by Meg Ripley
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into the phone. “But I’m scared. Evan is scared, because Ariel won’t talk to him about their garage burning down— he had to hear it from Riley. You’re not telling me what’s stopping us from moving, and I know it’s more than the truck, because we have more than two friends with trucks and SUVs. And I’m hearing about people—grown men and women, not just kids—getting beaten and left in the streets. What’s going on, Natalie? And why won’t you tell me about it?”
The silence stretched on for so long that Evan turned to look at Charlie, his brown face forming a question when he didn’t hear Natalie speak. Charlie was about to ask if she’d hung up on him when she drew a deep, shaky breath and slowly let it out.
“Charlie. I…just trust me, okay? You’re right. You’re absolutely right, but I need to you trust me. Okay?”
It was the raw quality of her voice that finally broke the shell of tension around his heart and allowed him to relax. “Okay,” he answered. “Okay. I trust you.” Even though this is killing me.
“Thank you,” Natalie said, and there were tears in her voice. He realized then that the weight of holding this back from him was killing her, too. Whatever this is had better be worth it.
His bag came crawling by him on the carousel just as he snapped out of his memory, and he almost didn’t catch it in time. Charlie thrust one long arm out and closed his fingers around the bag’s thick strap just before it disappeared behind the curtain to be spun around the carousel again.
“Nice catch, Flax,” Evan said behind him. He’d already located his suitcase and was pulling it behind his body as he strolled up to Charlie, his wiry frame far too relaxed given their situation. “Got everything?”
“Yeah.” Charlie slung the bag across his shoulders and playfully popped his friend on one of his narrow shoulders. “How the hell are you so calm, Reynolds? You’re like a wind-up toy whenever we’re on deployment, and you’re the one who told me about all the attacks. Are you high?”
Evan grinned and fell in step beside his taller friend as they headed for the exit. “Just on life, Flax. Besides, we’re finally home. That means we can get to the bottom of this.”
Charlie looked sharply at Evan, whose dark chocolate face was mostly hidden behind a pair of huge sunglasses, but he could still see the grim determination on his face. “You sounded…very certain about that,” he said slowly, dragging his green eyes up and down his best friend’s stoic expression. “Did you find out something more when you called Ariel in the bathroom?”
Evan gave a single curt nod that set Charlie’s heart racing.
“Well why didn’t you say so!” Charlie yelped, and several people in the crowd ahead of them turned toward his raised voice. He felt blood rush to his cheeks and he cursed himself for losing control of his volume again.
A man caught his gaze in the crowd, short and incredibly tanned, with dark blue eyes and a full mouth pinched together in what seemed to be surprise. His sandy blonde hair was being lovingly ruffled by a lovely copper-skinned woman with black curls who seemed to be trying to style his wavy coif, but he was staring so intently at Charlie that he was ignoring all of her muttered instructions. Charlie felt a curious ripple of power pass between them, and it intensified as they got closer. Eventually the charge was unbearable, and he broke their gaze and lowered his head as they hurried past the couple. What was that about? Charlie thought, but as soon as they were out of the doorway and under the blazing Southern Californian sun, he grabbed Evan by his forearm and pulled him into the shade of the parking garage to their right, the incident driven from his mind.
“Okay.” When they’d stopped, Charlie pushed both of his hands through his short black hair excitedly, willing his pulse to reign itself in. “Tell me. Tell me what you know.” It’s the cops again, he thought. Trying to find a reason to stamp out the shifters, like last time.
“It’s more stuff about the abductions,” Evan said slowly, his voice cautious and deep. He slid the sunglasses from his face, letting his brown eyes pierce Charlie’s as he spoke. “And it does seem like they’re targeting younger people…but it’s not just jumping, and it isn’t random.”
“What do you mean?”
Pain and anger flashed across Evan’s dark brown eyes, and Charlie caught the scent of the feline beast stirring beneath his skin. “The young men being attacked are sometimes being taken, and they turn up weeks later across the country, or are found with their memories gone, and part of a completely different pride. They can only be identified by their fingerprints. And sometimes they’ve been…mutilated.” Evan paused and swallowed hard.
