Chapter Nine
“Rise and shine, little piggy!”
The bodyguard stood over me and laughed at his own joke, making little squealing noises as I shook my head and tried to make sense of where I was. The house. The little house in the middle of nowhere. We were prisoners, Blue and I. What was this about?
“Why are you waking me up?”
“Because,” he told me cheerfully, “the doctor needs you today. First thing. Get dressed, and let’s go.”
Sighing, I swung my legs over the side and stumbled over to the meager little box of clothing I was allowed to own. Bachmann had gone shopping about a week before, and his attempt at buying women’s clothing was hilarious. Everything was either far too small or enormous. I tended to wear the big, tented clothing. It made me feel safer, and it was more comfortable.
Blue joined me in the hallway in a blue dress that barely went over her hips. Her butt cheeks stuck out the bottom just a little, and she had her dark, wavy hair all cascading over one shoulder. She turned and gave the bodyguard a smile as he walked behind us. I did my best not roll my eyes.
I almost wished I could openly seduce Alex while we were stuck in the horrible place. At the very least, it would have passed the time.
We walked across the house through the kitchen and opened the creaky door to the basement. The bodyguard reached up and clicked on the old light. I hated that basement. It smelled dank and musty, was full of odd little tools and big, metal tables. However, I saved the bulk of my hate for the doctor.
Over the few months we had lived in that forgotten corner of the world, the dirty and disheveled Dr. Morley seemed to have taken control over everything. If he snapped his fingers, all the men in the house ran to see what he wanted. After several weeks, he had sent Alex and Bachmann to live in another dwelling somewhere close in order to keep Alex healthy. They showed up once in a while, but only at the doctor’s bidding. It made my stomach curdle, seeing two men scared of a little creature in a basement. A quick kick to the shin would have ended him.
“Here they are, Doc,” the bodyguard called down. “I brought your two favorite pets.” He must have been thrilled to have a little entertainment for the afternoon. We had all watched the majority of the video tapes in the house, and there was no chance of getting any new ones. The only thing to do in the house was re-watch some of our favorites, dig up old books and take a guess at what they might be about, or go for a limited walk. That only left sleeping and eating as ways to keep ourselves occupied, and even those got old. We had all taken to sitting and staring for long periods of time. It was torture.
“Good morning, ladies.”
We mumbled a greeting at him and then waited for instructions. He explained that he needed us to undress and then begin shifting for him while he took notes.
“I would record it if I had the means,” he assured us as he wiped his glasses on his shirt, “but that’s not the case. I’ll have to take extensive notes. The results from your blood tests only show that you have a rogue chromosome; they don’t tell the whole story.”
“No one knows what you’re talking about,” Blue said to him. She stepped out of her dress, looking over her shoulder again to make sure her lover was watching. “Just tell us what we need to do. We don’t need the whole lecture.”
I got undressed as well. By that time, I was so accustomed to being a prisoner that I didn’t even blink at the thought of the two men seeing me nude. Who cared? They couldn’t do anything, and neither could I by that point. At least it was something to do.
We stood side by side and then began to shift. I watched the floor rush up to me, and it felt so familiar. Even the feel of my hooves on the hard, cement floor just made me feel strangely at home in the little prison-like basement.
The doctor pulled out a clipboard and a pen, and began scribbling. For a moment, I wondered what he was drawing, but then I saw the words on his board. ‘He knows how to write!’ The thought alone shocked me. I couldn’t think of any other person in my life who knew how to write anything, not even their own names. I wondered if I could ask him to teach me. ‘I suppose a doctor has to know these things,’ I thought as I stretched and grew up again into my human form.
“Continue, please,” his deep voice commanded. We complied, but it was with a sigh.
Blue already knew that there was some big, secret plan in place and that the doctor was part of it. I had spilled it to her ages ago. Neither of us had imagined we would still be waiting for something to happen by that time. We’d been sure the plan would kick into gear, and we would be out in a matter of days, not months. It was frustrating to wait, and even more frustrating to know we couldn’t just kill our captors ourselves, but we had both decided it was safer to go along with the plan. That didn’t make us any less bored.
After about four shifts, I started to hurt. From my view low on the floor, I walked up to the doctor’s legs and nudged him with my snout.
“Yes?”
“I need a break,” I said hoarsely in my boar voice. “It’s starting to hurt.”
Blue slithered over and coiled up the leg of the table the doctor was using to lean against. She gracefully raised her boa head and smelled the air in front of his face with her tongue. “Yes, Doc. Let’s stop a moment. My back can’t take much more of this.”
“I’m sorry, ladies,” the doctor replied, shrugging. “Not much I can do about it. We need a more complete picture of what it is to be a shifter. These observations are essential.”
Blue glanced at his board. “It looks like you have plenty.”
