvie.”

  “Juvie won’t take her, they’re overflowing, say she’s too young, anyway.”

  “How old is she?”

  “I don’t know. The sheet says twelve, but that has to be wrong, she doesn’t look older than nine or ten, and they don’t like to take them that young at juvie anyway.”

  “He doesn’t want her in foster care, says she’s dangerous.”

  “Interim home, then.”

  “Got it.”

  Cerise turned to her left, to the guard who had her by the elbow. “Where’s the interim home?”

  The guard grunted and threw her a dismissive glance. “In the door, that’s it. Stand in front of the desk.”

  Cerise blew out a breath, frustrated. She tried again, at the desk, where another female guard stood and asked her questions.

  “Name.”

  “Cerise Pekin. Where’s the interim home in Serenity?”

  The guard stared at her, a sneer on her face, handing Cerise a pen to sign the paper in front of her

  “Please tell me,” Cerise said, just as she captured the pen, holding back her tears. She was in jail. Tears were to inmates like blood was to sharks, she imagined. Knew, from her short stay here before. Desperation and determination filled her in equal measures and her mind flexed, giving that short flex/push sensation she’d noticed before. She frowned, as did the guard in front of her, but the guard also spoke, almost reluctantly.

  “5150 Northrock Blvd.”

  Relief filled Cerise and she attempted a smile. “Thank you.”

  The guard sneered again, but only half-heartedly. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then turned and gathered up Cerise’s linens. “These are yours.” She nodded to the other guard and Cerise was on the move again, through a locked gate, into a small room for a body cavity search and to change her clothes into plain, grey prison garb. She didn’t mind the clothes so much, but the atmosphere was stifling, the guards were surly and bitter and the walls themselves were drab and pressed in on her. Out of that room, they were buzzed into another locked gate, then she was led down a dark corridor into an open, dark bay.

  Snores and whispers and hostility filled the room, along with beds. Rows and rows of beds, three bunks high. Kaci’s screams in Cerise’s head were finally replaced by something. Dread. She’d been to prison before, for three nights, and had been in three fights that time, one for each night. She knew by experience that keeping her head down didn’t keep her out of trouble.

  The guard spoke to Cerise, her voice a curious mixture of nearly bridled anger and boredom. “Lights out was at nine. All inmates must be in their bunks and all talking ceases by ten. If you are still talking after ten you’ll get a written warning. You don’t want a second. Everything else will be explained to you in the morning.”

  The guard stopped near a bed that had one bunk empty, the bottom one. Cerise rolled out her mattress, covered it with her sheet, blanket, and pillow, feeling the eyes of the women around her on her back. She remembered this. And she also knew exactly what was coming as soon as the guard was far enough away.

  Cerise finished laying out her bed, then sat down, waiting, leaning forward at the end of her bunk, her back against the bunk above her. She risked a kick in the back of the head, but she thought she could dodge it. Being trapped in the bunk would be worse.

  A woman peeked down at her from above. Cerise let her look. “Hey, fish, what’s your name?” the woman finally whispered.

  “Cerise.”

  “Cerise, huh, ain’t you pretty, little miss fancy pants, with all that red hair?”

  Cerise frowned. Her hair was poorly cut with the only pair of scissors they had, blunt safety scissors. She did it herself whenever it got so long it irritated her, but she knew the line in the back looked jagged and hacked. And her hair would never be red by any stretch of the imagination, maybe strawberry blonde, but mostly Cerise just thought it plain.

  “What’d you do, fancy-pants?”

  “Nothing.”

  Another woman’s face peeked over, from the very top bunk, and the three women in the bunks across from them all picked up their heads in interest, the woman on the middle bunk and the top bunk leaning on their elbows, while the woman on the bottom swung her feet and body out and sat like Cerise was.

  Cerise let awareness flood out of her, trying to track the emotions of everyone at once. So far, no aggression from any of them. Maybe she would sleep tonight. She was bone-weary after not sleeping the night before, but even if her bunkmates let her sleep, would her guilt?

  The woman above her laughed. “Nothing, huh, I’ve never heard that one before.”

  Cerise stared at the floor, waiting, her body tense, primed for whatever would come to her. If they would just leave her alone, she could start working on a plan to get out of here.

  A small voice tried to tell her she would never get out. She was at the mercy of the courts, the cops, the jail. She had no friends, no knowledge of what to do next. She’d been offered a phone call and hadn’t taken it. The only people she knew in the world, besides Kaci, were Myles and Sandra. Myles was dead, and Sandra had disappeared a long time ago.

  “Seriously, what’d you do?” the woman asked again. “Why are you in here?”

  The woman on the very top bunk above her spoke to her. “Just tell her. Cici got a thing ‘bout knowing what everyone did to get in here.”

  Cici nodded emphatically. “That’s right, I got a thing, now fucking tell me.”

