Ezrina looks stymied a moment before looking down. “Skyla, I came from the lab. I’ve been busy.”
Nev chuckles. “That’s exactly what we dropped by to show you. Ezrina has been working on a gift for both Logan and you.”
Ezrina lifts her chin. “Early wedding gift.”
“Ooh.” I look to Logan and he takes up my left hand. I cringe slightly as he does it and quickly put a wall up around my thoughts.
“Let’s have it.” Logan pulls me in and I can feel my stomach hardening once again. Oh God.
Ezrina squints her eyes my way as if she were reading my mind. “Follow us.”
She takes us deeper into the woods, near the stream that runs through Marshall’s property, and we find a few men on the other side, seated around what looks to be a small fire pit. The moon shines bright over the area like a spotlight as if they chose that meadow for that very purpose.
“Ezrina!” One of them hops up and crosses his arms over his head enthusiastically. There looks to be eight of them and they all seem about the same age as Logan and me. “Is it time?”
“Time,” she shouts back and the eight of them stand, drifting a few feet apart from one another.
One of them lets out something akin to a bark or a howl and the rest join in—and then the unthinkable happens.
Clothes begin to tear. Their bodies contort unnaturally, backs bent, arms to the ground as horrific moans expel from the entire lot of them.
“My God, Ezrina,” I say, breathless, taking a full step forward. “What’s happening?” And then, as if they knew I needed an answer, I see it. One by one they begin to stagger forward, groaning. Their faces look deformed in this dim light.
“Spectators, Skyla,” she sighs the words out.
“Oh my God.” It’s all I can muster as I take a few staggering steps myself to the edge of the stream. “Ezrina? This is counterproductive.” And then a thought hits me. “Unless they’re working for us in some capacity.”
“I agree,” Logan expires the word from his lips. “We were sending them home, Ezrina. Are we back to square one with these guys?”
“No,” Nev answers for her. “There was a reason it took Rina so long to get these Spectators back to their initial forms. It’s because it wouldn’t take. And it wouldn’t take because there wasn’t a permanent shut-off valve.”
A laugh gets buried in my throat. “There was an on-off switch instead,” I say, looking back at Ezrina, my chest pounding as she offers a curt nod my way.
Marshall takes a breath. “Shall we leave them as a surprise for Wesley?”
“Heavens no,” I say with a morbid delight as I watch the men—the Spectators—moving and bobbing about. “I want all of my surprises to hit them below the belt when the time is right.”
“Very well.” Ezrina cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, “Enough!” Her voice riots against the expanse and echoes ten times over.
The Spectators halt a moment as their movements become rigid. And then, one by one, they fall on the ground and curl up into a ball as if she had shot them dead with the sound of her voice.
Logan lets out a ragged breath. “They’re transforming? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
No sooner does Ezrina say it than they begin to rise again, smaller frames, bodies easily discernable as men that the naked eye wouldn’t bat a lash at.
They wave over to us and Nev waves back.
Ezrina turns my way. “Happy wedding.” She makes a face. “Or whatever it is you moderns say. It’s a nice touch. Don’t you agree?”
“It is indeed. Can anyone instruct them to change? Are we going to have a problem with the Viden youth making a game out of it?”
“No,” Nev says it firm.
“How can you be so sure?” I ask as I watch the men put out their fire and head into the woods.
“Because I’ve threatened them.” Ezrina presses out a line of a smile. Of course, threats make Ezrina smile, that and little Alice. “I have them chipped.”