Charlie shook his head slowly, trying to understand his best friend’s implications. “Mutilated?”
“Like…eunuchs,” Evan finished. “Only some of them, though. And the women…sometimes they’re raped, and if not…they’re mutilated too.”
Charlie shuddered, and the icy terror he’d banished from his blood only hours before came rushing back to fill his veins and freeze his muscles in place. “So, someone is trying to wipe us out with a cull,” Charlie said vehemently. “It’s the lawmen again. They hate us, Evan. They don’t under—”
“I don’t think it’s the cops,” Evan cut in, and he dropped his eyes. “The targets don’t make sense.”
“Evan, they’re stopping us from reproducing,” Charlie spat. “They’re killing us. They tried this a decade ago, and I always knew they’d try again. Their targets make perfect sense. They’re targeting lions, and making sure they can’t ever breed when they’re finished. Setting us up and killing us indiscriminately didn’t work so well last time.” Rage was pounding in his ears, and the heat of the afternoon was finally starting to weigh down his body. “Who else could it be? Why would you think it could be anyone else?”
Evan looked deeply unsettled by his thoughts; he even put his shades back on before he spoke again. “Whoever this is seems to be targeting young lionesses to impregnate them. Some of the girls are four months pregnant. And the ones they’re mutilating are…Charlie, they’re already pregnant.”
“Already pregnant?” Charlie echoed numbly. “They’re…already…?”
Evan nodded. Charlie stared at him, listening to the blood rushing around his ears as he processed what Evan was telling him. Someone was beating and raping lions, and taking their young right from the womb. This was strategic. This was a genocide.
“It isn’t cops,” Charlie whispered. He turned on his heel and stalked away through the parking garage, leaving Evan to trot behind him toward their shuttle.
“I told you it wasn’t cops,” Evan said, annoyed, but Charlie wasn’t listening; he was too busy assembling the growing puzzle in his mind and trying to formulate a plan.
2
Charlie kept whipping his face against the vibrating glass of the shuttle’s window to catch glimpses of the streets and houses zipping by the van, and it was starting to rub the skin of his forehead raw, but he couldn’t help it— the town looked so different. Sierra Leandra was technically in San Diego county, but with its neatly divided sections, it looked more like a mini version of the county itself: wide open spaces for the first ten miles, populated with squat scrubs whose thin soils were graced with sprawling ranch houses and apathetic farm animals who milled border of the town; then came gas stations and main freeway exits; then strip malls started to pop up alongside boxy duplexes and apartment buildings surrounding the three public schools. There were two churches and a community college, a rec center, two malls, then a small business and entertainment district that blended nicely together on Friday evenings. On the other side of the bars and banks were gaudy houses—mini-mansions with huge bay windows and tall cream doors that opened into the sort of meticulously styled and polished rooms that begged to be lounged in by people of the same caliber. Charlie knew the layout of the town like the back of his hand, knew what each building would look like painted blue or yellow or burned down to black ash and rebuilt in brick, but he never
thought he’d see it this way.
The streets were completely empty, save for a few lonely adults strolling along the sidewalks or going into shops. Every window he could see was shuttered, and some were even boarded up. The rural part of town was even empty of llamas and geese—when he tried to focus on smelling them with his eyes closed, he couldn’t catch the scent of a single feather or puff of fur. One gas station looked open for business, but the lights were off inside, and the others looked like they had been closed for months. Horror gripped his stomach as they rode through the business section of town and saw that not only were the main malls closed and vacated, half of their structures had been pulled or knocked down. There was such a profound sense of wrongness about everything that even the warm hum of the engine didn’t do much to mask how quiet it was, and he felt bile start to rise in his throat. What is this? What’s happened? It looks like a ghost town.