  Cerise looked up, then, meeting Cici’s gaze. She had a broad face and almond eyes, with strange black markings above her brows. Cerise wasn’t sure if they were makeup or tattoos. “What did you do to get in here?” she whispered.

  Wrong answer shot through her mind as Cici’s eyes widened, then lost their humanity, going from curious to murderous in a split second. Cerise tensed to spring to her feet, too late. Cici had already caught her in the back of the head with a bare foot or ankle. It should have hurt Cici more than it did Cerise, but Cerise’s head was still battered, her skin split and swelling on the right side, hidden by her hair.

  Cici jumped out of the bed with deadly efficiency and hooked an arm around Cerise’s throat, pulling her to the ground.

  “Oh shit, here we go,” the woman on the top bunk said, rising up on her hands and knees to look over the sea of beds.

  Cerise’s head bounced off the
floor, making her vision swim. She got her hands up, trying to push CiCi off her, but Cici had already twisted and latched on to her, both her hands around Cerise’s throat.

  Play dead, something inside her urged. Pass out and she’ll let go. Cerise gritted her lips and fitted her own hands around Cici’s throat. Fuck. That. Noise.

  She snarled silently, even as her lungs screamed for air already, tightening her own fingers on Cici’s throat as Cici stared down at her, her mouth in a deadly grimace.

  Decades of pain, anger, and un-acted-on retribution gave Cerise strength, the image she had of Kaci wordlessly screaming as she was pulled away from Cerise fueling a slick hatred of anybody who dared give her shit right now. She was DONE.

  Stop it, you flaming bitch! I didn’t do shit to you. Take your fucking hands off me! Cerise screamed, but only in her mind. From her mouth, barely a whisper escaped. Her mind flexed like it had before, and a mental push escaped her body like a physical thing, stronger than she’d ever felt before, focused on Cici’s flat eyes.

  Cici’s eyes widened for just a split second before both her pupils blew at once, expanding until no iris was visible. Her lids slid shut and she collapsed onto Cerise. Cerise twisted on the concrete floor, guiding Cici’s body to Cerise’s left so her dead weight wouldn’t slam into Cerise’s face. Instead, it slammed onto the floor with a sickening thudding sound.

  Cerise sucked in a breath, then pulled her hands back to her temples, as pain rippled through head and neck and her vision went blurry. The beginnings of a migraine? No, it was ebbing already.

  “What did you do to her?” the woman from the top bunk said in a clear voice sure to bring guards. Dimly, Cerise could hear all the women jump down from their beds, feel them pushing past Cerise to get to Cici.

  “Guard, guard! Cici’s ears are bleeding! We need the nurse, now!”

  Cerise tried to open her eyes, tried to look to her left, but heartache rocked her. The day had gone from anything-is-possible, to can’t-get-worse, and there were still a few hours left.

  ***

  Cerise pressed her lids together slowly, consciousness returning to her in a rush, not daring to open her eyes yet, hoping that everything she remembered had been a bad dream. How bad had the day been for her to be wishing she were home, at Myles’s mercy? She tested the earlier pain in her head by moving slowly to the left, the soft beep beep of medical equipment floating into her awareness. The pain was gone. She blinked and opened her eyes slightly, enough that she could see fluorescent lights set into a white ceiling. By the weight on her wrists, she knew she was handcuffed to a bed. Still in jail, then. Lucky her.

  She let her head fall to the right so she could gaze that way, hopefully without revealing she was awake. In the bed next to her, Cici reclined, her eyes closed, tacky-looking blood drying in her hair, clear tubes in her nostrils and colored wires snaking from her chest to a machine. You did that, her mind whispered to her. You pushed her too hard. Cerise frowned internally at the voice, trying to remember exactly what had happened just before Cici had keeled over. Cerise had done something. That strange, rippling flex her brain executed. She’d felt it before, but never had she done something like that to anyone before. That hard. That strong. She thought back, trying to remember other times she’d felt that flex, that push from her brain to another, and what the outcome had been.

  A few examples came forward in her memory, to be examined by her. Several years ago, before Sandra had left them, before Cerise had even been sick, it had happened. Sandra had been angry at Myles about something, had been looking for someone to take it out on. Cerise had been in the kitchen, making Kaci some rice when Sandra had strode in, hand-rolled cigarette jutting from the corner of her mouth, rage and smoke circling her head like a cloud, muttering curses. Cerise should have dropped everything and fled the room, but she hadn’t. Sandra had honed in on her, like a torpedo on a target, reaching her before Cerise could even pick up the bowl and turn away from the counter. Sandra had grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed her face into the counter. Cerise could have fought back, but she knew if she did, Kaci would be targeted to take an even greater onslaught of random violence. So she’d tried to cushion her face’s landing with her hands and spoken in her mind again. Please Momma, no more. I hate it when you hit me.

