Finally, fur sprouted all over my reshaped body in that tiny green patch in the middle of the desert, but my mind was still far away, trapped in past traumas. In old sins I could never forgive myself for. In violent acts I blamed on the very beast ripping its way into the world through my human flesh, because no matter how guilty I felt, I could not let myself bleed to death or get recaptured—not even to pay penance for what I’d done. The instinct to survive was stronger than anything else I’d ever experienced both now, as I lay vulnerable and exposed in the last seconds of my shift, and five years ago, when I’d killed my own mother and eaten human flesh to keep fromstarving.
Ultimately, my body would win out over my mind. Even if I hated myself for it for the rest of mylife.
“Kaci!”
Startled, I shot upright on four legs, backing instinctively away from the voice. Heart racing, I licked my front left leg, testing out my new wound. The taste of my own blood was familiar, and in cat form, it didn’t bother me. The pain was much less than before, and the gash had already started toclose.
If I climbed a tree before it was fully healed, it might re-open. But if Ididn’t…
I looked up and judged the distance in less than a second, my feline instincts doing mental physics my human brain could never have managed. Then I leapt, without conscious thought of how far I was going or where I wouldland.
My claws grasped the bark of a tree about a foot in diameter, digging in with all four sets. Pain shot through my front left leg again as the laceration reopened, but I pushed that pain to the back of my mind. Then l leapt again. Straight up. Pushing off against the bark with all four legs. I caught the tree farther up, spared a moment for balance, then leaptagain.
Andagain.
Andagain.
Any higher, and the stunted desert tree would start to bow. So I took one more little leap up to a small fork in the branches thick enough to support the weight of my torso, to take some pressure off my legs. This would have to be highenough.
I hunkered down to wait. Towatch.
Every bird that chirped sent alarm racing through me. Every creature that burrowed through the underbrush below made meflinch.
“Kaci! I know you’re out here!” Footsteps crunched through twigs and leaves to my east. Movement in that direction caught my eye, but then it wasgone.
A low, soft growl rumbled up from mythroat.
“We have togo!”
What?That didn’t sound like something Jared would say. In fact, that didn’t sound like Jared at all. But surely that was just my unreliable ears, currently overwhelmed by the thunderous rush of my ownpulse.
“Kaci! It’s me! Please come out! Are you—Shit!”
The footsteps were right below me. I looked down and found someone holding the clothes I’d abandoned on the ground, almost directly beneath my tree. It was hard to tell from the angle, but he didn’t look big enough tobe—
The man looked around, then he walked several feet away, peering through the underbrush. Then he turned. And looked up, squinting at the trees to theeast.
Justus. Where the hell had he come from? How had he foundme?
A whine leaked from my throat. He looked up, still holding my bloody, filthy clothes. “Kaci?”
The relief on his face was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in mylife.
Fourteen
Justus
The sparse vegetationmade my search easier than it would have been in Eastern Texas or even Mississippi, where the woods were thicker, the trees taller, the underbrush much denser. The scent of her blood was strong enough to tell me I was close, but unlike dogs, cats can’t track byscent.
“Kaci!”
Focus,Justus!
Eyes closed, I mentally sorted through the myriad of sounds around me, tossing out the rodent squeaks and the frantic digging of something small burrowing into the earth. Finally, I made out a distinctly feline huffing inhalation, tinged with a soft, scared growl she probably didn’t even realize she wasmaking.
I headed toward her, and a few minutes later, I found Kaci’s clothes, laid out on the ground on a bed of leaves. I bent to pick them up and shook debris from them. They were stained with blood and dirt, and the sweat that had soaked into them smelled likefear.
“Kaci!” I called again. “I know you’re out here! We have togo!”
