Shifting

Shifting Page 43

But how did he know about it? How had he found me? And why the freak did an entire group of animals—some of them, if not all of them also human—want me dead? I was nothing! No one special! Actually, that wasn’t true. I was nothing and no one important—had been my whole life. But special? I could turn into an animal at will.

I was beyond special.

I lay on my bed with my hands behind my head, feeling seconds scrape slowly into minutes, waiting for the minutes to pile into hours, waiting for the hour when they would come for me. Because I knew they were coming.

I don’t recall feeling sleepy—I was exhausted, but not sleepy—when a noise jerked me awake. A twinkling of stars spattered the small patch of sky I could see through my open window.

I sat up, perched upon the edge of the mattress, and listened. Coyotes were about, yipping and barking. I jumped off the bed and ran to the window, sliding it quietly shut and locking it.

In darkness I stood and listened, peering down at the shadowed ground, searching for anything that would warn me, would confirm my suspicions that the hour had arrived.

Shadows moved below my window, shapes darting to and fro, both low to the ground and standing tall. A howl bellowed through the night and I jumped.

I inched closer to the window and placed my palms against the cool glass. An inky black face appeared, peering right into my eyes. A gray beak gleamed in that horrible face and a hiss penetrated through the glass. I fell backward, scooting away from the window, my fist pressed into my mouth to hold in a scream. Earlier that day, I thought I wanted them to come for me—wanted it all to end. But now I was too terrified to face them.

I don’t know how my panicked brain could register anything besides fear, but it did. My blood ran cold as a thought occurred to me. When I had come back to my room after finding Mrs. Carpenter, I had not locked the exterior barn door.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted out of my room. The barn was pitch black, darker, even, than my bedroom had been. The chickens were restless, clucking and flapping their wings. I slowed and felt my way down the steps.

Shapes—distorted and hunched and blacker than the blackness—filled all the corners of the barn. I prayed they were shadows or my eyes playing tricks on me, yet they seemed to move when I caught them in my peripheral vision. Then something did move. A long shaft of charcoal turned to a rectangle of gray as the barn door eased open. A bulky darkness stepped through and the door shut.

I could just make out the darker shape in the barn, floating toward the stairs leading up to my bedroom. The whispery sound of footfalls mingled with the chicken noises. I scuttled toward the other side of the barn.

Crouched low to the ground, I watched the shadow’s progress, watched as it climbed the stairs and made it to the entrance of my bedroom, about to enter, about to give me the chance to bolt for the outside door. But it stopped, a black human shape silhouetted in the rectangular door frame. And then, as if this shape knew exactly where I was, it turned toward me.

The creature came down the stairs, strode right to my hiding place, and grabbed my hair.

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t breathe! My arms lashed out, scratching and clawing with nails on the brink of turning into razor-sharp claws. But then I recognized the smell of the person trying so desperately to ward off my feeble scratching without hurting me.

“Maggie! Stop it!” he hissed, clutching both my wrists in one of his hands.

“Bridger?” I whimpered.

“Shh. Yes, it’s me.”

I pulled my hands away from his grasp and threw my arms around him, burying my face against his bare chest. His arms encircled me with warmth and for a split second I felt safe. Until I realized Bridger was now likely to be added to my growing list of dead and injured people. My body stiffened in his arms.

“You’re terrified,” he stated in a whisper so soft I might have imagined it. “I’m sorry. We have to get away from here. Now. Can you walk?”

“No! You can’t be here. You—” His finger was on my lips, silencing me.

“Do not make another noise.” His voice was hardly louder than an exhaled breath.

I pulled his finger off my lips. “But they’re going to kill—”

His palm clamped down on my mouth and his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling my back against his chest. Lips pressed against my ear. “You have to trust me. Now. Shut. Up.”

I nodded and his hand left my mouth. Taking my hand in his, he led me to the barn door.

He opened the door a hair and moonlight poured in, illuminating Bridger’s face, gleaming off his dark hair and bare chest, and reflecting on something long and shiny in his hand. A big, silver gun. I froze.

Bridger squeezed my hand and pulled me forward a step. He dropped my hand, held the gun by his cheek so it pointed at the ceiling, and cocked it. His eyes were hard, his mouth set in a grim line, and the angles of his face seemed more severe in the blue moonlight.

Grabbing my upper arm, he pulled me so close that I could feel his heart hammering against my shoulder. His lips were on my ear.