  And for once, Sandra had let her go. She’d backed up a step and stared at Cerise, looking dazed. Cerise had gathered up her bowl and spoon and rushed from the room, away from Sandra’s immediate field of vision, not thinking farther than escaping the immediate threat. But now she thought of it, turning the experience over in her mind. Had that push come out of her? She thought it had. And had Sandra ever hit her again?

  Other times? Yes. One recently. That man whose house she had broken into. The big one with the handsome grin. Cerise nibbled on the inside of her lip, trying to remember every detail. The first time she’d gone to his house, when he’d woken and spoken to her. She’d touched him, then sent the push out at him, desperate not to be caught there.

  Oh! And what about not even an hour ago? The guard at the front who’d told her where the interim home was—

  A female voice spoke from somewhere in the room, cutting off her thoughts. “She only needs one guard, in my opinion. Her head injury is pretty serious. If she wakes up, she won’t be in any condition to escape.”

  The unseen woman changed position, her voice coming clearer and louder, like she had just faced Cerise. “I don’t think the other one needs to go. She’s got a head injury, too, but it looks old. She might have passed out from the fear.” She paused and listened. “I know, we don’t want to ask for two ambulances, but I don’t think she needs to go to the hospital.” Irritation crept into her voice. “Ok, I’ll call you back.”

  Cerise let her eyes fall completely closed and tried to keep her breathing even as footsteps approached her bed, not sure what her plan should be.

  “Don’t bother faking, Pekin. I’m not stupid.”

  Cerise blinked and opened her eyes fully, meeting the nurse’s gaze. Her skin was a chocolate brown, her hair a beautiful natural afro, and she looked tough, her expression skeptical, but open and slightly amused.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to fake,” Cerise said to her.

  The nurse hooked a thumb toward Cici. “What’d you do to her?”

  Cerise pressed her lips together. Crap. “I don’t know. She had me pinned down, then she just collapsed. Maybe she had a stroke.”

  The nurse’s face didn’t change expression. “That’s not what her friends said. They said you were on top of her and slammed her head into the ground.”

  Cerise’s eyes widened and the nurse’s amusement faded, leaving only the skepticism. “Don’t worry, I don’t believe them, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  The nurse shrugged. “She doesn’t have any bumps on her head. A stroke won’t make blood come out of your ears, though.” She leaned forward. “Did you choke her?”

  Cerise’s eyes widened again. How to answer that without getting in more trouble?

  The nurse’s expression changed again, this time favoring amusement. “You got that innocent look down, missy. Someone got your number, anyway.”

  She took ahold of Cerise’s wrist, feeling the pulse there. Cerise pressed her hand up, so the backs of her fingers were grazing the woman’s arm, touching as much as she was being touched, feeling instinctually that it would help what she was trying to do.

  Flex. Push. “I’m sicker than you first thought. I need to go to the hospital, too.”

  Chapter 13

  “Over here! Move it, cop, faster unless you want this place to fry!”

  Beckett put all his weight into the hose, hauling it inch by agonizing inch away from the fire truck. His clothes were ruined, covered with water and foam and even burnt in a few places. The fire department and the police department were all stretched thin, skeleton crews protecting the city and every available body called in from days off and specialty
details.

  Behind him, the lake, big enough that the other side couldn’t be seen even when it wasn’t on fire, continued to burn. They’d put out the edges, but nothing had touched the middle. This close to the lake, night was hot as a literal hell would be, the constant flames searing away the cold.

  On the other side of the truck, he heard Wade arguing with the fire chief about what they should do next.

  “Fuck this working the edges, Chief. You have to hit it from the center. Bring in the helicopters. Fires are popping up at lakes all over the country, and unless we figure out what works, and soon, we’re going to be wiped out. The whole city!”

  Beckett hauled on the heavy hose, knowing Wade was right, they were masturbating out here, doing what they were doing, if not for their own enjoyment, then just to keep themselves busy. They’d barely made a dent in the fire, and they’d been out at the lake for hours, skirting its edges, trying water, chemicals, and foam, even though they were worried about the environmental impact. This lake was the main reservoir for water for the entire county.

  The bearen chief’s voice did not hold the same urgency as Wade’s did. He almost sounded bored. Fucking bears. “Oh right, and how many years have you spent fighting fires, Deputy?” He sneered the last word.

  Wade’s voice became even tighter. “Fuck, Chief, I know you got a problem with me, but can’t you get over it long enough to work together on this? You trying to burn down the city, you overgrown squirrel?”

  Beckett grinned, against the phenomenally heavy fire hose he clutched to his chest. Call him another name. That’ll convince him.

  Ten feet away from him, Bruin rushed over, grabbed a length of hose, and began to pull. He looked as bedraggled as Beckett felt, his hair wet and plastered to his head, his clothes dripping. Finally, with the two of them working together, it moved a few feet. “How much does this fucker weigh, Bruin?” Beckett forced out as he dug his feet in and pushed/pulled for all he was worth.