Chapter Six
At the watcher club, Blue was already onstage. Tina and I hung back while she sang her newest number, and the crowd salivated at the sight of her morphing body. She gave me a wink from across the room, but that was all she could do while the spotlight was on her. We politely declined the seats offered to us and started making our way around the perimeter of the place. Her number ended, and she disappeared through the curtain.
A door to the rooms backstage was guarded by a male black bear, and he wasn’t about to let us through.
“Please,” I begged, “Blue is a friend of mine, and this is very important.”
“You have to believe her,” Tina tried. “This could be life or death.”
He smirked. “Right. Like I haven’t heard that one before.” He looked off into the distance beyond us and widened his stance so that we couldn’t get past.
We walked away to an empty table and sat down. Tina looked around the room with her lips pressed together, then turned to me with a firm, determined face.
“What?”
“I know what we can do.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.” I put my head in my hands. Where was Blue? Why hadn’t she invited me back with her?
“Yes. You’re not going to like it, but I promise it will work.” She nodded at an empty stage. “We’re going up there.”
“What?” My hands fell to the table in shock. “You can’t be serious. We’re not performers.”
“Well…” She cringed. “I’ve been around a few watchers before. I know what they like.”
My faculties failed me. What was Tina talking about? When had she danced for watchers? I just shook my head back and forth, mystified. She reached out and touched my hand. “If I get us through the curtain, can you get us to Blue?”
“Yes. But only if we go on the big stage. That one,” I indicated with a head tilt. She stood and smoothed down her skirt and top.
“How do I look?”
I answered honestly. “Great. Truly great.”
She nodded and went off to talk to the band. I watched as she turned on the usual Tina charm. I waited for all of them to start laughing and shaking hands, but instead, I saw their heads shake. No, we won’t play for you. Nope–doesn’t work that way. The leader pointed behind him to the man guarding the backstage door, and Tina looked just in time to see him grimace at her as he cracked his knuckles. The plan wasn’t going well.
“Hey, watchers!” I jumped up. “I have a little something for you.” My tusks sprouted, and the skin of my head turned deep black as it toughened. Thick, horrible hairs sprouted from my ears and all over my head as my blonde hair fell out. The crowd gasped and began to applaud. I took a bow while I kept my eyes on Tina. She skipped around the back of the crowd and slid into the door, while the guard smiled at me.
“Finish! Do the rest of it!” The boss was walking toward me and, taking their cue from him, the crowd followed, nodding. Saliva coated their lips, and they reached for me slowly, their fingers stretched toward my face. “Come on, don’t be a tease. Give us the rest.”
Before I could even process the moment, hands were gripping at my clothes and attempting to pull them off. “Hey! Wait, I don’t want to–”
But they couldn’t hear me. My shirt ripped across my torso, and I grabbed at the scraps, but they were already formless and useless. Tears blurred my vision, and fear made me desperate for an escape. I did the only thing I could do: I shifted.
The floor rushed up to meet me as my legs shrank into stubby, strong stalks to hold up my rounded torso. A big squeal came out of me as it always did when I had to shift fast. Almost before the last patch of skin had become boar, I was running as fast as I could for the stage. The escape route was directly between the legs of my oppressors, and I bolted through the tunnel of limbs while hands grasped at me and yells demanded me to stop. The stage grew closer and closer. I was almost there.
A big, meaty leg stepped into my path – the boss. Scrambling on the shiny wood floor, I turned so sharply that I ran at an angle. For just a moment, his hand had me by the scruff of my neck, but I grazed his skin with the sharp tip of my tusk.
“Ow! Stupid thing!” The blood wasn’t much of a flow, but it was enough to get him off me. I flew through the curtain, taking it down with me. The blue velour over my face turned everything backstage into a dark, undefined shape, and I could hear workers at the club yelling at me as I sped by. One man tried to stop me, but as he grabbed at me, all he managed was to grab was my unwanted cloak. As soon as he pulled it off, I saw Tina standing and waving me over.
“The door’s locked! Bash it in!”
