by R. J. Blain
I growled a few curses at my fiancé for waking me. As my cat had done her job, he got up and fed her wet food, and he got five strokes before she turned back an ear and hissed a warning.
“You taught her to warn?” I blurted.
“And she gives me extra strokes now, too. It’s time to get up and have breakfast. A new toy is going to be arriving in a few minutes, and I can’t wait to hear you cry and wail over it.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“I’m going to enjoy it, but I suspect you will not.”
“Ah, so it’s a toy for you and a torture device for me. Probably in the form of portable exercise machine?” I wouldn’t enjoy the amount of walking I needed to do each day to keep my foot limber, nor would I enjoy the monthly checkups until it was certain my foot wouldn’t mystically redevelop a bone-deep infection. “I seem to have passed out at Dr. Castor’s home.”
“Yep. Dad conked out, too. I thought about conking out, but I got saddled with driving us back because you and Dad were both out for the night. I read a book for an hour afterwards before joining you in the land of good sleep. Dad’s doing great. His blood pressure is stable at the low but safe end of the spectrum. Dr. Castor is preparing to return to Europe, but I’ve been texting with her. After you crashed out on her couch, she told us more of the story—and how she’d convinced you to go along with the kidnapping and treatments. She said you were fully aware you’d be having your memory wiped and why.”
“Can I make a guess?”
“Of course.”
“Chronic pain and illness is really difficult to cope with, and she wanted to give me the best chances to be able to recover.”
“That’s pretty close to the truth. Wiping your memory daily let her accomplish a great deal more. Unfortunately, she underestimated how social you are despite having introverted tendencies, and while they were wiping the daily memories, you apparently had a somewhat innate ability to detect the passage of time. Every day, you became more despondent. Dr. Castor did the best she could to provide you with company, as did the rest of your medical staff, but you wanted to go home, and once they started the wipes, you lost the connection to why things were happening.”
I winced. “That sounds like a disaster.”
“Yeah. Dr. Castor didn’t enjoy having to introduce herself to you each morning, either. There is some bad news.”
I stiffened. “What bad news?”
“She was only responsible for a few of the attempted kidnappings. Two of them were not her or anyone associated with her. She had a list of dates marked to go over with us. The gas bomb incident was her, though, which made Mom feel better about it. It turns out they meant to grab me and Ren, and they’d release you into the wild through having us rescue you. We kept interfering with their plans, resulting in them letting you go and having you wander to the library. Knowing that, I have regrets my father’s security team interfered.”
“Okay. I can respect and understand that. But who else would want you and why?”
“Well, I’m rich and handsome. I’m sure those are two reasons why someone might want to kidnap me.”
I eyed him, as while he didn’t quite match society’s standards for a hot man, all he had to do was walk on by while wearing anything—or nothing—to rev my engine. “I couldn’t care less about the rich part, but I find myself unable to dispute the handsome part. I’m concerned your mother was willing to cut a thirty million dollar check, by the way.”
“Yeah, that was unexpected. I figured she’d lead the charge accusing Dr. Castor, but just asking to cut a check caught me by surprise. I figured Mom would pounce somehow, but how she pounced was ruthless even for her. No prisoners, Janette. And no damage to Dr. Castor’s wallet, either. However, I’m concerned that there are at least five politicians who were at least somewhat in on your disappearance and recovery.”
“Do you think they can be trusted?”
“I think Dr. Castor has put us in a position where we’re forced to find out. What we don’t know is why you’ve become such an important player in this game. Why would you, an exsanguinator best known for volunteering in a hospital, be barred from military service? Dr. Castor seems to think the barring, which we have in writing and notarized, might have been pushed forward by someone who isn’t actually aware of your record or personality.”
“Because in reality, I am suitable for the military and warfare, assuming you ignore my general tendency to want to save lives rather than take them.”
“Dr. Castor thinks your relentless drive to save lives would sink their ship, especially since everyone now knows you exist and will be following you to see what you do. I’m marrying quite the celebrity, and you’re a celebrity because you’re selfless, kind, and everything a knight in shining armor should be. I’m happy to play your damsel-in-distress, by the way. That said, I could live without the relentless crush of romance being flung my way.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Everyone knows you did everything in your power to make sure I walked away from that accident, even at the cost of your own life. Then I spent the next few years searching for you. Then we got engaged. We’re hot on the celebrity gossip rags right now. Handsome millionaire falls in love with his bodyguard. Then the bodyguard proves to be a repeat heroine. Handsome millionaire then pines for missing fiancée for months. And don’t get me started on those women who wanted to help me heal from your disappearance.”
“Don’t get me started on them, either,” I grumbled.
