Kelley Armstrong - The Gathering

I shook my head. After another minute, I asked, “How exactly did Dad get this job?”

“Hmm?”

“Someone at school said the St. Clouds just offered him the job.”

She laughed and sat down again. “I wish it’d been that easy. If someone’s implying that he had connections and was handed his position, the answer is no. I’m sure that applies to some people here, but not us. The St. Cloud Corporation wanted a new park warden, so they hired a headhunter. Do you know what that is?”

“A company that looks for people matching a job description.”

“Right. The St. Clouds wanted a specific kind of person. They preferred a young warden with a young family. And, if not Canadian, then with a Canadian connection, to make the transition easier.”

“Someone who’d put down roots and stay. Become part of the community.”

“Exactly. When we arrived for the interview, there were a half dozen other applicants. We suited the profile better than most. I’m Canadian, with family nearby, and, as much as I loved Oregon, I wanted to come home. You were the same age as a lot of the kids here. And your dad came with glowing recommendations. Still, we almost missed out. A woman got the offer first but ended up turning it down.”

What did I expect? That my family was linked to the St. Clouds by this Project Genesis? That they just happened to be living in Oregon when I was found and were approved to adopt me? Or that the St. Clouds were the scientists who’d genetically modified me, and they’d found me and lured my parents here?

If I thought about it more, I’d have realized there couldn’t be a connection. The research going on here was drug related, not genetic. The St. Clouds weren’t mad scientists; they were a legitimate corporation. You could find them on the internet and find links to the drug companies they owned.

It might seem coincidental—being genetically modified and living in a medical research town—but I couldn’t see any connection beyond that. My parents obviously knew nothing of my past and neither did the St. Clouds.

When I got back to bed, I fell straight into a nightmare about Serena. Saw her disappearing under the water as if yanked down. Swam out and felt someone yanking me down.

When the hand released me, I started to swim up. Then pain sliced through my legs, so sharp and strong that I howled. Water filled my lungs.

I jolted awake. My legs seized and I had to jam my pillow against my mouth to keep from screaming. It felt like a dozen charley horses hitting at once, excruciating cramps that brought tears to my eyes.

If I could have cried out, I think I would have. But the pain clamped my jaws shut and all I could do was lie on my side in agony until, slowly, my muscles began to relax.

As I massaged them, the knotted muscles felt like golf balls under my skin. I inhaled and exhaled as deeply as I could, remembering all my runner’s tricks for dealing with leg cramps.

Only these weren’t from running. I heard Rafe’s voice.

Muscle pains. I’ve been getting them a lot lately .

When I could stand, I walked to my mirror. I lifted one bare arm and made a fist, watching my muscles bunch and imagined them bunching more, changing, fur sprouting as my upper arm became a thick foreleg, my fist turned to a paw, huge claws sheathed. I shook my arm and turned away.

People couldn’t turn into animals. They just couldn’t.

But you saw it .

And that was the reason I hadn’t protested, hadn’t questioned. I’d watched Annie Shift.

If I really wanted to, I could find an explanation, however lame—I was overtired from sleepless nights, I’d hallucinated, I’d been drugged. Only I hadn’t considered any of that. I’d accepted it, maybe even more easily than I accepted the news that my mother was white, not because I’d rather be a skin-walker than Caucasian, but because this felt like the truth.

All my life I’d felt like I didn’t quite know who I was. I’d chalked that up to the adoption, not knowing my family, not knowing my tribe. But that wasn’t the missing piece. This was.

I could stand in front of the mirror and mentally refuse to believe a person could change into an animal, but in my heart I knew it was true. One day, like Annie, I’d be running through the forest on all fours, smelling, seeing, hearing, and feeling the world as a big cat.

One day? No. If Rafe was right about the dreams and the muscle cramps, that day was coming fast. The thought of it made my stomach seize. In relief, excitement, or downright terror? Probably a little of each.

When would it happen? How would it happen? What would it be like? Could I prepare?

And the rest—the part of “becoming like Annie”—that I was trying so hard not to think about. The part where I lost my human reason and began a true descent into animal. How long after the first Shift would that start? How much time would I have to find answers and make sure that didn’t happen to me?

No, how much time would we have. Rafe and I. As much as it hurt to be around him, I needed him. We wanted the same answers, and he had a lot more of them already than I did.

Maybe I had screwed up with Rafe. What mattered was that he was the guy with the facts and, I hoped, a plan.

When I got downstairs the next morning, Daniel was already up, sitting with Dad, looking over his shoulder as he monitored the fires.

“So what’s the latest word from the flaming frontier?” I asked as I poured myself an orange juice.

“It’s not flaming enough to cancel school,” Dad said.

“Damn.” I glanced at the map on the computer. “I’m guessing those red spots are fire. Looks safe for now, but what about the animals?”

“I’m driving them to the refuge this morning,” Mom said. “They’ll keep them until the fire watch ends.”

I gave her a hug. “Thank you.”

She handed me her teacup for a refill. I took it and ignored Daniel’s outstretched empty coffee mug.

He arched his brows. “You want a ride to school or not?”

“If you don’t drive me in, Dad will have to. There are dangerous predators on the loose.”

Daniel sighed and got up to fill his mug.

“You okay?” he whispered as he stood beside me at the counter.

I nodded and turned to Dad. “Speaking of predators, any luck finding Marv?”

Dad shook his head. “Right now, the focus is on this fire.”

Good. I hoped any cougar hunts were postponed for a while. Otherwise, with Annie roaming the woods in cat form, we could have another problem to deal with.

Daniel and I took care of the animals and got them ready for transport. When we arrived at school, I left Daniel with Corey and Brendan, and went off in search of Rafe. I checked the smoking pit first. Hayley was there. She glanced at me, and I nodded, then moved on, rounding the school to start down the path he’d take to get here.

“Looking for Rafe?” a voice said behind me.

It was Hayley. Her expression was guarded, and I thought of what Rafe had said. She was right—I’d never gotten past that incident with the math homework. I hadn’t consciously held it against her, but it had changed the way I saw her. I’d backed off, and maybe others had, too. I should have noticed, and I hadn’t.

That didn’t justify all the crappy things she’d done to me and said about me since, but it did make me look at her a little differently as she came down the path.

“I heard you guys broke up,” she said.

“We did.”

“Did you decide he wasn’t good enough for you?”

If I had, I wouldn’t be looking for him, would I? I didn’t say that. Didn’t have the energy to fight back. Just shook my head and kept walking.