The Shifter's Choice Page 9

  “His son?”

  “Johnny would like that. But he can’t.”

  “They’ll make him into a bodyguard?”

  “Assign him, yes. He wants that. It’s a prestigious post. Protecting the president or other vital American targets. He told me he’d be honored. And I know he hates vampires. It’s instinctive.”

  “All vampires?”

  “Yes, well, initially. He’s made me an exception, thankfully. Now you’d best go check on Johnny.”

  Sonia was about to agree, but Brianna disappeared.

  * * *

  Sonia reached Johnny’s home a little after twelve-hundred, hot, thirsty and worried. Upon entering the clearing about his home, the first thing she noticed was one of the patio chairs lodged in the top of a palm tree at the side of the yard. The second thing was the eerie silence.

  “Johnny?” she called but received no answer. Brianna’s earlier assurance did not relieve the tiny heartbeat of panic in her throat so she crossed the yard at a run. Her mind filled with terrible images of a pistol placed in Johnny’s mouth and liquid drain cleaner eating away the lining of his stomach. She hit a dead run as she charged up the porch stairs.

  She heaved open the front door and stumbled in to find Johnny in the kitchen lifting a glass to his lips. Sonia charged across the room and slapped the glass from his hand. The plastic tumbler bounced as clear fluid splashed over the wide boards of his kitchen.

  He lifted both his palms up with a clear question on his face.

  “What is that?”

  He reached for the faucet over the sink and turned the stream on and then off.

  Water, she realized. Sonia grabbed the counter and dropped her forehead to her hand. “I’m sorry. I thought... I thought...” She turned her head and stared up at him. “It was horrible, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  She told herself not to, but somehow she needed his touch. Sonia stepped forward arms extended and he opened for her, gathering her up and rocking her as she clung tight. She started talking, babbling about the dogs and the empty cages. But how they were making progress. They needed more time. Johnny held her close and rubbed her back.

  A voice came from the open door. “Johnny!”

  Sonia sprang from Johnny’s arms as if pulled by a bungee and snapped a salute. They both turned to see the captain standing in the door.

  “Oh.” His eyes swept from her to Johnny and back to her again. He returned Sonia’s salute. “At ease, Touma. You both all right?”

  “Yes. That is, I think so.” She deferred to Johnny.

  The captain came forward. “I had no idea those dogs were dying. But Zharov says that it has something to do with their anatomy which is different than a man’s. I don’t know.” He rubbed his neck. “Anyway, we’re close. Really close. You have to hang in there, buddy.”

  Johnny nodded.

  “I’ll stop back if I have more information.” The captain turned to her. “You’re staying awhile?”

  She wasn’t sure if it was an order or a suggestion but she nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell them not to expect you. Call for a pickup if you need one.”

  If?

  Sonia’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t an order, but she got the impression the captain didn’t want Johnny left alone. “I’m heading out.” He thumbed over his shoulder and backed from the room as if it might be rigged with trip wires. Seeing him flustered made him seem more human to Sonia which was ironic because now she knew that he wasn’t human at all.

  Did it hurt to change forms?

  Johnny lifted a finger to her and then followed the captain, snatching the whiteboard from the counter as he went. He was gone long enough for Sonia to realize she had been hugging Johnny and the captain had seen them. She felt sick to her stomach wondering what would happen next. A reprimand at least. She was blowing it again. She felt it—getting too personal. Sonia looked to the back door and wondered if she should just leave. Johnny seemed all right. But what if he wasn’t?

  Sonia grabbed a roll of paper towels from under the sink and began sopping up the spill. The door opened and closed. Sonia hoped Johnny was alone. She heard his huffing sound and realized he could not see her behind the counter.

  “In here.”

  A moment later he was squatting before her, dish towel in hand, helping her clean up.

  “Is he gone?”

  Johnny confirmed that with the sign for yes, rather than a nod.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  Why?

  “He caught me hugging you.”

  No trouble. More lab tomorrow at noon.

  “Both of us?”

  Yes.