He chuckled, and a knock at the door put an end to the talk. Ajani confirmed no interlopers planned to steal either of us away before she took over a bed and went to work washing her face.
“Breakfast is served,” Bradley announced, bringing me a covered dish. “In my infinite wisdom, I ordered you pancakes and bacon, and I ordered extra bacon for your enjoyment. There’s even maple syrup, which you can steal from me. I resisted the urge to indulge in butter, however much I direly want it.”
Poor Bradley. “You wouldn’t like the next few hours if you had the butter.”
“It’s like I learned through bitter experience or something. So, I’ve been volunteered to face your wrath—or seduce you into a good mood. Honestly, I’m fine with both as long as we handle everything in that order.”
“Wait. I can rage for a bit, and then you’ll seduce me into a good mood?”
“That’s my current plan, yes.”
“Okay. Why do you think I’m going to rage?”
“I think you’re going to rage a bit because there are some hurt feelings you cooperated with your kidnappers.”
As I could understand that, I nodded. “I’m prepared to deal with the consequences of that. But honestly, I have thirty million reasons I cooperated, plus it was, from my understanding of the situation, my best chance of getting my life—and my foot—back. Now I can be a librarian who volunteers at the hospital because I want to, not because I’m a chickenshit who is trying to hide.”
“Honestly, I’m still a little annoyed you didn’t just come home, but I was mostly responsible for that. I foolishly challenged you. I should have just invited you home to be seduced.”
I spent a few minutes considering that, eating my bacon and shooting him glares, debating what I would have done if he’d invited me home to be seduced instead of challenging me to return in my prime. “That would have stood a decent chance of working,” I admitted.
“Meridian thinks Dr. Castor is correct, especially since her uncle has indicated they’re all being more closely tracked. Their documents have all been altered now to be unique; they’ve been comparing their copies and tracking the differences, so she won’t be able to provide us with anything other than an overview now.”
“That’s not good.”
“Yeah. We’re going to have to start making better use of our status as an investigator cell before the status is revoked, and I think Dr. Castor is right, too. We need to look into these politicians—
and liberate any documents we can to get a better idea of what’s going on. If we’re able to get multiple copies of the same documents, we might be able to mask who the document belongs to, protecting them while we expose what’s going on in our government. It’s clear our government has fallen prey to corruption and greed.”
“It fell prey a long time ago—when the contracting system was enacted and our society essentially legalized slavery.”
Bradley nodded his agreement. “And it’s been long enough since the system was implemented that we’ve forgotten just what we lost when they changed how the government worked. We’re going to have to study the United States before the aptitude system was implemented, who was responsible for the aptitude system, and how the aptitude system led to the contracting system. History might be able to help us figure out how to prevent the next stage of the government’s transition. Because I don’t think any Americans are going to be winning if the current rumored legislation slips through the President’s desk for signing. I mean, I guess the higher ups in the military win, since that’s the only goal that makes sense for what we know of the proposed changes so far.”
“Or population control,” I grumbled.
“Or population control, although wouldn’t it be just easier to brainwash the current kids that birth control and not having kids is life, with only certain families being pressured to reproduce?” With a shrug, he chomped on a piece of his bacon. “I feel like the more we learn, the less we actually know, and honestly, this is starting to seriously piss me off.”
“I’m not raging yet, Bradley.” I pointed a piece of my bacon at him, and he snapped his teeth at it. I dodged his first attempt, but as I found his attempts to steal my food amusing, I allowed him to catch the piece on his second try. “I mean, I don’t disagree with you. We need to know why the government would restrict my ability to get medical care, why Dr. Castor thinks I can really make a difference, and what our next step should be.”
“Our next step is simple. We meet with every damned politician who has sent you a card, where we learn what we can from them after we talk among ourselves to try to figure out what questions we need to ask. Once we’ve conducted the interviews, we’ll see what we’ve learned. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to pilfer some of the documentation so we can make sense of this secret legislature Dr. Castor told us about. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.”
“I guess something good did come of this,” I stated, rotating the ankle of my right foot and observing how the scars stretched. “I mean, beyond my foot being more than just a severe pain and a liability.”
“What good has come of this?”
“We have a direction and a cause. I dislike it comes with a clear and present danger to the American people. Now we know more about why we’re fighting, and without that, all we were doing was casting wishes into the ocean in hope of catching some fish.”
“Having a cause capable of unifying us is important,” he replied. “But more importantly, we have you back, and that’s the most important thing of all. My only regret is I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most.”
“But you were,” I protested.
“Was I?”
“You were there when I needed you the most. You came when I called, and you didn’t give up on me.”
“Many did,” he warned.
