Chapter 11
Tina fumed in the corner as Black Feather smiled in her direction. He was dressed in one of his few t-shirts, and the missing sleeves belied his recent tax payment. Of course, he was enough of a jerk that it actually looked good on him as it highlighted his muscles. It took all of Tina’s strength not to roll her eyes.
Behind him was Harper hiding under her wig and burning red with embarrassment as she sat on Tina’s cot. The only person who was happy to be in Tina’s house that morning was the slimy boy who had discovered their secret. He cocked his head to the side and smiled even wider.
“Now,” he said, “why do you two look so unhappy to see me? Because I found Harper? It was bound to happen; everyone and their cousin is looking for her. Grey even has a taskforce of fliers that have taken to the skies to search for the First Daughter. It’s very important that she gets home.” He paused and turned to Harper. “That is, if she wants to go.”
Tina stepped forward, confused. “What do you mean, if she wants to? What choice does she have?”
“Maybe I could give her neck a nibble and turn her into a shifter.” Black Feather turned to Harper who reared back in disgust. “What? Isn’t that why you’re here? Because you wish you were one of us?”
“That’s not true,” Harper whispered.
“Then why did you risk your life for a little party?” Black Feather moved forward and sat far too close to their visitor so that she couldn’t escape his gaze. “Why run away from home, defy your father, and let a whole sector of his security guards chase you if all you wanted was to come by and have a drink?” He looked over at Tina. “Maybe you should let her live here with you. She can be our token human here on the compound.”
“Stop it,” Tina demanded. “She just needed a break. If your life was anything like hers, you’d be a murderer by now. Her trip out of the palace was just a little rebellion.”
Black Feather turned to Harper again, but she couldn’t stand it anymore. She quickly stood up and walked away, not even limping. Tina smiled at the sight of her friend walking perfectly, but there was no time to enjoy it. They had to get their human home.
“Look,” she said to Black Feather, “if you’re going to bother us, help us get her home. Do you have any actual ideas?”
“I don’t want to help,” Black Feather scoffed. “I’m much more interested in turning her in. I could probably get a reward out of it.”
“What? No!” Harper ran back to Black Feather. She grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “You can’t do that. Law enforcement will come down on the compound. They’ll blame the shifters for everything. Your families could be killed!”
“Or,” Black Feather interrupted, stroking her face, “we could be the saviors – the good guys who found you. This could change everything.” He sidled a bit closer to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Maybe,” he said softly, “you could announce that you’ve fallen in love with an airborne, and that’s why you did all this.” He slid his hand onto her leg. “I’ll see to it you have the ride of your life.”
Tina watched all of this with her mouth open in shock. She waited for Harper to jump up and demand Black Feather leave her alone, but Harper didn’t move. She just stared at the floor as if she were considering all of this nonsense. “Harper!” Tina’s friend looked up at her with big, watery eyes.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said softly, tears falling from her eyes. “I mean, maybe if the shifters appeared to rescue me, it could, I don’t know…”
Tina crossed the room and shook Harper’s shoulders. “Don’t listen to this idiot! We don’t know what anyone might do, and that includes your father. Maybe he’s right, but maybe he is wrong. What if no one bothers asking how you ended up here, and they just set our whole compound on fire? What if we all go to jail, you included? We have to be careful. You’re too important for any of us to be sloppy right now.”
Harper seemed to come back to reality. She looked at Black Feather and scowled. She stood and joined Tina, forgetting the annoying boy who wanted to scare her into dating him.
“Alright, I get it. What can we do?”
Tina sighed and looked at the floor. “I don’t know. I want to talk to Larissa and see if she can help.”
A snort came from Black Feather behind them. “That weirdo? What’s she gonna do?”
“Something besides try and scare us, or tell a bunch of lies to make herself look like a hero,” Tina snapped. “By the way: leave.” She pointed to the door.
“If I go,” he retorted, “I am heading straight to the nearest law enforcement officer and telling that LEO everything. The real truth – that the president’s daughter snuck out, stole a car, was trapped by an earthquake, and hid in a shifter house – is not going to go over well.”
Tina shook her head in disgust. “What happened to you? Did your mama bird drop you out of the sky when you were a baby?”
