Shay
Sunlight streamed down the boulevard as they walked along it. The east-west facing street was a tunnel of brightness as the rising sun cast its rays down upon it, forcing both of them to pull their sunglasses down across their face. The heat battered at them, and it wasn’t long before Shay regretted the dark-red shirt she had pulled on that morning. A white shirt would have been so much cooler.
Buildings rose up around them, modern-day megaliths that were designed to impress and awe. Around them humans surged and flowed along the paths, on their way to any of a thousand destinations to conduct business of one sort or another. She saw bicyclists in collared shirts, businessmen exiting fancy cars wearing expensive suits, and city workers covered in grime as they removed the previous days’ refuse from the streets. All of them blended together to create the vibrant atmosphere that was the core of any major city.
King City wasn’t the biggest place that Shay had ever visited. On tour as a driver, she had been to a number of the megacities around the world. But it wasn’t a small town either, sporting a population of well over a million people. It had the size to be called a city, and the bustle to go with it.
The press of bodies forced her and Justin to stay close. In the heart of the city center those around them were less impressed by his size than the more tourist-inclined area by the harbor. Because of that there was less of a space around them. Her arm brushed against his numerous times, and each time she shivered in delight from the heat that exploded across her skin.
It wasn’t until she saw his shoulders straighten when they touched that she realized he was profoundly uncomfortable with something.
“Hey,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand without thinking, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
Justin stumbled as he came to a halt. He glanced down between them before slowly bending his arm. As his hand, and therefore her hand, came with it, a look of wonder passed over his face. Then his eyes moved from their fingers to her lips.
“Uh, hi,” he said, a lopsided grin settling on his mouth.
She saw him relax somewhat, though there was still an underlying tension to him that hadn’t been there before.
“Everything okay?” she asked, pulling him along as she resumed walking.
“Yeah,” he said just a bit too quickly.
Shay frowned. “Okay mister secret agent,” she teased. “If you won’t tell me what’s up, then tell me something else.”
A ghost of the smile returned to Justin’s face. “What would you like me to tell you?” he asked without hesitation.
“Who are you?” she asked as they resumed walking.
She could see the building in the background of her father’s picture, the first one he had ever sent her from King City. She knew that, because in the other pictures he had shaven his beard and cut his hair in a style similar to the other man in the photo. Clean-shaven and close-cropped hair. She kind of liked it; it made him look more professional. She had brought both pictures with her in the wild hope that someone might recognize him.
A snarl pulled at her lip as she pictured anyone trying to threaten her with Justin at her side.
Good luck.
“Who am I?” he said, repeating the question as he gathered his thoughts. “That’s a difficult question to answer.”
Shay said nothing. He hadn’t been trying to avoid the question, but instead elaborated on it, so that she could understand there were different angles to what he was going to say.
“I’m an orphan, for starters,” he said. “My family died when I was younger, leaving me to fend for myself without any support.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with heartfelt sorrow, unable to fathom how hard that must have been for him.
He smiled and squeezed her hand, much to Shay’s delight as it clued her in that they were still holding hands. It felt so natural that she was surprised that she had forgotten about it already.
“Thank you. It’s been hard, but these days I have my team, and they’re the closest thing to a family I’ve had since.” He laughed. “Hell, they may actually understand me even better.”
Shay shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“I’m a bit of an oddity,” he told her with a wink.
“Yeah, I knew that already,” she teased, her smile becoming a full grin as he laughed loudly.
“Touché,” he said, raising two fingers to his brow in a mock salute.
Shay stayed quiet though, eager to let him explain. This was the most she had gotten out of him about his personal life, and she wanted to learn more about what made the big shifter tick.
“The shifter gene is generally present in a child if one or both of the parents are shifters. Female shifters are rare, but male shifters born to human females happens most of the time,” he said, explaining shifter genetics to her. “The other option is a half-breed. Part shifter, part human.”
