The Aberrants Box Set (Books 1-5)

by Sarah J. Stone

  Hawks were another matter entirely, however, and she tried to keep her senses attuned to the skies above her. The last thing she wanted was for a raptor to carry her off in her claws and force her to return to her human form where she could be spotted.

  It was a strange echo of her time as a female cayote. But instead of peeing on everything in the hopes of distracting a gang of ne’er do wells, she was blitzing to a prison that was on fire and hoping no one would notice.

  Okay, so her plan wasn’t that much better than Bradley’s, but it involved a lot less gunfire. It seemed that the Shifter tendency to neglect guns did not transfer over to their prison system.

  She wished she knew what kind of people were on the other side of the bars. That would ease much of her tension. Sure, it was supposed to be the worst of the worst, those too dangerous to let the regular penal system punish, but she had no way of knowing if that was true. What if it was just as false as the Clan Leaders’ beliefs about Aberrants? What if it was filled with just minor drug offences and other trivial violations like human prisons?

  She wasn’t sure if that would be a bad thing or not. On one hand, it would make Creed’s plan fall apart. On the other, it would mean that if any sort of fight went down, a lot of people who didn’t deserve it were going to die.

  Not exactly the most encouraging line of thought, but she pushed through it and kept going. She just had a little longer to go until she would reach a rocky outcropping, and then she could change forms to something that would get a bit of a better visual.

  She continued to wind forward, her tube-shaped muscles sending her skittering across the sands until she was finally under the shade of the rocks. She waited a few moments, thoroughly scenting the air before sliding into her human body.

  God! She hadn’t realized how hot it was in her snake form. Sweat instantly dripped from her brow and she found herself regretting the jeans and thick shirt she wore. Breathing deeply, she concentrated on another form and felt her body compress into an even smaller form of a horned lizard.

  The good thing was average Shifters didn’t come in forms smaller than a cat or a small dog, so if the prison was being run by the appropriate staff, they wouldn’t be suspicious of a lizard running around.

  The bad thing was Creed knew that she could take any number of forms, including smaller ones, so if he was in charge, his new minions would be on high alert. She would just have to hope that he hadn’t had a chance to fully brief everyone on her abilities and they would fall back onto their general Shifter knowledge, again resulting in them ignoring her.

  Too much of her life had come down to gambles lately, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. If she survived this whole ordeal, she would never enjoy cards or any other sort of chance game again.

  Once she had her new body fully under control, she scuttled forward surprisingly quickly for being such a tiny thing. Her feet almost flew across the sand, barely able to feel that it was scalding hot compared to her cold-blooded body.

  Finally, she was close enough to get a good look. Sure enough, there was a fire raging, but it seemed to be in the center of the yard and not coming from the building. She paused on a rock, trying to act lizardy as she attempted to scope out more details.

  But there was only so much she could gather from where she was, so she moved forward again, pretending to go for a bug and missing it. She doubted anyone was paying attention to her, but she wanted to be careful just in case.

  After what seemed like forever, she made it to a vantage point where she could actually make out some details. Perched in the branches of a leafless bush, she scoped out the area.

  She could see that all of the fences surrounding the place were still up, but there did look to be one section that was a completely different color than the rest. It must have been replaced recently and the metal hadn’t had a chance to be scrubbed smooth by the sand in the wind or bleached by the relentless sun.

  The smell of smoke reminded her of the raging bonfire and she peered at that, hoping she could make out more details. At first, it looked like just a bunch of oddly shaped lumps of fabric. But after a second, she realized they were prisoner uniforms, still quite occupied by bodies inside of them.

  She would have gasped if she had the physiology to do so. For one sickening breath, she was afraid that they were burning alive, but she quickly realized that none of them were moving.

  So, they were already dead. That was…good? Maybe? Hard to say. But if there was a huge pile of Shifter prisoners currently roasting into a fine ash, then something terrible must have happened.

  She was guessing Creed. But since there were still guards patrolling the perimeter, and the casualties were all prisoners, maybe he had lost?

  There was only one way to figure it out. She rushed forward, zig-zagging across the sand, like she hoped a wild animal would do. After all, straight lines didn’t really exist in the wild.

  Every moment that she was moving, she was afraid that some predator was going to swoop down from above, or one of the guards would notice her and open fire. But she made it all the way to the fence without drawing a single eye.

  With her little heart racing, she scuttled toward a vent she saw against the bottom of a wall. Slipping inside, she dropped down several feet and landed hard. Frozen, she waited for an attack that never came. Once panic faded from her very tiny brain, she concentrated enough to try to see if she could sense anyone else in the room. All she got was a whole bunch of water, however, and not a single other soul.

  Carefully, she slid back into her human form. There was a whole bunch of popping and cracking, and her entire body was covered in sweat. One of the less than enjoyable effects of switching from cold- to warm-blooded, but not the worst she had ever experienced. That had been when she was seventeen and once took on the form of a Monitor Lizard overnight, even sleeping in it. In retrospect, that had been a terrible mistake, but live and learn, as it were.