I lowered my head and dug deep into my resolve so that I could run even faster. The door approached, and I slammed into it hard. The whole thing fell over, and Tina and I ran in.
What we saw stopped us cold. There, on a small couch, was a naked Blue making love to the former President Bachmann. The two of them stopped as soon as we entered, but no one spoke. Tina quickly picked up the door and balanced it in the frame, but I didn’t move.
“Blue?”
She looked at me. “Emily? Is that you?” I nodded. “Well, you’ve done a fine job of ruining a perfectly nice evening.” She stood and pulled on a large, white, men’s shirt. “You could have knocked, you know.”
I shook my head. She rolled her eyes at me. “Would you please take your human form so we can talk eye-to-eye? This is maddening.”
Tina and I exchanged a look. Bachmann’s silence was making us very nervous. We knew him much better than Blue did. We knew how calculating and how shrewd he could be. We knew he liked to throw his anger out into the world without any plan or sense of justice; he just like to sit back and see what kind of mayhem it could create. A silent Bachmann was a dangerous one.
I shifted, and in doing so had to look away from him. My vision went blurry as my eyes changed back into human eyes, but when I blinked them open again, I saw that he hadn’t moved. Blue, however, was getting dressed in men’s slacks and buttoning her shirt. She looked boyish, but still glamorous.
“Now, Emily,” she said, crossing her arms, “I’d appreciate an apology. Rhett and I were perfectly fine until you burst in here.”
“Yes, dear,” Bachmann said. “Apologize to my dear friend.” He gave me a slow, sinister smile. I shuddered at the sight of it.
“Blue, please,” I reached for her, “step away from him.”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic.” She reached out for Bachmann’s face and held it in her hand like a doting mother. “He’s harmless!” He turned his head to kiss her palm and then moved her hand away as he sat up. “Really, Emily, this is insane.”
“Hi. I’m Tina.” Tina kept one eye on Bachmann and the other on Blue as she continued. “You don’t know me, but I really think you should step out of this room with us. Why don’t we go for a little walk outside? We can all talk and get this straightened out.”
To my shock, Blue sat down again next to Bachmann who now had a pair of pants on. She leaned against him. “No. I told you, I’m having a perfectly nice evening. The two of you, however, are free to go.”
A man appeared at the broken door and cleared his throat to interrupt. “Everything okay in here, Blue?”
“Fine, Mark, thanks.”
Bachmann reached over to put his arm around her. Did he always hold women so tightly? “Everyone just loves you, darling.”
“Oh, you’re too much.” She squirmed as he hugged her even tighter. “Rhett, dear, not so tight. Rhett! That hurts!”
“Does it? Why don’t you slither away, you damn snake?”
“Rhett? What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out a small gun from the pocket of his pants. It looked almost funny, it was so small, but Boris had warned me about these guns. One shot and you were unconscious for days. One of its miniscule bullets erased most of your memory, made you simple and easy to boss around. He pointed it at her, then his arm swept over until it was pointed at me.
“Get dressed and come outside with me. We’re all going for a ride.”
Once again, I couldn’t move. My naked body broke out into a horrible, smelly sweat. I stank of fear. “I said get dressed.”
Glancing around, I found a discarded pair of shorts and then a t-shirt. They were both a little on the small side, but I didn’t have time to think about that. I looked for shoes, and Tina tried to slip out as Bachmann glared at me. He stopped her with one sentence.
“Anyone tries to run away or fight or any nonsense, and I shoot the blonde one.” Tina nodded silently and went back to waiting as I searched for shoes, but Bachmann got impatient.
“That’s good enough. We won’t be walking.”
The four us moved through the hallway slowly, Bachmann behind us. “Smile. Everything’s fine,” he hissed at us. I looked at Tina to see the familiar twinkle in her eye; surely, she had some plan for us. But there was no spark there waiting for me, no mischievous grin. We walked past the boss who was trying to rehang the curtain.
“Hey! Get back here, blondie. You don’t get to ruin my club and then just walk out.” He put his hand on me, and Bachmann shot him, sending him to the floor. A bartender screamed, and soon, all of the staff had swarmed the body. Bachmann jammed the gun into my back.