“I realize that. It’s just...it’s important that I see, well, everything. Every part of the process. Otherwise, I could miss something vital in our understanding–”
“He’s a watcher.”
Startled, the doctor turned to me. “What?”
I sat my boar rear end on the floor and tipped my head way up to see the man’s face. “You’re a watcher. This is what you like to see–two females changing shapes. Just admit it.”
“I…I can assure you I am…I am a….”
“Look at him blush,” the bodyguard said, stepping in. He turned his head to call up the stairs. “Hey, Harper! Get down here. Your little friend has something to tell you.” He shook his head and laughed, thrilled with the new discovery. “A watcher. Right here under our own roof.”
Harper appeared at the top of the stairs. “Yeah?”
“Hey, come on down.” He waved her in, and I had to lie down on the floor. It felt great against my bristly, boar skin. I knew the doctor was angry and about to get angrier, but for just a moment, I wanted to enjoy the wet, earthy smell of the basement, feel the cool temperature against my little, piggy cheek, and not think about anything. Harper reached down to scratch my belly, and I flicked an ear at her to let her know I liked it.
“Why are you in animal form?” she asked in her baby-talk voice. She only used that tone when I wasn’t in my human state. “I love your belly. It’s so round.”
I know that should have bothered me, but again, captivity had changed so much for me. Even being treated like a child no longer got under my skin. I yawned. “The doctor gets off on watching us shift.”
Her jaw dropped. “Doctor! You’re a watcher?”
He got red in the face and started shaking his head. “Stop this. Stop it now. I can’t, I won’t–everyone shut up!”
The words came out in a massive shout that practically shook the walls. It took me out of my sleepy state right away, and I jumped to my feet and quickly shifted back. Blue was right there with me, and we grabbed each other, both of us certain we knew why the doctor never bathed and lived in the basement.
The man flung his clipboard off to the side and grabbed his head. His hair was the first thing to change. It grew longer on top, and then his cheeks began to sprout heavy, thick strands to meet it. His face became rounder and flatter, and then fur covered all of it. He went down to his hands and knees, and his feet and hands became massive, velvety paws with razor-sharp claws sprouting from the round toes. His body expanded and grew wider and stronger. Thick, powerful muscles spread all over his body and rippled under his soft, tawny skin.
Before anyone could even think to call for help, we all found ourselves face-to-face with a full-grown, enormous, male lion. And he was looking at us like we were the most delicious gazelles he’d ever seen.
“Slowly,” the bodyguard whispered. “Everyone, just back up. We can get out if we don’t startle him.”
Facing the new animal in the basement, we each moved backward little by little. We moved individually. No one said it, but we were all thinking that if the lion attacked one of us, the rest could get away as long as they had some distance between themselves and the beast. Blue was closest to the door; I was just in front of her. To my right was Harper, and a bit further ahead was the bodyguard. He had his hands up in a surrender position and walked with little grace or stability. I saw his foot approach the pen lying on the floor, and I opened my mouth to whisper something, but the lion growled just as I thought to speak.
Then it happened. The big, clumsy foot of our bodyguard went down on the pen. The pen rolled forward, throwing his balance off and making his leg swing out and up. He fell to the floor with a yelp, and the lion charged him at full speed. In less than a second, the giant lion was on the guard’s chest, and the rest of us ran up and out as fast as we could. Behind us, we could hear the screams as he was torn apart piece by piece, but we didn’t stop. We bolted out at top speed, closed the door behind us, and then kept running.
I don’t know why we did this next part. I suppose it was just another side effect of captivity, or perhaps an inability to think, but for whatever reason, we stopped at the edge of the property.
There was nothing keeping us there; we had no fence penning us in and no further guards. There weren’t even any people around. It was just the three of us. We looked at one another without a word, each of us asking and not able to find an answer without saying a word. The wind blew, and the small trees nearby rustled, but beyond that, it was silent.
Then I turned my head, realizing that I did hear something. It was a heavy, crunching sound. A car. As I looked out onto the horizon, I saw Bachmann’s car coming around the corner. It was deep black and heavy. Every time I saw his stretched out, black vehicle I always marveled at how it appeared to chew up any road it drove down.
We all stood and observed its journey, Blue and I still in the nude, and Harper in her pajamas. “We should have run,” Blue said. We didn’t respond. We’d had the exact same thought.
The car approached but didn’t stop at the property line where we waited. Instead, it went all the way to the house and parked. To my surprise, Alex got out of the driver’s side. He opened a door in the back and pulled out Bachmann.
The man was disheveled, as if he’d been kept awake all night, and his hands were tied behind his back with thick, strong ropes. His feet were bound with a minimal space between them so that he could shuffle forward but not run. He noticed us as he got out, but Alex turned him away and then put a gun to his back.
“Walk inside the house,” I heard him say. I started to jog up to him, then broke into a full sprint.