He laughed. “It probably happened. But it has nothing to do with anything. I just want to see what will happen when I turn you all in.”
The two girlfriends looked at one another and shook their heads in resignation. Tina got an idea and looked over at Black Feather.
“Alright, smart guy,” she said, sauntering over to him. “How about this; we help you look like a hero, but you keep your mouth shut about the truth. Harper gets home, you get the praise, and none of the shifters go to jail.”
Black Feather leaned back on his elbows, smiled up at her, and took his time taking in her exposed skin under her minimal clothing. “Anything else?”
She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
Tina looked at him – she could do worse. Black Feather had nothing going for him in the personality department, but he looked alright. Sure, everyone would know all the details, but he’d be close by for her to keep an eye on, while she got Harper home and made sure nothing went awry.
“Fine,” she told him. “You get one night.”
He raised his eyebrows. “One night? Not much of an offer. How about we become a couple?”
“Tina, don’t!”
The wolf shifter looked back at her friend, who was watching all of this in horror and chewed her bottom lip. She regarded Black Feather again and got a spark of inspiration.
“How about this,” she tried. “We spend one night together as a kind of audition. If we have a good time, we enjoy ourselves, and nothing too crazy or rude happens, we’ll be a couple. But if you go blabbing to your friends, ask me to do anything gross or weird, it’s off.”
Black Feather put a hand to his chest in a fake demonstration of his affection. “I will be a complete gentleman. You won’t even recognize me.”
“I believe that.”
Tina turned back to Harper, feeling rather accomplished, but the sight of her friend’s disgust threw her. “What? We need him on our side. You heard him before – he’s happy to turn us in.”
Harper opened her mouth to say something, then closed it before she could do any damage. Sighing, she walked over to the fire pit and sat on a boulder. Tina walked over and joined her. Black Feather stayed where he was, but laid back to look up at the ceiling, so the girls couldn’t see the massive smile on his face.
The two friends kept trying to come up with a plan, some way to get Harper home without getting herself, or anyone else, in too much trouble, but the two were completely blocked.
“Where’s Larissa?” Harper asked. Tina just shrugged.
“It’s anyone’s guess. She likes to disappear. I have a theory she knows some humans in the city that she spends time with, but I don’t really know.” She picked up a little piece of coal from the fire and drew a square on the floor. “How’s your leg?”
“Perfect. Honestly, I can’t believe just yesterday it was broken.”
“Yeah. Dr. Jade is the best.” She stopped drawing and looked at Harper’s leg, touching it gently. “What do humans do when they break a bone?”
“We use these things called casts,” Harper explained. “They’re stiff, white bandages that a doctor wraps around your arm or leg, and then you have to wait a long time for the bone to heal by itself. Sometimes it takes a couple of months.”
“Sounds awful.”
“It is.”
The two fell silent and looked around them at the empty space. Harper pulled her ridiculous wig off and played with the curls for a moment. From over on the bed, Black Feather sat up.
“You know,” he said, “a cast could be used somehow.”
“How?” Harper looked up from her messy wig. “My leg’s not even broken anymore.”
“Right, but maybe we could claim the kidnappers broke your leg and panicked. They hid you near the compound, and that’s where I found you.” He got excited and began gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “If you have a cast on your leg and look really pathetic and injured,” he continued, “your father won’t be angry. He’ll just be glad they didn’t do anything worse. Then, I’ll look like the hero, who got you home and helped the president. You can say the kidnappers got scared and ran off beyond the boundary when they saw the news. It could work!”
“Wait, wait,” Tina stopped him. “Won’t they be able to tell that her leg is healthy somehow? I mean, a human doctor will check her out eventually, right?” She turned to Harper for confirmation, and her friend nodded.
“We have a special machine called an x-ray that can see through the body,” she said, thoroughly frustrated. “They’ll know I’m lying in a few minutes, and then I’ll be in real trouble because everyone will start to demand to know what I’m hiding. It would be a mess.”
“A machine that can see through the body,” Black Feather said in a snarky tone. “You’re making that up.”
Harper shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but I’m telling you; they will know. We have the best doctors available, living at the palace. Even without a machine, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell that I’m fine.”
“Darn it. Oh well. Next plan.” Tina and Harper went on scheming, but Black Feather decided to take a nap. Tina glanced over at him as he started snoring. “My true love.”