“Run!”
We ran. A back door took us right out into an alleyway where a car was waiting for us. The door opened, and I saw a figure sitting in the back seat.
“Hey, Mr. President. I see you brought one extra.”
“Shut up and get us out of here.”
I was shoved into the seat and turned to see Alex sitting there, waiting for us. Tina and Blue followed until we were all jammed into the car. Bachmann squeezed in with us so that he could keep the gun on us.
I didn’t look at the gleaming, tiny barrel of the gun. Instead, I stared at Alex in a state of total disbelief. He looked right back, smiling.
“Hi, sweetheart. Shall we have one last round before we call it quits?”
The breaking of my heart made it too difficult to speak. I could hear it cracking and feel the rips as they slowly worked their way across the organ. He shrugged.
“Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.” He turned to Bachmann. “You were right, boss. These shifter girls are great for a good time.”
“Sex-starved, all of them.”
“Oh, please,” Blue interjected. “You came to me begging. I never even looked at you until you’d sent me gifts every night for a month. Sex-starved. I am anything but.”
The two men fell silent and then broke out laughing at her. She burned red, and I burned with her. All of us hostages stopped talking after that and did our best not to listen to anything our captors were saying. Meanwhile, the car drove us further and further away from our home to a place we couldn’t see in the dark. I was sure that whatever lie ahead would kill me. I just closed my eyes and prayed they would be quick about it.
I must have passed out from the shock. My brain just didn’t want to process anything that was happening at that moment. My mind went black like the prison at night. Oh, my prison. I would have given anything to be locked up inside it with my little adopted family right at that moment. In my mind, I followed that deep darkness down and into the abyss until I saw a faint light at the end. It glowed white, like an old lightbulb I used to have in my bedroom when I was a child. The glow strengthened, grew taller and wider, and illuminated the memory.
Once the light was on, I knew we would be in trouble.
“Boris!” I was so scared that I was whispering the way Boris taught me not to–loud and hissy. He didn’t answer. He was mad at me.
“Boris, I know you can hear me.”
He angrily turned on me and pulled our thin blanket over our heads. “The whole house can hear you!” His whisper was that of an expert, barely audible even up close. It was almost a reverse gasp–hollow and empty, and impossible for parents to hear. “You have to learn how to keep it down, or we are not secret agents anymore.”
“Sorry.” I looked down at my tiny toes. When I was young and in human form, I had a fascination with my toes. I was so interested in how pink and pearl-like they were. It was the first thing to change once I hit puberty.
“Try one last time.”
I took a breath, then let it out. Instead of opening my mouth, I let my throat open so all the air could come out in that hollow way that Boris had perfected. “So-rry.”
“Hey!” His already bushy eyebrows raised. “That was it.”
“Can we go over the plan?”
He thought about it, then nodded. He reached under his pillow and produced a wrinkled and badly beaten piece of paper. He had found it in the street one day and grabbed it, running home as fast as he could. When he’d made it in the door, he was gasping. I demanded to know what was wrong, and with a look over each shoulder, he produced the thing–paper. Paper with writing.
“Okay,” he said, nodding at the indecipherable words as if he could understand each and every one, “I am positive that this part,” he pointed to the middle, “is about where the Bachmanns are hidden. It should be in the lot around the corner. The guy who buried it left this for us to find.”
My little eyes widened until they were taking up most of my cheeks. “Wow.”
He nodded again, his own eyes becoming little slits of determination. “All we have to do is go and dig up the treasure. Then we’ll be back in school with the other kids.”
I perked up at the thought. “No more work?”
He patted my shoulder. “No. Never again.”
Boris went on to explain to me that we would have to wait until Mom and Dad were deep asleep. We knew any sound would be cause for an investigation. Boars, however, are very sound sleepers. If we stayed in human form, we could walk on our tiptoes and make our way to the door. They would never know. And they would be extra, extra surprised when they saw our millions piled on our beds and shining in the early morning.