“Alex! Stop! The doctor…he’s…he’s a shifter! You can’t go in!”
He ignored me and opened the door. I ran faster, watching the door close little by little as I approached. I can make it. I can make it. Just a little closer. But the sliver of space between the frame and the door closed smaller and smaller, and then was gone completely just as I reached the porch. I grabbed the doorknob only to find it locked.
I tried to shift again, so I could knock the door down, but I was exhausted. All the shifts I’d done earlier in the day and the escape out of the house had left me very winded. I could only get a tusk to grow, but it slipped back into a tooth before I could do anything with it. I didn’t give up; my fist banged against the door, I screamed through the wood, I cried and pleaded, but no one came to open it or to help me. The other girls held one another at the edge of the property.
As I collapsed onto the porch, I could hear Bachmann’s screams. I heard Alex panic as well, but I couldn’t be sure if it was because he was hurt or something else. I tried not to think of him getting his arm or leg torn off, big sharp teeth sinking into his neck, his body twitching in its death throes.
Then the house went quiet. I called for Alex. No response. I called again and was thrown back in shock as the lion flung itself against the door. The sound of it trying to break through sent me crawling away from my little spot and toward the open space in front of the house. Harper and Blue were waiting for me just off the porch. Blue pulled our hands and led us to a nearby tree that was taller than the others.
“Let’s go.” She reached up and grabbed a heavy branch, pulled herself up, and then reached down for me.
“I can’t,” I said, tears burning my eyes. “I can’t leave him.”
“You have to survive, Emily.” Blue looked down at me through the leaves, and her tendrils of black hair fell in her face. “If you don’t survive, well, then you don’t have anything. And I’ll lose a lot of the love in my life. I need you alive.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and then took her hand. With a big, hefty pull, she got me up beside her. Together, we helped Harper, though she turned out to be a more adept climber than we’d assumed.
One by one, we sought secure but high branches that could hold us while we waited. We had to make sure the lion wouldn’t hunt us down, and we needed a safe place to sleep and regain our strength. None of us knew the doctor very well. As far we could see, he was vicious in animal form and one kill didn’t seem to be anywhere near enough for him. He could kill until each and every one of us was dead. We had to be ready.
I watched the sunset from my branch and tried to ignore the ants that bit my skin as I sat there. I could still see the house, and every few minutes, I would see the lion flash by like a shark in the ocean. And every time was as scary as the last. He terrified me. But what scared me more was the fact that I never saw Alex walk by any of the windows. Not even once.
Eventually, my eyes closed and I slept, though it was a dark, dreamless sleep. When I woke, I was sprawled across several large branches. Someone was standing below me. I couldn’t quite make out who it was. I rubbed my eyes and blinked the sleepiness away, and then let out a shriek. It was Dr. Morley, back in human form.
“You!” I quickly climbed down and grabbed the lapels of his shirt. “What did you do with him? Where’s my Alex? Tell me!”
He put his hands over mine. “Emily, you’re always so upset. Try to relax.”
I slapped him hard across the face. He didn’t cry out when the slap rang out into the early morning. He just closed his eyes and let it sink in. A big sigh came out of him. “Don’t. Tell me. To relax.” I crossed my arms over my naked chest and glared at his face. “Where is Alex? Did you...you know. Did you?”
He shook his head. “No. Alex is my friend. Even in my other form, I wouldn’t do that to him.”
I let out a big sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness. Where is he?”
Morley shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Wait,” I spun around, looking for signs of Alex. He wasn’t there, and the car was gone. “Did he drive off? Without us?”
“I guess. I’m sure he had a reason. Emily, please…”
I wasn’t listening. I stormed over to the tree and knocked on the trunk. “Wake up, ladies! Our prince has left us in the tower. He’s taken off and didn’t even bother to say goodbye. Get up. I need your help.”
Harper and Blue rubbed their faces, looked down at me through the branches, and groaned.
“Emily, darling,” Blue called down, “he did say goodbye. He tried to wake you, but you were asleep.”
“What?”
“Just what I said, dear.” She deftly slid out of her little perch and landed in a squat. She rose and stretched, her lithe figure getting everyone’s attention for a moment. “He had to leave. He said he would be back to get us later today. He went to check on something or do something. You know how men hate to share the details of their lives.”
Harper climbed down and brushed off her clothes. “How did you two manage to sleep in that tree without any clothes? The bugs ate me alive and I was covered. Hey, Doc.”
“Hi, Harper.”
I did a double-take at their casual air. Had I missed something? Morley still had bits of Bachmann in his stomach, and Harper was acting as if nothing at all had taken place. If it had been me, I would have been furious.
“What?” she asked me. “Don’t stare. I’ve known my whole life that people wanted to kill my father and that he wanted to kill a lot of other people. This has been a long time coming. Relax.”
