Rebirth (Rogues Shifter Series) (6 page)

His calm manner and reassuring voice gave me a touch of confidence
, and so after a very shaky start, I was able to follow his orders all the way down to the ground with only a few tearful, frozen pauses along the way. When my feet touched the forest floor beneath the tree, I sat down hard, wrapped my arms around my knees and sobbed with relief and embarrassment.

I looked up to see Rob glance at me with concern then pat Ethan on the back and walk back to the cabin. Ethan sat down on the ground next to me and reached out to hold my hand in support. “You really did great. If it makes you feel any better, I can’t swim. I start to panic
in about three feet of water.” He looked a little embarrassed, but reached out to wipe the tears off of my cheeks with his ripped shirt.

“I guess an island is a great place for you to be a prisoner,” I sniffled.

He laughed. “Yep, without a boat I’m stuck here. But I don’t really feel like a prisoner and neither should you. We’re here to train and then we’re free to leave.” He brushed a stray leaf out of my hair and tried to do the same for his own.

I looked up at him and attempted a smile. “Thank you
, Ethan…”

He interrupted me. “Rob would have ca
ught you. But you’re welcome.” He leaned over and kissed me gently on the forehead. Then he got up and walked in the direction Rob had gone, making sure that I could see how cute his butt looked as he walked away. Back to the old Ethan, I sighed and then smiled. A few minutes later I followed his spicy scented trail back to the cabin.

Chapter Eight

Rob was cooking a big pot of pasta and Ethan was making a salad. To help out, I figured that I’d get the washing machine going. I wandered around the various rooms picking up everyone’s dirty clothes and towels, sorting and then starting a l
oad of darks. My original set of ripped clothes had already been washed and dried and were folded on the dryer. I looked them over and figured that I could rip the jeans to make shorts and I could still wear the ripped tee shirt over a sports bra. It would give me an edgy look out here in the wilderness, I laughed.

We a
te dinner quietly, no one wanting to bring up what had happened unless I did. As I watched them eat, I realized that the dynamics in the room had changed. I wasn’t angry at them anymore. I was sad about my parents, but I didn’t feel the rage that had been making me lash out at them. For some weird reason, they seemed to care about me. And even stranger, I was starting to care about them, too.

“It was my
anger that got me up that tree,“ I said to no one in particular. “I was really mad at Ethan for acting so smug.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows in pretended shock. “Smug? Moi?”

I ignored him and asked Rob, “Is that what you meant about using my anger for a purpose?”

“It’s not just your anger;
it’s your determination and ability to focus on a task. You go after a goal without hesitation. Your strength, physically and mentally, at that moment is increased tenfold. Most shifters stay at an even balance, they’re this strong or this fast all the time, but you have these incredible spurts of power. It’s quite cool, really. I wish you could have watched yourself climbing up that tree.” Rob looked at me like a proud teacher.

“Yeah, she’s definitely unbalanced.” Ethan laughed. I threw a roll at him and he caught it without even looking, taking a slow bite to taunt me. “Yum, thanks.” He licked his lips.

“Does Ethan still get doses of the crazy serum? ‘Cause he seems kind of unbalanced too.” Bite me I mouthed in his direction.

“No, he’s finished with that, now he’s here just working on his control, which occasionally is sorely lacking, “ Rob sighed and shook his head good naturedly as Ethan chomped at the air in response to my taunt. "Speaking of the serum, you’ll be getting another dose tomorrow morning so you need to get a good night’s sleep. You’ll be transitioning into your animal and that takes a lot of energy.”

I slumped down in my chair and thought about what tomorrow would bring. I wondered what I would turn into. Certain animals were definitely more appealing than others. If I was a seagull I could fly off of this island and go home, but then I realized with a touch of sadness that there was no home for me to return to. Rob and Ethan seemed to think I was some kind of large cat. That would be cool I guess. I mean seagulls didn’t have sharp claws and I’d already shifted my hands. I was kind of hoping there were no shapeshifter giant sloths.