“You’re not actually going through with…um, you know…with him? He’s disgusting!”
“Look,” Tina said, “we all have to do things we’re not proud of sometimes. Especially shifters. You saw Graham yesterday. He’s going around, cutting shifters’ clothes off of them for no real reason. You think he wants that job? He only took it because he has a hungry bear-shifter son and wife to feed. The department that makes us work against each other is the only one that pays a decent wage. Even Grey brings home less than Graham does, I’m sure.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it is. So, if I only have to have a short, awful time with that jerk, well,” Tina shrugged, “I guess I’ll live.”
“You’re so brave,” Harper told her. “I never want to get involved with a boy. Ever.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because,” Harper said, almost laughing at the idea, “anyone who gets anywhere near me, has to have their whole life taken away. They’ll have to have a security detail, answer constant questions from my father, do whatever the palace officials tells him to do. It would be horrible.”
Tina just shrugged at this description. “So, get a secret boyfriend.”
“Ha! Yeah, like who?”
Just then, the friends heard footsteps behind them. Harper quickly reached for her wig, but it was too late. The visitor had already seen her without it. It was Grey, another boy from the party, and this one looked very serious at the sight of the two girls talking by an empty fire pit.
“Uh…Tina?” Grey stepped a little closer “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”
Tina jumped up and stood in front of Harper. “Hey! What’s up, Grey? I heard you got some special job from the president himself. Well done!”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He stepped to the side and looked around Tina’s shoulders at the now wig-covered Harper. “So, Evelyn. Or Harper. Or whatever name you’re going by these days – you want to tell me what you’re doing here?”
The disguised First Daughter stared straight ahead in horror. Grey’s stern and unhappy face stared straight at her as she studied the ashes and remains of the fire. She glanced over at him but still said nothing.
“Harper,” he repeated, “I know it’s you. Everyone is going insane looking for you. I’m supposed to be searching for you right now. So, can you at least tell me how you ended up in Tina’s house?”
“She was trapped by the earthquake and broke her leg,” Black Feather said from the other side of the room. The three turned to look back at him, but he was still reclining on Tina’s bed. “Tina took her in to take care of her. The doc came and healed Harper up. Now she needs to get home.”
The room went quiet again. Hearing her situation spoken so plainly had an odd effect on Tina; suddenly, it didn’t sound so bad. Hadn’t she just helped her friend? She’d been there when Harper needed a night out, and then came to the rescue when she was injured. She even brought in a doctor. Surely, any adult would agree she’d done the responsible thing – at least in the end.
“I screwed up,” Harper said quietly. “I wanted to have fun, and instead of just being honest, I went behind my father’s back while he was distracted by a big banquet. Then I put all of the shifters here in the compound in a very dangerous position by attending a party I shouldn’t have even gone to. I didn’t even know that earthquakes happened around here; I’d never felt one before. So, when it hit, I panicked and didn’t run like everyone else, and a rock broke my leg. Tina should have gone for help, but I insisted she hide me. I convinced her if I went home my father would kill me – literally kill me.”
Harper put her face in her hands as Tina rethought her previous stance on their situation. Suddenly, it all seemed very extreme and reckless. She hadn’t acted responsibly at all, just done what her friend had told her to do and nothing more. She suddenly had a stomachache.
“Hey, let me go get us some food.” She stood to go, but Grey stopped her.
“Here, my treat.” He peeled off a 20 Bachmann for her, and she froze at the sight of it.
“Geez, moneybags! Look at you throwing your wealth around. This will feed me for a week.” She happily went out the door and left Harper with the two other shifters without a thought. She knew Grey would make sure everyone behaved.
She ran up to the food shack and ordered a big platter of fried mouse and root vegetables. Larissa’s mom raised an eyebrow at her when she saw the 20 Bachmann note but didn’t ask any questions. She handed Tina a massive handful of change and only then did Tina realize she had no way to carry a bundle of coins and a big plate of food.
“Um…do you have a bag or anything?”
“I do but it will cost you.” Larissa’s mom stood stoically, waiting for Tina’s decision. She looked around and, seeing no alternative, nodded in agreement.
“Fine. How much?”