“When I open this door, you run to my Cruiser, Maggie, faster than you have ever run in your life. Get in, shut and lock the door, and do not come out. If anything happens to me, drive to the Navajo reservation and tell them Bridger O’Connell sent you.”

He didn’t give me any warning, just kicked the door out and shoved me into the open. I hesitated long enough to see him lower his gun. And then I ran.

The moon-drenched night throbbed with shadows. I hadn’t taken two steps when I heard the sickening sound of a gun with a silencer going off at close range. My arms flew protectively over my head but my frantic pace did not falter. A cougar crashed dead at my feet. I leaped over it and kept running.

Parked in front of Mrs. Carpenter’s front porch, the SUV reflected moonlight. My bare feet hardly touched the ground as I sprinted toward it. I heard another muffled shot, barely audible above my panting. A sharp yelp met my ears as a giant Doberman fell to the gravel beside me.

And then I was at the car. I yanked open the door and slammed it shut so hard behind me, the car shuddered.

With my nose pressed against the window, I stared through the blue night at Bridger. Shadows flitted about, hugging the ground so I could just catch them out of the corner of my eye. Bridger wasn’t fazed. He strode away from the barn and into the midst of the shadows, his shiny gun swinging back and forth, seemingly unaware of his dire circumstances. Calm as a summer morning, he walked toward me, gun ready, face intent.

One thing was obvious, though—the shadows were scrambling away from Bridger and his big, shiny gun. They feared him. Yet one shadow, hiding in the darkness below the porch, was braver than the others. As Bridger walked past, the shadow wormed along the gravel drive and lunged for his unprotected back. I started to scream a warning, pounding my balled fists against the window. Either he heard me or he heard the creature, because he turned and fired his gun just as a massive silver wolf collided with him.

As one they crashed to the ground, a heap of motionless fur. Then something moved. The wolf rose and was thrown lifelessly aside. Bridger scrambled up from the ground, his chest smeared with blood, and aimed his gun toward the crooked pines at the edge of the yard, as if he hadn’t almost died a second before. The shadowy creatures went crazy, scrambling away from Bridger, no longer hiding where the moon did not shine. And finally I saw them. Animals. Lots and lots of animals.

Bridger ran to the car. I unlocked the door and he climbed in, slamming the door before handing me his heavy gun. He smelled like blood and gunpowder.

33

The engine revved to life and the SUV lurched forward.

“Seat belt,” Bridger snapped, buckling his without taking his eyes off the road or his foot from the gas pedal.

As we sped away, I peered out my window. The night seemed like any other summer night—innocent, starry, warm.

“Who the hell messed with the ring of protection?” he snapped.

I looked at Bridger. Obviously I wasn’t very coherent, because the only thing I could think to say was, “Where are your shirt and shoes?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t have time to put them on,” he said, as if this should have been obvious. “I would have been too late. And why wasn’t the barn locked?”

“W-what?” I couldn’t think. My body temperature was plummeting, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

“Maggie?” Bridger grabbed my hand. He swore under his breath and sped up, his SUV practically flying down Swan Street, till it skidded to a stop at the gated entry to his house. He pushed his gate remote control and the wrought iron parted. The car lurched forward, then slammed to a stop just past the gates.

Silently, he took the gun from my lap, cocked it, and got out of the car without shutting his door. On a keypad beside the gates, he typed in a few numbers and I felt more than heard the sudden hum of electricity. The gates slid shut and Bridger waited, gun pointed at the gates till they closed completely. When he climbed back into the car, I stared at him wide eyed.

“I’m so sorry. I thought if I left you alone, they’d stop hunting you,” he said. “Pretty brilliant.” My mouth fell open with shock, but he didn’t notice.

Bridger stopped the car in front of the mansion and got out. He pulled his phone from his pants pocket and hit speed dial. Even though the car doors were shut, I could hear every word.

“Alex. We need help. My house.” Bridger glanced at me and caught me listening, so continued his conversation in Navajo. “Ho-nez-da. Al-tah-je-jay yea-go. Yeah. Lots of them.” He put the phone back into his pocket and walked around to my side of the SUV. I stared at him blankly. He opened the door.

“Maggie?” he prodded gently. When I didn’t respond, he reached across my lap and unhooked my seat belt. “Come on.”

He took my hands and helped me out of the car, then wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the house.

It wasn’t until we were on the front porch that I snapped out of my trance. I stopped moving, refusing to let him guide me a step farther.