I threw the load of dark laundry into the dryer and started a load of lights. “What day is it”? I asked Rob who was putting away the leftovers while Ethan did the dishes, all the while humming “Go the Distan
ce” from Hercules. Must be a Disney movie nut.

“Today is Tuesday,” Rob answered. Without comment, I grabbed a throw blanket, walked out the front door and sat on the wooden porch bench. It was chilly out but I wanted to think. Tomorrow I’d turn seventeen and possibly turn shifter officially. Two weeks ago when I thought about my birthday I’d imagined a cake with Justin and Maggie and a few of my friends from school, then maybe going out to a movie together. What movie had I wanted to see? I wasn’t sure any more.

My shoulders slumped when I remembered that I was supposed to be graduating in a couple of weeks. Because I’d taken extra classes throughout high school, I was able to graduate a year early. I thought about the ceremony that I’d be missing and the typical parties afterward, most of which I wouldn't have been invited to anyway. I thought about Maggie and Jason looking at me with pride as I got my diploma. I pulled my feet up onto the bench and hugged my knees, wiping away a few tears as I quietly mourned the life I was leaving behind.

But as the sadness played out with each salty drop, there was a stew of new feelings emerging:  excitement, anticipation, fear, of course, but also hope. Throughout my life I’d balanced precariously on a wire which dangled between normal and different. If I could turn shifter and be accepted into a community of people just like me, maybe I could learn to like who I was.

Rob sat next to me on the porch bench.  I hadn’t heard him come through the door.

“Do y
ou know who my birth parents were?” This is the question I’d wanted to ask all day, ever since he mentioned that there were shifter communities.  Maybe my parents lived in one of them.

“It will depend on what you shift into tomorrow. But even after I see you change and watch your progress, I
’d only be able to speculate. "

“Could they still be alive?”

He hesitated. “I'm sorry, Jackie, but I don’t know. It’s probably something you should investigate on your own.”

“What happened to you when you first changed?”

His eyes lost their sparkle and his mouth thinned out as he remembered. “I was eighteen and living in a town in Southern Oregon with a family who had adopted me when I was an infant. I was pretty happy and looking forward to graduation and college. I had a younger sister who was also adopted as a baby.  At the time she was fifteen and had gotten hooked up with a bad bunch of kids. She’d been missing for about 24 hours when I found her drunk in a rundown house. I grabbed her to take her home and this guy she was with punched me and started kicking me while I was down on the ground. His two friends joined in and I could hear my sister telling them to stop. One of them started punching and kicking her too. Suddenly my clothes were ripping and I was changing into a monster, or so I thought.

“I h
ad no control over my leopard. I attacked them all in front of my sister.then I ran out the door leaving her crying hysterically on the floor. There were woods nearby and I headed there. It was late and I thought that no one had seen me. I ran all night until I collapsed from exhaustion." Rob’s face paled and his hands clenched in his lap, causing his knuckles to turn white.

“In the morning I found myself back in human form chained up. I was now a captive of a man who ran a very different kind of program than I do. He explained what being a shifter was in only the briefest terms then never explained anything again. He brought me food and water and left me in a boiling hot cell all day. He wouldn’t tell me if my sister was alright. He beat me when I complained and continuously dared me to change again. When I finally did, he shot me with tranquilizer darts and beat me repeatedly. He didn
’t give a crap about training me; he was just into this whole power trip. At the full moon I found out he wasn’t a shifter, he was a werewolf who enjoyed torturing shifters. I almost died that night. After three weeks, a group of shifters confronted him and convinced him by force to allow me to go with them. I found out later that there were two others trapped in cages on the compound. They didn’t survive the beatings.”

I quickly wiped away a tear with my sleeve before he noticed. I couldn’t imagine what he must have felt, cut off from his family, thinking of himself as a vicious monster. It made me think about how kind Rob had been to me and how much effort he was putting into making my first shift as easy for me as possible. I reached out to squeeze his arm and he tried to smile back.