“Two Bachmanns for a small bag and five for a big one. Of course,” she leaned forward and smiled a bit, “I could come along with you and help you to carry everything. Only eight Bachmanns.” Her eyebrows jumped up and down as she said it, and her smile got a little wider. Tina rolled her eyes.
“Here.” She handed over eight Bachmanns. “Give me both bags and promise me you won’t say anything about all this money or the extra food. I’ll come back and give you the same tomorrow as long as you don’t tell my mom a word of this.”
Larissa’s mom barely heard her as she scooped the change back across the counter and into her apron pocket. She gave Tina both bags, and the wolf quickly walked home, realizing she had just made and given away more money than she’d ever had in her whole life. Oh well.
At the fire pit, Tina found Harper flanked by Black Feather on one side and Grey on the other. Both looked angry and ready to throw a punch at the other, but Harper just looked miserable. All three turned as she walked in and held up their food.
“Fried mouse and roots today,” she announced. They boys were thrilled, but Harper looked resigned. Tina gave an apologetic smile to her friend. “Sorry,” she said, “no fancy stuff gets into the compound. You might like this, though.”
The group gathered on Tina’s bed to eat off of the same plate. Harper lit up when she saw the fried root vegetables on the paper plate. “Hey! Those are potatoes. And yams, I love yams!” The shifters looked up at her. Potatoes? Yams? The two boys looked to Tina for an explanation, but she could only shrug. She was as clueless as they were.
Harper worked on the vegetables, while her friends feasted on fried mouse. Grey watched Black Feather, who watched Harper, who looked at the floor. Tina shook her head; what the heck had happened?
“So,” she said to the group, “any new developments with the big plan?”
“Grey had an idea,” Harper said quietly. Tina looked over at her old friend, but he was busy chewing. She waited, but he stayed quiet.
“So?” Tina looked around the group, but everyone avoided her eyes. “What? What’s your idea?”
He brushed his hands off and wiped them on the paper of the bag. “I escort her to the palace and tell the guards I was able to take her home only because I agreed to keep the kidnappers’ identities and location a secret. She’ll be safe and free from future harm, only if the president agrees to let it go.”
Tina took a moment to let this sink in. “So,” she said, “we’d never see Harper again. Her father will never let her out of his sight.”
Grey nodded slowly. Tina looked at Harper who was finishing the last chunk of white root. Without looking at anyone, she said, “It would keep everyone safe. There would be no reason for anyone to come to the compound, no searches, nothing. I would just go home, and that would be the end of it.”
“What if it’s not?” Tina turned to see Black Feather scowling at Grey. “His plan sucks. Like you said, Tina, we don’t know what anyone is going to do. We have no insurance that Bachmann will believe any of this.” Grey met Black Feather’s scowl with his own as Black Feather added, “He just wants to be the hero.”
“You’re an idiot,” Grey spat back at him.
“No, you are!”
The two boys reached across the space on the bed and grabbed at one another’s shoulders. Harper jumped up to get away, but Tina went right between them and let out a huge, deep growl. It was enough of a warning that the boys separated, but they were far from done with one another.
Once she had everyone’s attention, she spoke in her human voice. “Alright, now that we’re done with the pissing contest,” she said, “I want Grey to go ahead with his plan.”
Both Harper and Black Feather protested loudly, but Tina just held up a hand to stop them. “Grey,” she continued, “I think it will be to everyone’s benefit if you really play up how you, a shifter and all-around good guy, found her and brought her home. It was humans who did this, not us. Just keep saying that.” She looked at Harper and smiled a small, sad smile. “Maybe we’ll get to see her again if we’re not the enemy.”
Harper shuffled forward and put her hands on Tina’s arms. “Are you sure?”
She shook her head. “I’m not. I can’t be sure of anything right now except the fact that you cannot stay here. The sooner we get you back, the better.” Tina kept a brave, steady gaze on her friend, but inside she felt herself screaming. She knew she’d never see Harper again, but she couldn’t say it out loud. She had to get this girl home before anything else happened.
Harper nodded and pulled Tina in for a hug. The two held one another for a long time, squeezing each other close. The two young men watched, and marveled at the ability young women had to open up to one another so completely. Neither had ever had a friend like Tina and Harper had in one another.