  She stood on shaky legs, looking around with Shifter eyes. She was in some sort of dark, damp room. It seemed almost like some sort of washing station but it obviously hadn’t been used in ages. Maybe this was where they sprayed down Shifters who came in with louse and other parasites? She couldn’t be sure.

  But thankfully she had been right about being alone. Stumbling to the door, she pressed her ear to it and listened.

  She didn’t hear any sort of conversation going on outside the door, but there were plenty of footsteps. After a few minutes, she heard them go through one full cycle of their patrols.

  Thankfully, the air was so dank and damp where she was that she couldn’t smell a thing, which meant they couldn’t smell her, either. But she didn’t count on that holding for too long. She needed to catch her breath and take on her next form.

  She took another half minute, concentrating, then compressed right back down, fur rippling across her body until she was in the body of a mouse.

  Her little heart was hammering away from the start, but mostly because that’s what mouse hearts did. The footsteps that she had heard before were now like cymbals crashing against each other, and she waited until the timing was right before skittering out into the hall.

  Because even if they didn’t know she was an Aberrant, some Shifters still didn’t like rodents invading on their territory. It would be terrible luck to get past all the security just to end up crunched under someone’s boots.

  She made it across the corridor without any world-ending stomps, and shimmied along the wall, trying to find some sort of gap she could press herself into. She managed to spot one eventually, toward the base of a heater, and squeezed in.

  She found herself in a little channel and heaved a tiny sigh of relief, although it came out as much more of a squeak than anything else. She needed to be quiet, lest she attract some type of unwanted attention.

  Wiggling through the walls was a whole lot of work and she didn’t exactly have an idea where she was going. Just someplace where there would be talking, sh
e guessed, hoping to overhear something that would give her a greater clue as to what was going on.

  Yet, no matter what open channel she ran through, no matter where she dashed, everything was pretty much dead silent. If it weren’t for the sounds of breathing and people shuffling about, she would have thought she was alone.

  Finally, she heard a murmur off in the distance, the first spoken words that had been uttered since she entered. She changed directions, skittering toward the sound.

  It took her across a great deal of space, and she got the feeling she was very much in the heart of the prison. If her stomach was a bit larger, it probably would have twisted painfully at the realization. But what was she going to do, turn tail and run without any sort of conclusive answer? Especially since the Hunters had been saying such nice things about her? Definitely not.

  They liked her. They trusted her. And she didn’t want to let them down.

  The voices grew in volume but not in clarity. She guessed her mousy ears were designed to sense all sorts of pitches and frequencies, but not exactly human speech. She would have to get closer and then try to see if she could understand them then.

  She sensed a crack to her right and wiggled out. She was in another empty room again, that was a good sign.

  She did a full lap around the walls and didn’t sense anyone around. Only large cabinets, which she guessed held all sorts of files.

  Slowly, carefully, she returned to her human form once more.

  While it was hard to control what position she ended up in, she fought to try to make sure she was crouched when her human body came under her control. She was somewhat successful, but her legs wobbled a little, sending her toppling forward.

  She caught herself on her hands and knees, listening intently. She could hear the voices better now, but the words were still bordering on unintelligible. It sounded like English, not another language, but she just couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  She crept forward, locating that the sound was coming from just behind the metal door to her left. Something about the whole situation was puzzling, but she couldn’t quite figure out what.

  Holding her breath and praying she didn’t make the tiniest of noises, she tip-toed to the door, trying to mask her scent as best she could, before pressing an ear to it.

  That was her mistake.

  Electricity shot through her, making her entire body lock up and spasm. Fire flooded her vision and she let out a warbling cry.

  Fighting to get control, she slammed all of her weight into the door, trying to free herself from the current running to her. Both she and the partition fell into the room, landing with a jolt on the floor, but no less electricity coursing through her.

  Shaking violently, she looked up to see she was in some sort of interrogation like room with only a single table and two chairs. And on that table sat a simple tape recorder playing the garbled voices.

  “S-shit,” she managed to spit out.

  A trap.

  Her eyes rolled back as the lightning within her increased and the world started to slip away. As she lost her grip, she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what would be waiting for her when she awoke next.

  Chapter Seven: Interview with a Mad Man

  Jaelle woke up sorer than she had been in ages. She didn’t even think recovering from her time as a Wendigo, or digging all those graves was as bad. She tried to move her head, but the muscles seemed locked stiff.

  And why was it so cold?

  Bit by agonizing bit, she focused on relaxing and pushing through the pain. She wasn’t quite sure exactly how long it took, but quite a while later she was able to slowly push herself up into a sitting position.

  Wherever she was, it was dark but not completely lightless. She could make out four solid walls and one of those intense metal doors with no handles—all covered in a thin layer of frost.

  Frost?

  For that matter, her breath was also coming out in foggy puffs, sparkling white in her vision before dissipating. Why was it so cold in the room?