“Okay, I’m following you so far,” she said in response to his questioning glance.
“Both of my parents were blackbloods,” he explained. “Neither of them were full shifters, but they managed to conceive me, a full-blooded shifter out of it. That,” he said with a wry grin, “is a genetic oddity that I’ve never encountered before.”
“Wait. Blackblood?” she asked. “What’s that slang for?”
“Another way of saying half-breed,” he told her with a shrug. “I think it’s a little easier on the ears than half-breed.”
“I agree,” she said, her lip turning up at the other phrase. “Half-breed makes me think of animals, not intelligent beings.”
“Why thank you,” he said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she replied quickly, sticking her tongue out at him.
“Noted,” he laughed. “Anyway, as I was saying, my family were all human, despite having shifter blood in them. I’m not sure how well I would have been able to connect with them after my bear manifested.” He shrugged, his gaze focused on the sidewalk ahead of them. “I’m sure they would have loved me, and I them. But it’s such a life-altering event when your animal first manifests. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for my family out in Genesis Valley. Being among my own kind, and able to be comfortable with going out in public while young was probably lifesaving.”
“What do you mean by that? Going out in public? Everyone knows shifters exist, even if we don’t know much about you.”
A sad smile crossed his face at her words, and a new, harsher tone entered his voice as he responded.
“The Outing, as it’s called, hasn’t exactly been beneficial for us. Most shifters consider it a mistake, you know.”
She stopped in her tracks, stunned by this revelation. “What? Really? How come? I’ve never heard of such a sentiment before.”
“We don’t exactly advertise it to humans,” he said coldly, though she could tell his ire wasn’t directed her, but her species as a whole.
Shay wasn’t naïve. She knew that there were many humans out there that would do despicable things to one another. Although she shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that they would do the same to shifters. Perhaps it was the fact that they all seemed so big and strong, impervious to the stupidity of humanity. Judging from the tone of his voice, however, that was not the case.
“How bad has it been?” she asked softly, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Justin looked away. “Worse than the witch trials during the medieval ages.”
Shay gasped in horror. “No, you can’t be serious. How can it be worse?”
He snorted. “Now that it’s been confirmed that we do exist, and our abilities revealed, governments and greedy men want to take what we have and give it to themselves. So they experiment on us, try to take our powers and make them transferable to humans.”
Words failed her as she took in what Justin was telling her, trying to understand how people could conduct such experiments on other human beings.
“That’s just in our country,” he said angrily. “In less civilized places in the world, we’re hunted because many consider us to be abnormalities in the face of their gods, as monsters and freaks to be feared, and thus eliminated.”
“That’s barbaric,” Shay stated firmly, feeling her rage growing. “Anyone who would do such a thing isn’t worth the skin on their back. There should be laws against doing that, if there aren’t already.”
He smiled sadly at her again. “There are, but when those in power agree with the general sentiment, then it’s unlikely that any will face punishment.”
Shay thought he looked like he was about to say more, but his expression suddenly changed.
“Why don’t we start looking for your father?” he suggested, pulling her after him into the closest store.
“Uh, okay?” she said, caught completely by surprise. “In a dry cleaner?” she asked after a moment, surveying the small shopfront.
Behind the counter, a short Asian woman was looking at them strangely while shaking her head. A rack of clothing covered in flimsy plastic bags made a loud clanking noise as it rotated behind her in an endless stream.
“Ticket?” the woman said in accented English, holding out her hand.
“No ticket,” Justin said, looking past her into the back of the shop.
“What is going on?” Shay said, pulling on his shoulder.
“No ticket? Need ticket!” the woman shouted, oblivious to the conversation going on between them. She pulled an empty hanger from the rack as it went by, barely even looking over her shoulder as she did. The woman brandished it like a weapon, first at Justin, then at Shay when the big shifter didn’t respond.
“Did you mean what you said?” Justin asked, taking her by the shoulders as he looked into her eyes.
