ONLY I DIDN’T LEAVE. Not the way he wanted. I couldn’t. I hunkered down nearby as two strangers retrieved Daniel. They said nothing, just loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him away. Two others continued the hunt for me. I waited until they had passed, then hurried after the stretcher.
They took Daniel back to the cabin. I prayed this meant they’d set up camp there, so that would be where they’d hold the captives. Of course that would be too easy. I arrived to see them loading Daniel into the back of the van. They were talking to someone inside.
“—find the Delaney girl,” a man said.
I recognized the voice that answered. Dr. Inglis, head of the laboratory in Salmon Creek.
“Once Maya’s in the forest, she’s gone,” she said. “She’s as at home there as any wild animal. Our only hope was to catch her with one of the others.” She sighed. “We’ll give it a few minutes. Then we’re pulling out. The helicopter is waiting back in town. I’d like to get these kids on it before they wake up. That gun doesn’t carry a big enough dose to keep these guys out long and Bryant took the rest.”
I peered out at the setup. Just the one van. Had they already taken Sam and Kenjii?
I had to make sure that van didn’t leave. Give Daniel time to wake up. If I could put a hole in one of the tires, maybe two, that would stop them. I just needed—
My arms ached. I rubbed one absently, and felt the muscles knot. When I looked down, they were moving under my skin.
Not now. Please not now.
I took a deep breath. Nothing to worry about. This had happened before and it didn’t go anyplace. The only time I had shape-shifted, I’d been asleep. Just ignore it and focus—
My legs gave way, like someone yanked them from under me. I crashed to the ground.
“What was that?” the man said.
“Deer, probably,” Dr. Inglis said. “But go check it out.”
I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t obey. The muscles kept spasming and seizing, and it was all I could do to keep from gasping. Still, I managed to pull myself deeper into the undergrowth.
“Nothing,” the man said.
I collapsed, body convulsing, the world going dark as my mind slid toward unconsciousness.
No, please no. Not now. Please not now.
I panted for air, my body wracked with sudden fever. I tugged at my shirt.
Right. I had to get my clothing off. If I was going to shape-shift, I had to get everything off, and it gave me something to focus on, to stay conscious.
Undressing wasn’t easy. The signals from my brain seemed to short out on the way to my hands and my body kept jerking. When I finally fumbled most of my clothes off, I blacked out.
I came to, stretching, body aching. When I reached out a hand and saw a paw instead, I leaped onto all fours and peered through the trees, heart pounding, certain I’d see an empty driveway.
The van was still there. I lowered myself to my belly and crept through the undergrowth.
“—really have to get going,” Dr. Inglis was saying. “I don’t want those boys waking up.”
“Let me check in with the team one more time.”
I reached the tree line and looked out. How was I going to rescue anyone now? I couldn’t open the van door. I couldn’t slash the van’s tires—
I stopped and lifted a paw. My claws shot out. I let out a soft chuff.
That made it easy.
I started forward, gaze fixed on the rear tire, farthest from where Dr. Inglis and the man stood—
I stopped. So I slash the tires and then what? Fight them all? Including the team out in the woods?
Time to reconsider.
I retreated to a tree, dug in my claws, and started to climb. I got about five feet off the ground before realizing I was forgetting something.
I headed back into the woods to get what I needed, then I came out and climbed the tree. There was a branch a few feet from the top of the van, but I went higher, so I’d be hidden. I stretched out on the limb to wait.
“They’re still looking,” the man said as he signed off the radio.
“The boys are going to wake up any second—”
“I know. I told them we’re leaving. They can keep looking for the skin-walker girl.”
“Her name is Maya,” Dr. Inglis said.
The man shrugged. As they got into the van, I crouched on the branch, tail behind me like a tightrope walker’s pole. When my balance was right, I leaped, aiming for the limb overhanging the van, but I wasn’t that agile yet. I caught the branch, slipped, and struck the roof with a bang as the van started backing up.
The driver hit the brakes. I flattened myself on the roof.
The man rolled down the driver’s window and peered into the side mirror. Dr. Inglis did the same on the passenger’s side.
“Looks like you hit a fallen branch,” Dr. Inglis said. “Just back over it.”
The van continued down the lane. Then it turned left, heading back to town. Another turn, onto a dirt road so narrow that evergreen branches steepled over it and I had to flatten out again to avoid getting poked in the eye.
I waited until we’d left the other road behind. Then I lifted my big front paw and brought it down on the roof with a thump. When the van didn’t slow, I did it again, twice in succession, pounding hard.