  She didn’t know, but she quickly thought of something warm and cuddly that she could slip into. She braced herself, ready for the feeling of shifting to slide over her, but nothing happened.

  Crap. Could it be… She took a sniff of the air to find that she could smell almost nothing. Concentrating on her hearing, she realized she couldn’t hear much either.

  “Wolfsbane,” she muttered, cursing to herself.

  It made sense that a Shifter prison would have such precautions, so maybe they didn’t necessarily know who she was? Maybe they thought she was one of those crazy people who wrote love letters to criminals who had busted in for a conjugal visit. But how long could she keep that particular charade up? Surely, they would ask who eventually and realize that she had no idea who the hell was being held in the walls.

  She tried to think of a story, worried that at any moment someone would come in and start an interrogation, but she was left alone and shivering for quite a long time.

  The tips of her fingers turned numb and she had the impression that her lips were quickly going blue. With wolfsbane weakening her, she was beginning to worry about the possibilities of hypothermia. She wasn’t quite human, but she didn’t have all of her natural Shifter abilities.

  But the lock clicked impossibly loud and the door creaked like it hadn’t been oiled since the invention of the modern hinge. It opened slowly, dramatically, and made Jaelle want to punt it across a field.

  The warm air that flooded in was practically sinful, and she gasped accordingly. Blinking over entirely too cold eyes, she squinted at the entryway.

  She couldn’t make out much beyond a massive form within the frame of the door before it was stepping forward and grabbing her.

  She tried to fight, but it was like her body was locked in slow motion. That was probably for the better, anyways. She needed to conserve her energy and wait until the wolfsbane wore off.

  The man threw her over his shoulders, his broad shoulder pressing into her middle and driving what little air she had out of her body.

  She couldn’t make out much, her eyes still struggling to adjust to the blinding light pouring in through the windows. Once more she was reminded how much she hated the dull senses and bag over the head feeling that the tiny little herb gave her. Normally she was all about preserving ecosystems, but she wouldn’t exactly mind wiping that particular plant out of existence.

  She bounced along on his shoulder for several minutes until finally she was deposited none too gently onto a table.

  Blinking rapidly, she tried to place any of her surroundings, but everything was still fuzzy as the door was slammed shut and she was left alone.

  She felt around feebly, trying to sort out her surroundings but her body wasn’t having it. As her hands flopped about, she found the back of a chair and helped herself into it. Sitting there, her mind tried to catch up with what was going on.

  Everything was… strange. Everything about this was strange. Why wasn’t anybody talking? If the guards were still running the place, there should have been plenty of hub-bub and they would be asking her tons of questions. If the prisoners or Creed was running the show, then why was the prison still in order?

  Either nothing was making sense or being unconscious in that cold, wolfsbane infused room was addling her mind more than usual.

  Also… she still couldn’t see clearly. She was guessing that her sight wasn’t going to return until she could heal again, and she couldn’t rightly do that while still being so effected by the stupid herb.

  The door opened again and before she could turn, a blanket was draped over her shoulders.

  “You’re looking a bit thin nowadays.” She heard a familiar voice and tension lashed up her spine. “Are they treating you right?”

  She tried to think of an answer but her throat was still raw and her mind was still panicked to see none other than Creed sit down across from her, a steaming mug in either hand.


  “Oh, geeze, the cold room really did a number on you, didn’t it?” He slid her one of the drinks carefully.

  She could only nod slowly and she grabbed the mug with a shaking hand. Bringing it to her mouth, the warm drink was like heaven as it went down her throat and into her belly.

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll break out now that I’m away from it?” She murmured, deciding to test the waters.

  “I would be, perhaps, if I wasn’t stronger than you. Besides…” He took a long sip of his drink. Or at least she thought that’s what she saw. Everything was still blurry, like she was looking through a glass filled with water. “Your drink is laced with wolfsbane.”

  She paused, looking down at the drink. Of course, it was. “I couldn’t smell it,” she said halfheartedly. “Because my senses are already dulled.”

  “Bingo,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “So, you might as well drink up.”

  He had a point, so she shrugged and gulped it down. Although she was basically a human now, at least the cold was starting to fade from her bones.

  “There you are. I’ll see what kind of food I can have my men rustle up for you.”

  “Your men?” she rasped, her voice beginning to return.

  “Oh, right! I suppose you want a bit of an explanation.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

  His face lit up and if this were any other situation, he would just look like a young man who was excited to show off something he collected for fun, and not copious amounts of murder. “Okay, so you’re going to love this. It’s very you.”

  “Is it?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “Absolutely. Okay, so I was doing all this reconnaissance in the desert and I got their patrol down to a T, a T I tell you. I snuck in, using the form of a mouse—great minds thing alike by the way—and traveled all over the place. It had to have spent… geeze, a week just listening. Learning.” He leaned forward, eyes shining. “I learned the most in the office of the Warden. He was a pleasant fellow, as far as they go. A mountain lion—you don’t see many of those anymore, and impeccably organized. When he left to go home at night, I helped myself to all of his files and learned how this place ran.”