“Flax,” Evan said suddenly, breaking him out of his trance. Charlie jumped at the sound of his last name and turned toward the other man, who was holding the now half-full water bottle the driver had offered each of them.
“What’s up?” Charlie asked. The next second he noticed that Evan’s posture had changed— it was ever so slightly, and the human driver almost certainly didn’t notice it, but it was there. His spine was more rigid, but his eyes were darting around the vehicle behind the dark lenses of his shades. He lowered his voice when he spoke so that it wouldn’t register to the driver’s ears.
“We’re being followed,” Evan said casually. “Black sedan with no plates. Big Native American guy driving who kinda looks like your wife’s brother, and a squat looking white guy in the passenger seat. I saw one of them pat a weapon on the ceiling roof to secure it. They’re not human.” His words came blunt and fast, and Charlie knew his military training was kicking in.
Charlie flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror of the van, pouring all of his energy into focusing his gaze on the two figures behind them. After a moment, he saw that Evan was right; a brown-skinned man with thick knuckles was piloting the car, and his small blonde friend was trying far too hard to look relaxed in the seat.
“Damn,” Charlie said under his breath. “They’re lions.”
“Thought so,” Evan said, and even though his words were slow and steady, Charlie knew his pulse had just accelerated. The city had somehow been closed down, their people were being terrorized, and now two strange lions were on their tail. After another second, the car dropped back and turned a corner, but both of the lions in the shuttle knew it was out of caution. Charlie had a horrible feeling in his gut about the likelihood of them meeting again. He sat back in his seat, willing the van to materialize at his and Evan’s homes. He could picture Natalie now, and the vision made his heart ache—her mane of soft, dark curls, caramel brown eyes, and the disarming smile he saw most nights in his dreams.
“We’re here,” the driver intoned a few minutes later. Charlie opened his eyes and saw that Evan was already unbuckling his seatbelt and sliding his door open.
Did I doze off? he wondered as he climbed out of the van. He slipped a twenty-dollar bill into the driver’s chubby palm and noted that he was twitchy and covered in sweat despite the air conditioning. He pulled off before Charlie could ask him if anything was alright, and he nearly called for him to come back. If the human could tell something was amiss, maybe he should just grab Natalie and pay him to keep driving until they hit the other side of the country.
Instead, Charlie nodded to Evan at the foot of his own driveway and turned to the Reynolds’ home, finally glancing at the burned-out husk his pride mate and neighbor’s garage had become. “Ariel really didn’t say anything about it?”
Evan shook his head, his dark eyes unreadable behind his lenses. “Not a thing. Mentioned having to move the car. And she never mentioned our niece getting…hurt.” Evan’s clipped tone hid the grief in that single word, and Charlie felt a wrench of pain deep inside his stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he said softy, holding one upturned palm toward his best friend’s jaw. For a moment, he was afraid the lion would turn away from the gesture, but then Evan stepped forward and bumped his cheek against Charlie’s palm, accepting the comfort he sorely needed.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice filled with pain. “I should get inside. I have a feeling I’ll see you soon?”
Charlie nodded, gazing toward the living room window of his house. “Yeah. We’ll all be seeing each other soon, I think. “
Evan flashed him a wide smile before he turned toward his house, and it was vicious, dark, and wrapped in a layer of red-hot shifter energy that Charlie would have flinched away from if he hadn’t been positive it wasn’t for him. A shiver rolled down his spine as he watched Evan’s slim, muscle-heavy form slink toward his front door; his best friend reminded him pretty often that he should be thankful he was one of the good guys.
Charlie’s heart was slamming against his ribcage as he walked swiftly up his driveway, noticing that the curtains had been pulled shut the whole time and hadn’t moved when the shuttle pulled up. The truck wasn’t outside at all, and Charlie worried briefly that Natalie wasn’t home—then the anxiety bled away, and he realized he was feeling relief at the possibility that Nat was already far away from the potentially dangerous storm brewing for them on the horizon. He hesitated as he slipped his key into the door, tension knotting his heavy bicep before turning the handle and pushing the thick oak door inward and stepping inside, closing it almost as quickly as he’d opened it.