The driver eased off the gas. Dr. Inglis’s window was still cracked open, and her voice came through it.
“It’s the boys waking up,” she said. “Hit the gas, not the brakes.”
The driver did, the van sailing over the rutted road, me clinging to the top.
I thought of another way to get their attention. But could I do it? I wasn’t even sure I knew how.
I closed my eyes, focused all my energy deep in my gut and then—
I let out a scream. A true cougar scream, the nails-down-a-chalkboard wail that sends campers fleeing their tents in the middle of the night.
The driver hit the brakes. And I went sailing along the roof, my claws scraping uselessly across the metal, the clothing I’d retrieved fluttering around me, blocking my vision as I tumbled over the front of the van and hit the hard-packed dirt.
I lifted my head, dazed, and found myself staring into the grille. The driver slammed the van into reverse and the vehicle jumped back, ready to make a fast getaway.
“No!” Dr. Inglis shouted. “It could be Maya.”
The van stopped. It idled there as they argued inside. I heard the word gun but that was all I caught because as they talked, I was creeping past the van.
When I reached the back, I started to run. Dr. Inglis shouted. The doors opened as they leaped out.
I didn’t go far before I swerved, then ran full tilt at the van, back legs propelling me so fast the road sped by in a blur. Then I launched myself.
I didn’t think I could make it. Leaping hurdles was one thing. But jumping high enough to land on a van roof?
I actually went too high and landed so hard the whole van quaked under me. I planted my paws, lowered my head, looked at the driver, and let out a snarl that sent him stumbling backward. Silver flashed in his hand, but as he raised it, I saw it was just the keys. His other hand was empty.
“Don’t startle her,” Dr. Inglis said.
“Don’t startle—?” he squeaked. “That—that’s a mountain lion.”
“She has the birthmark. It’s Maya.”
“I don’t care. It’s a goddamned mountain lion.”
“I know. Isn’t she beautiful? A young cougar in perfect physical condition. Did you see that leap? She must have been riding on the roof earlier. She climbed the tree to get on it. Do you know what that means?”
“Do I care what that—?”
“She planned this. There’s no loss of cognitive function. She’s an intelligent young woman in the body of one of the world’s finest predators. This is what we’ve been working toward. This is everything we’ve dreamed—”
I pounced. I hit the driver in the chest and he went down, keys sailing from his hand and landing in the weeds alongside the road. He punched me in the nose. As a human, that would sting. As a cat, it was like a pile-drive straight to the brain.
I fell back. He started to scramble away. I managed to recover in time to grab his leg and pulled him up short. His hands dug into the dirt as he struggled to get free. Then he lifted a handful of that dirt and tried to throw it in my eyes. I chomped down on his foot. He let out a scream as loud as a cougar’s. Blood filled my mouth, rich and coppery and hot.
A gun fired. I let go and wheeled to see Dr. Inglis holding a rifle.
“Please, Maya,” she said. “These aren’t tranquilizer darts. We don’t have any with us. I don’t want to shoot you. Can you understand me?”
I snarled at her.
“Everything’s gone wrong,” she said. “I told them we needed to tell you all the truth sooner. I said the early symptoms had begun and you’d figure it out, but the St. Clouds wanted to fly in themselves to be there when we broke the news. They hesitated and others took advantage. Others who don’t care about you the way we do.”
I glanced back at the man on the ground, clutching his bleeding foot. I snarled again.
“He’s not one of us,” she said. “He’s St. Cloud security. A nobody. The people who count are the people from the lab, from Salmon Creek. We care about you and we are going to make sure your lives change as little as possible, and only for the better.”
I looked at her. She seemed sincere, which meant she didn’t know about the deal the St. Clouds made with the Nasts—giving us away. Or maybe she thought it was a ploy, one they wouldn’t go through with. I knew better. These were businessmen. She was a scientist, which made her as much of a nobody as the man I’d bitten.
“We’ll make sure you’re taken care of,” she continued. “Make sure you get back to a normal life. All of you. Just like Salmon Creek, only someplace else. They’ve already found a new location. But you have to show them that you won’t fight them. That they don’t need men like him.” She waved at the security guy. “You need to come with me, Maya. Stop fighting and trust us. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She didn’t. I could see that in her eyes. And I could see it in the way the gun now dangled at her side. I tilted my head and studied her. Then I started lowering myself to the ground.
“Good. Thank you, Maya. We’ll—”
I pounced.