  She was squatting there before him when she spilled her other worry.

  “I met her.”

  Johnny fixed Sonia with his steady gaze and nodded. Had Brianna told him, then?

  “She told me about the chasers. Johnny, do you think the captain is trying to help you or keep you like this as a watchdog for his wife?”

  Johnny’s eyes went hard and he shook his head. He signed, I trust Captain.

  “All right.”

  “What do you think about the experiments?”

  Sad. They try.

  “Yes. And they can change them back but...” Best not finish that train of thought. “But I’m sure they will figure out what went wrong. I hope it’s soon.” She drummed her fingers on the counter and then recognized what she was doing and stopped.

  “This is impossible. All of it.”

  Johnny cocked his head as if to say, really? He scratched beneath his furry extended jaw as evidence that it was all happening, all real.

  “So the captain is a werewolf, a gray one, who can change at will.” Her eyebrows lifted as she gasped. “Is he naked when he transforms?”

  Johnny nodded.

  “Does it hurt?”

  He signed, Don’t know. Think so. Look like pain.

  But Johnny couldn’t know himself because he had never changed from this form. He’d been this shaggy fearsome looking creature since he’d been attacked in Afghanistan. Where had the creature bitten him? She could not see any scars, but then his shaggy coat covered him from nose to toes. She wouldn’t dwell on this. If she expected Johnny to move past it, she needed to, as well. But it wasn’t fair. She breathed deeply. Let it go.

  Sonia folded her arms around her middle and stared out the kitchen window at the dense jungle that flowed up the hill.

  After a moment, she realized she was searching for movement. Were the vampires out there right now? If they were would she even see them coming? Brianna moved too fast to see. What if they killed Johnny? She found that prospect brought a sharp stab of pain to her heart.

  “I’m frightened for you and for the captain.”

  Johnny left his seat and rummaged in the kitchen junk drawer for a pen and pad. Then he wrote, “Natural enemies. We kill them. I’m a marine, Sonia. I might not look it but I’m a marine and marine’s protect people.”

  “Yes. I know you are.”

  He was a werewolf and his neighbor was a vampire. But what Sonia had learned about the mercenary males, it made her skin go cold. Her smile faded.

  “Brianna said the males are ugly.”

  Johnny nodded and then drew a quick sketch of a thing with pointed ears, slanted eyes. Slitted nostrils and needlelike canines. She stared in horror at the line drawing and then at him.

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “No wonder they only come out at night.”

  He shook his head and signed, Any time.

  She stared back at the drawing. Johnny nudged her and she had to take a fast side step to keep from falling over.

  Don’t worry. I keep you safe.

  “Yes. I know that.” She set aside the sketch and rubbed her hands together. “Are you hungry? I can fix you something?”

  Not hungry.

  “Johnny, they are going to figure it out. And when they do you are taking me out fo
r dinner and dancing.”

  His gaze snapped to hers and his brow lifted as if he was checking to see if she was making fun of him. She wasn’t.

  “I’m serious. When you turn back, I want you to take me out.”

  He nodded slowly. A D-A-T-E. Then he lifted his brows.

  “Yes. A date.” She took his hand, happy to see the hope in his eyes and feel the warm reassurance of his big, strong hand. “And Johnny? Learning to sign isn’t going to keep you from turning back. It will just make the waiting easier.”

  He did a double take at her words and straightened. His jaw bunched but he nodded his understanding.

  They stared at each other. That’s what this was about really. Overcoming fear. He was afraid of waiting for a cure that would never come. She was afraid of screwing up again.

  “I’m going to stick this out and so are you.”

  This time he drew her into his arms and held her. She closed her eyes, feeling safe and hopeful. How ridiculous, she thought. She’d never been in more danger in her life. And then one of those moments from her past sprang into her mind with the subtly of a popping jack-in-the-box. She shoved it back down, acknowledging that she’d been in real jeopardy then, too. Not all monsters had fangs and fur. Some came in a bottle.

