The country was changing. Growing, evolving, and Lance wanted to be a part of that. So regardless of how his family felt—about the idea, or about government in general—he was going to become a United States Marine.
As long as they didn’t have any weird rules about guys with superpowers….
Chapter one
Shift Change
Lynnette gulped down thelast of her home-brewed coffee as static overrode the song on the radio. She groaned, wedged her thermos into a spot on the store-bought console in the middle of her truck’s bench seat, and reached forward to switch stations. That was the problem with working in an entirely different county. The one decent radio station that still reached the small town she called home didn’t stretch even up to the county line.
The static disappeared, as did the undertones of music, all to be replaced with the talk show host’s bitter Monday morning disposition. She didn’t actually care for talk radio. Every time she turned it on, she questioned why she didn’t just bring a charger to work and stream some music from her phone. But she kept listening, mostly, because it was the easiest way to have half an idea what the hell her colleagues were sure to be prattling on about.
Except for the ones who only ever talked about the shows they watched. Lynnette would never be able to keep up with them.
“To no one’s great surprise,” the host said, launching into a new topic with more disdain than enthusiasm, “word is starting to spread that another young female has gone missing in Klamath County.”
Lynnette frowned.Another one?She was still waiting to hear updates on the last one from a couple of weeks prior.
“This one’s a twenty-one-year-old college student by the name of Avery Byrd, but aside from that all we really know is that the girl is here on a Student Visa and she didn’t answer her boyfriend’s messages all weekend.” The host huffed. “Frankly, twenty bucks says this is just a juvenile lover’s quarrel and a waste of resources.”
He’s such a dick.
She really needed to at least look around for a different music station. Instead, she drummed her fingers restlessly on the steering wheel as she navigated increasingly dense traffic while the spite-fueled radio host prattled about whatever caught his attention.
“Time to take some questions,” the host declared, indicating that a different segment had begun. “What do you have for us, caller?”
Lynnette had a love-hate relationship with the live caller Q&A segment. It offered something different, a break in the host’s ramblings to a small degree, and it meant that she was almost to work. But most of the people who bothered to call in were longtime listeners, the type who clung to every word and nodded along like bobbleheads, so they rarely ever offered a difference of opinion.
“What do you think about the way the government’s dragging their feet on this whole non-human issue?” the caller asked,his words bursting through the line as if he’d been holding the question inside and someone had popped his balloon.
Lynnette actually gaped down at her radio for three whole seconds before cursing herself and refocusing on the road. She was in the city, finally. She couldn’t be so distracted.
The host made that noise he sometimes made where it sounded like he had smacked his desktop. “That is a damn good question, young man!”
Oh, great. He’s riled up.
“And it’s not just those mooks in Washington,” the host continued, “no, even our local leaders right here in Klamath Falls haven’t said a peep! We got people running around out there who can turn into animals, and they’re walking among us right now!”
“Exactly,” the caller cut in. “It’s terrifying! And people online are talking about whether or not we should use them as weapons?”
The host scoffed. “Forget weapons. How could we trust they wouldn’t turn those fangs on us? They need to be put down. Registered,maybe, and corralled into designated spaces so they don’t infect the rest of us normal—”
Lynnette jabbed the button that turned the entire radio off, blowing out a huff of her own. “Bunch of bullshit,” she muttered. “Talking about corralling people and registering them like this is Nazi Germany all over again.” Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. She was only a couple of blocks from work, anyway. The quiet wouldn’t be so bad for that short stretch.
She knew she’d be craving it in less than an hour.
Not twenty minutes later she was leaning over the nursing desk, personal affects tucked away and all ready to go, offering a small smile to the woman behind the computer. “Morning,” she greeted. “Who’m I tapping out today?”
The forty-something at the desk barely had time to turn her eyes back to the screen before a different voice called down the hall.
“Garver! Come to me.”
Lynnette locked her expression down before her irritation could show. Irene was her supervisor. She just very much did not like the harsh way Irene dealt with the nurses under her direction. Still, Lynnette wasn’t interested in losing her job just yet, so she flashed an apologetic smile and twisted from the desk to make her way twelve feet down the hall where Irene had planted herself.
Irene was in her mid-fifties, more silver than dusty blonde in her hair, wire-rimmed glasses that belonged on a librarian rather than a hustling charge nurse, and permanent crinkles in her forehead from her tendency to scowl by default. At least, Lynnette assumed that was the reason. Irene didn’t bother with makeup, only the occasional swipe of an off-brand lip balm on her always cracked, dry lips. She stood about five-foot, three-inches and held herself on a pedestal in her mind that she made everyone around her very aware of very quickly.
Lynnette had long suspected Irene had been given the position of charge nurse for the sole reason that Irene excelled at telling other people what to do.
Lynnette kept her stance relaxed as she came to a stop in front of the older woman and she pulled her mouth up into her practiced professional smile. “Good morning,” she greeted, “what did you need from me?” It wasn’t like they were required to check in with her at the start of every shift.