“Nat?”
His voice echoed uncomfortably in the house, and the terse syllable hit his ears with the force of a gunshot. Something wasn’t right; as his eyes adjusted to the artificial darkness the blackout curtains provided, he realized that all the furniture in their wide living room was covered in a thick layer of dust. There were clear footprints crossing the dust on the wood floor, and some of the dirt seemed like it had been pushed around recently, but no weight had been put on the sofa, recliner, or coffee table for weeks. He called her name again and dropped his duffle bag as he crossed through the living room, shouldering through the swinging doors leading into the kitchen so fast he’d already zipped through the dining room by the time they swung closed again. The linoleum near the stove showed signs of foot traffic, and there was still a worn mat near the fridge, but otherwise, everything was bare and untouched. The chairs in the dining room were shoved under the table, and there was nothing in the cupboards. He spoke again, projecting his voice through the house without caring if any of the neighbors heard his panicked screech.
“Natalie!”
A solid thunk sounded below his feet, and Charlie froze, his breath coming hard and fast on the heels of a wave of anxiety. It sounded like someone slamming wood onto the earth beneath the floorboards. How?
“Nat?” He shouted again, feeling confusion start to mingle with the terror in his chest. Then the thunk came again, and this time, he saw a floorboard in the dining room fly a foot into the air near table before crashing back into place.
What the fuck?
Charlie dropped to his hands and knees and scrambled over to the section of floor, pressing his nose to the heavy piece of wood that he could now see was far cleaner than the rest of the space. He could smell chilly, stale air wafting up through the crack, and if he concentrated, he could hear the rattle of what had to be their old air conditioner pumping out a cool breeze. Charlie inhaled, filling his powerful lungs with as many particles as he could drag through his nose— and thought he caught a whiff of sharp, sweet smoke mixed in with the damp earth.
“Natalie,” Charlie murmured, and the board flew up again—but this time, he caught it with both hands and finally saw that it was a trapdoor with hinges buried in the wood. He propped it open and peered down as a dark brown ladder rose a few inches above the five-by-five-foot opening, trying to see down into the room that had to be twenty feet underground. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he finally saw her—bags u
nder her warm brown eyes, lips cracked, arms skinnier than they should have been, but beaming that soul-cracking smile that was all for him. She stepped back as he launched himself down the ladder, swinging the door shut above them and plunging them into darkness as a consequence.
“Sorry!” Charlie yelped, and he felt his hands brush across his wife’s knuckles as she scrambled to turn on a lamp. His heart caught in his throat, and the startled look on Natalie’s face when the lamp flared to life told him he was already tearing up. One of her hands went to her round belly as she stepped forward and extended the other, and Charlie placed his large, callused hand on top of hers as he pressed his jaw against the warmth of her smaller palm. She smiled at him as he turned his face inward to kiss her hand, and it lit up her tired features. Natalie was a foot shorter than Charlie, so she had to crane her neck and stretch to reach his face, but when she kissed him, he felt every shred of anxiety and darkness melt away from his body at once. He slipped both of his hands to her hips as she rubbed the nape of his neck, and a crackle of warm electricity surrounded their bodies as the energy of their beasts mingled together. When he pulled back, her tawny cheeks were flushed pink, and she was breathing hard; he pulled one of her soft brown curls with his fingers as he looked around.
“So,” he said, feigning an air of detachment. “Do you come here often?”
The laughter that poured from Natalie’s lips went a long way to loosen the death grip that fear had around his throat, and he finally got a good look at the room they were standing in. It was much larger than he first realized, with several moth-eaten partitions blocking parts of the room from view. It was eight feet long at least, and about half as wide—most of the front of their house must be above them. Though the floor was purely made of earth, there were wide plastic circles covering much of its surface, and the walls had been lined with a slick, shiny material.