  She pushed away as she muttered that she was hungry. Turning to Johnny for comfort was just a bad idea. He wasn’t some overgrown teddy bear and she knew she was blurring the lines between them again. Maybe Johnny needed comfort as much as she did but that wasn’t somewhere she was willing to go.

  They busied themselves fixing a meal and then eating it at the counter. After that she made a call to the captain who sent a driver to pick her up. A few minutes later the horn blared. Sonia said goodbye hesitant now to leave him alone.

  “You’ll be all right?”

  He nodded, keeping his moonlike eyes on her. She hesitated wanting to go, feeling the need to stay. The horn sounded again.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Right?”

  He looked weary as he nodded again and guided her out. He stood on the porch as she descended to the driveway. When she looked back she could not see him in the dark, but she could see the strange green glow of his eyes. They glimmered like an animal just outside the circle of light. A chill went up her spine as she waved and jogged to the comfort of glowing headlights.

  She knew how long the nights could be. Would he be all right alone?

  * * *

  The next day, Sonia called for a ride before breakfast. She hadn’t slept thinking of Johnny alone with that damned gun. When she got to his place it was to find his house empty. She pounded and called and peeked in the windows.

  Why had she left him alone? Why hadn’t the captain sent someone to stay with him last night?

  As she grabbed the phone that called the MPs and flipped it open, she heard a familiar huffing. She spun and saw Johnny striding across the yard.

  She pounded down the stairs to meet him halfway and then started shouting at him like a maniac.

  “Where the hell were you? You scared me half to death. I thought you were dead in there.” She pointed toward his home.

  Johnny lowered his snout and his brow simultaneously as she finally stopped yelling. Her lower lip began to quiver. He patted her shoulder and she sidled closer resting her forehead on the massive hairy plane of his chest.

  Finally she drew back and signed that she was sorry.

  Johnny blew out a breath that made his gums flap. Then he signed that they should go swimming.

  She began shaking her head before he even finished the sign, her skin flashing cold in dread.

  “I don’t swim.”

  W-A-D-E.

  She didn’t want to, but she agreed just to please him. Damn she didn’t even have a bathing suit.

  Twenty minutes later she was up to her neck in the lovely deep pool which seemed less serene with her flapping about in the water like a whirligig.

  Somehow over the course of the morning, Sonia learned to keep the water from going up her nose as she made slow, steady progress across the pool. The water had become a cool refuge from the tropical heat. Her olive green tank top and bikini briefs made an acceptable bathing suit and paddling in a grotto sure beat waiting for an open shower at the barracks. Johnny was a patient teacher and in just one morning had straightened out her kick and taught her the arm motion for the breast stroke.

  She reached the volcanic rock that edged the pool near the falls. Puffing and gasping, she laughed at the sheer joy of her accomplishment. Johnny had kept pace with her on the journey, but this time she had not clung to him midcourse. She’d made it all the way without help.

  He lifted a hand offering her a high five. She slapped his hand hard.

  “I did it.”

  Again.

  “No way. I’m going to soak my sore muscles in that waterfall and then I’m going to sunbathe. Lesson over.”

  Johnny offered a hand and then helped her into a spot where the water gently cascaded over her like a warm shower.

  “All I need is soap.”

  He grinned. The horror of yesterday seemed to have faded for them both. The water worked its magic massaging away the soreness from her neck and back. Johnny swam as she enjoyed the falls. Afterward, she stretched out on the towel Johnny had given her and gazed up at the patch of blue sky. He left the pool and lounged beside her, water running in rivulets off his wet coat. It took a moment to realize what she was feeling, it had been so long.

  She was happy. She felt secure and did not worry where her next meal would come from or if the cops would be at her house. She didn’t worry if her little sister was safe or if her mother had drunk their rent away. Everything was all right.

  It was an unfamiliar feeling, light and airy. She thought she might float right up there into the blue sky.