I rolled my eyes and looked back at the road. Humans were one gigantic puzzle.
“Well,” the doctor said, looking at the ground, “I would invite you ladies in, but the house is in shambles. I don’t want anyone getting hurt on some random debris. And we have no vehicle and nothing within walking distance. I’m not quite sure what to do.”
“You don’t have to babysit us, doctor,” Blue said, scouting along the edge of the house. “We’re perfectly fine. Are you sure there’s no food inside?”
He confirmed the kitchen was empty the last time he’d gone in, and no one had been to a warehouse in a while. Not even for water. “However,” he added, “I think there may be a water source near here. Something is keeping all these plants nice and green.”
We nodded and started looking around. The plants were in great shape. I walked around the side of the house to the back and then in between the taller trees. I heard some non-shifter birds singing, and I remembered a tip Boris had given me.
“If birds are singing and hanging around, pay attention. They’re letting you know that there’s something good nearby.”
“Thanks, Boris,” I whispered. The birds swooped and sang over one little spot. I walked up as softly as I could until I stepped onto a strange, overly-soft earth. My foot sank right into it. At first, I panicked. I had never seen anything like this. Then, I grabbed my leg and yanked it up out of the ground. The brown, soft earth was still stuck to my foot, but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t dangerous. It didn’t cause any pain or feel treacherous in any way. I continued on around the perimeter of the soft earth. I wanted to see deeper into the little enclave full of birds but I couldn’t; tall, straight grasses formed a kind of fence around whatever had the birds so excited.
“Hey,” Harper said as she walked up. “What’s this? A swamp?”
“I don’t know. What’s a swamp?”
She kicked off her shoes and rolled up her pants. “A place with a lot of water.” She squelched her way through the soft stuff, parted the grasses, and let out a whoop.
“There’s a little waterfall! I think we can drink this stuff.” Then she gasped and added, “And berries! I found fresh berries!”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I stumbled through the mess to see for myself. When I got there, I saw a little place that looked like something from a dream. There was clear, sparkling water right there in the ground. A little structure of rocks hung out of a hill just above, and the water poured from this odd, natural shelf and splashed into the water. Birds and large, oblong bugs flew all around. Something bit my butt cheek, and when I slapped it, I saw blood on my hand.
“Hey! Something here is dangerous. We have to go.”
“No. Way.” Harper leaned down to inspect the bloody spot a little closer and then twisted her neck around to smile at me. “Mosquitoes. No one’s had a mosquito bite in over one hundred years. Congratulations.”
I scowled. “Ugh. They’re horrible.”
She laughed. “You better spread some more mud on yourself, or they’ll suck out all your blood.”
“What?” I panicked and started looking for this mud she was talking about. “Where’s the mud? I don’t want these things to suck my blood out.”
She laughed even harder at the sight of my panic. Reaching down, she scooped up a big handful of the soft, dark earth and then walked up and slapped it right onto my chest. Smearing it down my torso, she said, “This is mud, dummy. And you better get to like it because you cannot be naked in a swamp.”
Together, we smeared the stuff all over me. We laughed like a couple of maniacs as she spread it up my legs and I got my arms. I was rubbing it on the back of my neck when I saw her. There – the white wolf. I waved to her to show her it was safe, but she didn’t move.
“Tina! Tina, it’s safe. You can come over here.”
She padded over and looked at me and then at Harper. I knew the two of them had been close friends for a long time, but after the takeover, they stopped speaking. Tina walked around us as we watched, sniffing at us and taking in the whole scene.
Harper kneeled down and looked into Tina’s dark, wolf eyes. “Hi.”
Tina sat, keeping her wolf form. “Hi,” she responded coldly.
“Tina,” Harper said, “I’m so sorry. I should have told you what was going on with me. Instead, I panicked and…well, I hid. You didn’t deserve that. You were a good friend.”
Tina looked at her and then at me. “What happened here?”
“It’s to stop the mosquitos from drinking my blood,” I explained. She nodded slowly, then a noise made her look over her shoulder. She stood, alert and ready to run. She turned back to us, looking very serious.
“I have to get back. I’ll tell the others you’re safe. Come and find us.”
We watched her run in silence. She streaked across the ground like something unreal, like liquid pouring across a floor. Then she was gone.
“What did she mean,” Harper asked, “come and find us? Aren’t they all at the palace?”
I shook my head. “No. It sounded like something’s happened. They could be anywhere by now. Let’s find the others so that we can all get some food and water. Then we’ll start looking for my family.”
Soon, we emerged from our little secret space, leaves in our hair, berries in our bellies, and me looking like a whole new creature with my mud outfit. When Morley and Blue saw us, they went completely pale at the sight. But they forgot all about it when they saw the glistening water diving and swirling into the swamp, the big, red berries, and the happy, dancing birds.