“I was wild at first. For everyone's safety, they kept me in a safe room. They taught me the basics of living as a shifter and how to cope with the anger. I learned to trust them and they helped me gain full control. I was free to leave, but I’ve stayed with them by choice. Maya, she’s on the Shifter Council, noticed that I had this calming effect on others and recommended that I become a recruiter. At first I declined the offer, but—,” he hesitated,”—for various reasons I ended up changing my mind.

“I eventually returned to my hometown to find out if my parents and sister were alright. They
were fine, although they'd been told that I was dragged off and killed by the same ‘wild animal’ that had almost killed the other men. None of them remembered anything from that night. I never spoke to any of my family again.”

We sat silently, both of us lost in our own memories of a life left behind. I finally c
rawled into bed around midnight, feeling sad, yet somehow hopeful.

Chapter Nine

The next morning I woke up to the persistent hammering of a woodpecker outside my window. It was still really early so I rolled over, covered my head with my pillow and tried to go back to sleep. What seemed like only seconds later, I heard a knock on my door. Annoyed, I got up to open it. Note to self: start a shopping list and head it up with earplugs.

Ethan was standing there holding a bag of clean laundry in one hand and what looked like a corn muffin stuck with a lighted wooden match in the other. He started singing “Happy Birthday” making me wince, not because he was off key, but because it was still very early. Putting my finger over his mouth, I leaned over and blew out the match. I felt badly when I saw his hurt expression, so I smiled and gave him a friendly hug.

“Thanks. I appreciate the thought, really. It’s just k
ind of early and I’m not a morning person." I glanced at the tree outside my window, thinking to myself that maybe my animal, whatever it turns out to be, will like the taste of woodpecker.

” I didn’t have the ingredients for a cake, sorry”, Ethan said, handing me the muffin and throwing the laundry bag on my bed.

“This is perfect,” I said, smiling again and biting into the corn muffin.  I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. “You made this?”

“Yep…from scratch. I like to cook."

“Huh…so you’re the Wolfgang Puck of the shifter rejects?”

He twisted up his mouth and shook his head. “We’re not rejects yet…there’s still a little hope.”

I felt bad. “For you, maybe.”

Make a wish…maybe a miracle will happen.” Ethan grinned and turned away, twisting back halfway down the hall to say “I am available this week to make your wishes come true.” I almost threw the muffin at him, then realized my horrible error and grabbed my pillow and threw that instead. I took another bite as he caught it gracefully, and buried his nose in it, breathing deeply. “You know you’re not getting this back.” He sauntered off down the hallway toward the small living room.
Huh.

I giggled and headed for the shower. When I finished my morning rituals, as basic as they were without any makeup
or hair supplies, I followed Ethan’s path down the hall and turned toward the kitchen, all the while nibbling on my birthday muffin. Rob and Ethan were seated at the table eating breakfast. I joined them while Rob poured me a glass of orange juice.

Rob smiled. “Happy birthday! Eat a light breakfast today. It works out better when you shift on a half empty stomach.”I slumped in the chair, suddenly losing my appetite, putting the remains of my muffin down and sipping the juice.

Ethan smiled and pushed playfully on my shoulder. “So now you’re legal.”

“Legal?”

“Yeah, you can vote in community elections, own property, you can get married, too, although we call it mated. You’re considered an adult at seventeen by all the supernaturals. Its ‘cause most shifters transition for the first time between thirteen and fifteen and have to become responsible citizens, keeping their nature a secret from humans. If you mess up and hurt someone, you're tried as an adult. We mature a lot faster.”

"Oh yeah...you seem real
ly mature." He pretended to glare at me, but then what he'd said hit me and I looked at him in shock. “How do you know all that? Weren’t you raised by humans like me? Didn’t you just get here, too?”