  Something brushed her arm. She turned her head to see Johnny lying on his back. The sun made his wet black fur glisten with a glossy gleam. With his fur matted to his skin, it was easier to see his form. His musculature was more gladiator than average Joe, but he did not seem animal to her until she looked at his face. In profile his snout, nose and canine jaws were startling. He did not look human, but she was becoming more accustomed to his appearance. As if sensing her scrutiny, he opened one yellow eye.

  He patted his chest with both hands in the sign for happy and then lifted a tufted brow.

  “Yes. Very. I’m afraid someone will come and snatch it away again.”

  Again? His brows lifted.

  She rested one forearm across her brow and glanced at the sky, letting the sun warm her damp skin. She held back a moment longer and then let it out. She’d never told a soul. But she already knew that she’d tell Johnny. The decision made, she rolled to her side, propping herself up on an elbow. Sonia thought back and the tension crept back into her joints as she wondered if he’d use this later to humiliate her.

  She rolled to a seated position, folding her legs like a meditating yogi so she could use both hands to sign.

  “All right. Remember when I told you I was in foster care?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just kept signing and speaking, the signs flowing as she forced herself to release this secret. He nodded that he remembered. She didn’t want to look at him when she told him, so she stared at the falls and the water cascading in ribbons onto the rocks as she spoke. “Well, I want to tell you why.”

  Johnny stretched out on his side. It was hard telling him that her mom had not been a very good mother. Sonia had learned from birth that this was not a topic that was to be mentioned, so she danced around the problem like a matador sticking the bull a few times to weaken it. Her mention of not having enough food caused one of her eyes to twitch. She glanced at him to find his jaw locked and his gaze steady. Sonia looked away again, speaking to the pool before her and then taking a quick glimpse at him when the anxiety grew too much. When she told him that she’d often eaten her Cheerios as her mom poured herself a tall
glass of gin, no ice, Johnny tapped his front teeth. The gesture seemed unconscious. She pressed her lips together then watched the water falling and falling. Letting go at the top, regrouping into calm depths below. She let go, too.

  “She wasn’t too bad when I was little. Mostly just coming home drunk and falling asleep on the sofa. But she wasn’t really asleep. You know?”

  Johnny’s nod was barely perceptible and there was a tension in his shoulders now, a quiet, deadly stillness.

  “Then she got fired. That first time really upset her and she said she’d stopped drinking, but then I realized she was just putting it in her juice. I got Marianna up and dressed for school because Mama wasn’t ever up at that hour. She got work in a bar. Well, she got worse. Child services came a few times. Marianna and I tried to clean up, but they saw the bottles on the curb in the recycling. It was the wrong day for recycling. That was the first time they took us.”

  Johnny reached over and grasped her hand. The warmth and the pressure gave her courage. She held on a minute and then thought she’d just stop right there. The rest seared her insides. But Johnny released her hand and signed for her to go on. She didn’t want to but she did.

  She continued to sign. “But it wasn’t the last. Mama got us back and then showed up drunk at school. I was in third grade. She tried to pick up Marianna, too, but she ran and Mama couldn’t catch her. When we heard the sirens, Mama left her and took me. I found out later that the school called the cops but they didn’t have the right address because Mama had moved us to a hotel. It was a bad hotel. Not the kind you stay on vacation but where people live all the time. The room smelled like cigarettes and there was stuff in the dressers that wasn’t ours. It took them two days to find us. Mama...” Sonia’s voice broke. She swallowed, forcing the lump down with the shame. “It took them two days.” Sonia looked away. “I was screaming that she couldn’t leave Marianna at the school. We had to find her and she said if I was going to tell the school counselor that she was an unfit mother then maybe I didn’t need a mother anymore.” Sonia bowed her head. “She locked me in a dog cage that was in the room. The big kind that you keep animals in at night. It was cream-colored plastic on the sides and the front and back had a grate that you opened from the outside but I couldn’t reach the latch. She left me so I tried to claw through the plastic.” She looked at her own fingers remembering the ragged nails and bloody tips. “And I was screaming. It smelled like a dog in there and I got...well, I still don’t like closed spaces. I can’t stand them. Then those dogs at the lab were in those little cages and I could smell them.”