“What are you talking about?!” she asked, shaking her head in frustration. “Did I mean what?”
“What you said, about the people who do things to my kind being worthless?”
Shay frowned in confusion. “What? I mean, yes, of course. But what does that have to do with dragging me in here?”
Behind her the rack continued to clank and chatter, each scrape of metal on metal ratcheting her nerves up another level, threatening to overload her.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“I promise I’m going to tell you everything I can, as soon as I can.”
Her brain clicked to something Justin had said.
“You need to go, don’t you?”
The big shifter nodded, even as something flashed behind his eyes. Something dangerous that she had never seen before.
“I didn’t mean to get you involved,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“Ticket or leave!” the little lady behind the counter said, her voice rising.
“If they come in here, just pretend to argue with the lady,” Justin said.
Shay’s eyes narrowed. “If who come in—”
Her greenish-blue eyes flew open in astonished surprised as Justin dipped his head low and kissed her. Time seemed to slow as she felt warm lips pressed against hers, his hands slipping off her shoulders and around her back, one of them even making its way up to her neck to send a shiver down her spine.
Shay had a split-second decision to make. Did she fight him? Or did she accept it?
Just as she began to melt into him, her eyes closing with a flutter, ears tuning out the huff of the woman behind the counter and the clanking of the clothing rack, she knew it was over. Justin began to pull away, no matter how hard she grasped at his clothing, trying to pull him in close.
“I’ll call you,” he said, moving toward the counter where the little lady stood.
“I don’t have a phone.”
That’s what you say? Really? Not “be safe” or “come back to me”? Good job, brain.
“I know. I’ll call your hotel this time,” he said with a wink, and then vaulted over the counter, narrowly missing the shop owner, who started yelling louder than before. She threw the hanger in her hand at Justin, but it bounced harmlessly off his back as he disappeared, heading toward the rear exit of the shop.
Well that was uneventful—
The door behind her opened, a gust of outside air rushing through the place, whipping some of the clean clothes on the rack into a frenzy.
Shay whirled to see two large and clearly in-shape men enter the store, dressed in all black, looking very authoritative and official. Their utility boots clumped on the floor as they strode up to the counter.
“Where is he?” they asked, looking back and forth between her and the little lady behind the counter.
“Uh, where is who?” she asked, trying not to shake.
Who were these guys? Why were they after Justin? They had the look of law enforcement officers about them. Not the street cops either, but the special teams that were called in when something extra bad was happening.
A thought raced through her system. Was Justin a criminal? Is that why he had to run so often? Was his “team” just a bunch of common crooks? Nausea flooded her stomach as she reached for the counter to steady herself.
“Big tall male. Very short-cut hair, wearing a leather motorcycle jacket. We saw him duck in here,” one of them said, his partner peering over the counter to see if Justin was hidden back there.
The little lady at the counter was looking back and forth. So far she hadn’t said a word, but Shay had her doubts about how much longer that would last. Gathering her nerves, she prepared to lie.
“I didn’t get a good look at him,” she said. “But a guy did open the door and start to come inside before leaving. I remember because he ducked and ran out of here still in a low crouch, looking really weird and scared.”
The pair looked at each other, and turned to head back out the front door.
Shay sagged, relieved that they had bought her lie.
The door opened, but this time there wasn’t a big gust of wind to accompany it.
“You notice that?” the first one said to his partner.
“No wind,” the other replied immediately.
“Back door,” they said together and turned, clearing the counter easily, sending the little lady sprawling out of the way.
Justin!
Thoughts cascaded through her head as she tried to understand just what was going on. Had she lied to the police or a government agency? Why were they after Justin? Who was he?
Curiosity and a desire to know the truth got the better of her, and she jumped over the counter herself, helping the little lady to her feet before following the two men out the back door.
Something was going on, and Shay needed to know what.
She only hoped that it wouldn’t bring her world crumbling down for the second time in only a few weeks.