“But they’re not you. I’m not marrying them, Bradley. I’m marrying you. But I kept my word. I didn’t run this time, and when I doubted I could handle things on my own, I emailed you.”
“Why didn’t you call, by the way? I’m sure the library would have let you call me.”
My face flushed. “I couldn’t remember your number, and by the time I got logged into my email, I figured I’d just email you. And I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.” I grimaced, and I bowed my head. “I may not have thought about just calling you, even if I could remember your number, which I don’t.”
“Okay. That’s fair. Please try to memorize my number later. In the meantime, I’m afraid I have you scheduled in for a seduction.”
“Don’t you threaten me with a good time, Bradley Hampton.”
“If I haven’t told you this already, it bears repeating. It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”
I got up, grabbed a bathrobe, wrapped up in it, and went to the door to hang the do not disturb sign so nobody would interrupt us. “Tell me more.”
“I’d rather show you instead.”
About R.J. Blain
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A complete list of books written by RJ and her various pen names is available at https://www.thesneakykittycritic.com/complete-list-of-books-by-year-of-publication/
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RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.
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When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter.
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In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.
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RJ also writes as Susan Copperfield and Bernadette Franklin. Visit RJ and her pets (the Management) at thesneakykittycritic.com.
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From Outfoxed
Outfoxed
The Fox Witch | Book One
By R.J. Blain
* * *
From Chapter One…
Friday, May 1, 2043.
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Alley.
* * *
I’d been in the Alley long enough to understand only one thing mattered when faced with yet another twister: survival. The swarm of them headed for Tulsa roared, warning all of their impending arrival. The incessant crash of thunder accompanied the lightning, which struck with such frequency the dark clouds glowed white. I decided to stop counting after five funnels; one, five, ten—it didn’t matter how many of them snaked down from the sky. If one of them got a hold of me, I’d just be another corpse strewn over the Alley. A day didn’t go by when I didn’t cross a new skeleton in the outskirts.
Death was a way of life outside of the safety of Inner Tulsa.
Another twister joined the party, bringing a cascade of hail with it.
Great. Just great. What was one more? Hadn’t Mother Nature figured out she didn’t need to fling everything she had at Tulsa? A single tornado would’ve done the job just fine.
A few minutes too late to do me any good, the lightning-lit clouds turned a putrid shade of green, a promise that Mother Nature wasn’t screwing around this time. Green meant go, and if I’d had any sense in my head at all, I wouldn’t have left shelter at sunrise; I would’ve stayed in hiding until right before work. Everything would’ve been different if I’d just slept in rather than explore the ruins of Tulsa’s outskirts for salvage.
If I hadn’t been looking for salvage, I wouldn’t have been spotted by the tall, dark, and handsome hot on my heels and determined to ruin my day if he caught up with me.
The swarm would cause me enough problems, but if the bounty hunter caught me, I’d be in worse shape.
Some choices in life were tough, and I hated myself for even contemplating taking my chances with the bounty hunter. Losing my freedom for profit could be reversed.
Nothing could reverse death.
I flattened my ears, and I lashed my tail back and forth, the rain whipping off it. While I was part fox, I’d adopted more feline tendencies than canine ones. And according to the tail and
ears I couldn’t banish with any amount of magic, I was definitely a cat trapped in a partly canine body.
I could shift into a full fox, a secret I held close to my chest. The instant anyone learned the truth, I’d go from a common annoyance to a desirable. Nobody cared about powerless hybrids.
Everybody wanted full shapeshifters in their bloodlines, and I had enough trouble without every wealthy single man on the planet wanting to claim me as his wife.
Since six twisters wasn’t enough, the churning clouds spawned two more, and with unerring accuracy, they surged towards the city in a wall of churning wind, rain, and hail.
Tornado season had come, and it looked like it was going to open with a bang.
I skidded around a corner of a destroyed home, a victim of a twister a few months back, before the sky had opted to give us a break for a change. Shacks had sprouted like persistent little weeds, but I expected none of them would survive the storm. I worried for their inhabitants, but if they had half a brain, they’d take shelter in a cellar.
If they didn’t, they’d add to the bodies littering the dying suburban streets.
While I had the advantage of knowledge, the bounty hunter had me beat everywhere else, and he snagged the back of my shirt, yanked hard enough to cut off my breath, and slammed me into the broken brick of the trashed house. “Are you insane?” he screamed over the wind. “You’re not supposed to run towards tornadoes, you little idiot!”
I blinked, checked where I’d been running, and sure enough, Mother Nature had truly tired of my shit, opting to dump another handful of twisters directly into my path. When the twisters converged, probably where we were standing, it’d puree the neighborhood and leave matchsticks in their wake.