So, we kept each other awake. We did it by telling each other funny stories and scary stories until neither of us wanted to shut our eyes. Finally, we heard our parents going through their nightly ritual: brushing their teeth, laughing at something or other on the old television, Dad yawning so loud the whole neighborhood knew he was settling in for the night. A kiss goodnight rang out from their bed and through the hallway as we rolled our eyes. Then everything fell silent.
We had to be smart. We waited until we were absolutely sure no one was going to get back up. After what felt like hours, we put on our cold weather outfits and tip-toed out past our parents’ room. We slipped out the window that never closed quite right and left it open behind us. Then we ran.
Shifter neighborhoods were always exceptionally dark. No one ever thought to give us illumination back then. Those were the days before the compounds. We all just suffered through the seasons in cement blocks that some joker thought to call buildings. That night, the shadows kept us safe. No nocturnal animals were out and about, and we had the whole neighborhood to ourselves.
We reached the lot full of random scraps, gasping for breath. The lot was a mess, as usual. This was where the human garbage came. Anything that couldn’t be easily recycled was dumped for the shifters to sort through, and we desperately searched for anything valuable. Again, Boris held up his paper and then looked around. He pretended to read one more time, fully aware that I was watching his movements down to each detail, then pointed.
“There. That corner.”
“You sure?”
He waved the paper at me. “Of course! Let’s start.”
Old, broken tools were all over the lot. We found a spade and a splintered but smaller shovel that worked perfectly well. We moved to the corner and started digging into the dry, silty ground.
Of course, there was no treasure. After an hour of digging, our hands were cut and bleeding, and we were sniffling quietly as we wiped the blood on our only jackets. I quietly set my spade down and sat near the shallow hole we had dug.
“I can’t, Boris,” I whined. “The treasure is buried too deep.”
He nodded and then looked around at the lot. He sighed, lifted his shovel, and threw it to the side.
Just as it hit a pile of rubbish, the stuff fell over, and a bunch of bits and pieces spilled out by our feet. We braced ourselves, sure that more would fall right on our heads, but it didn’t. We allowed ourselves to relax and looked down to at our feet to see if anything had happened to them.
It was then that I saw it. There, on my perfectly formed toes was a small, fuzzy, red box.
“Boris! I think I found it! The treasure!”
He got down on all fours and crawled up to my feet, transfixed by what he saw. “Oh. Wow. Emily,” he looked up, “I think this is it.” He gingerly reached over and plucked it off of my foot, then inspected each side. After finding the hinge, he gently creaked it open.
Inside were two beautiful, golden orbs. When we saw them, we each lost our breath for a long moment. We could hardly believe what we were seeing. Gold was–still is–extremely valuable for its ability to be formed and shaped into anything. Even small, gold objects like these little balls were considered very special.
Boris told me to put the box on the inside of my jacket. “No shifter would rob a little girl. They might go for me, though. I look pretty strong.”
I nodded and zipped up our tiny treasure. I couldn’t wait to show it to Mom and Dad.
We made our way home, climbed in the window, and then snuck back to our room. As soon as I saw it, I relaxed. Our bed! Our little bureau! I was so happy to see the meager possessions the State had so graciously given us to keep us civilized. And now, we had something to put in the bureau: real life treasure!
We couldn’t wash our hands because the splashing would have woken our parents up, so we just went to bed dirty and bloody. We knew we would have to clean it all up in the morning, but we didn’t care. At the moment, my face hurt from smiling.
“Here we are.”
Bachmann’s voice jerked my eyes open. Had I slept or traveled through time? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that it was over. Cold, hard reality was all I had left at that moment, and it would push forward whether I liked it or not. I breathed as we turned a corner.
We parked in the driveway of a small, run-down house with a crooked door and surprisingly tall plants surrounding it on all sides. But that wasn’t the shocking part. No, the real shock came a moment later.
Someone was leaning against the door. Someone I recognized. I squinted a bit but then was jerked away hard by my arm as Bachmann’s strong man pulled me out of the car.
“Come on, blondie.”
He walked me and Blue to the door, and I gasped when I realized who it was.
There, leaning in a shabby doorway, was the former president’s daughter, Harper Bachmann.