Shifting Fates (2 page)

Above me I pull the grate back, and with a loud clang it settles into its grooves. As if by my signal, the lights go out overhead, and the city falls into the same darkness I know every day. I can see the stars now, pinpoints of light in the thin black slice of sky looming over the tops of the brownstones. The soldier is up there, somewhere, maybe watching the stars like I am.

If I were human… I shake my head. Silly to think like that. There’s nothing aboveground for me except food to steal and soldiers to hide from. I climb down slowly into the dark tunnel that will be my home forever, until I can escape this godforsaken city.

Tomorrow is Christmas. It’s also my birthday. A wry smile curves into my cheek.

I’ll celebrate being alive
.

Chapter Two

Cage

It’s Christmas Eve and there are so many people lined up in Times Square tonight for food that I’ve resigned myself to a double shift. Even if the Major hasn’t called it in, it’s only a matter of time now. There must be seven hundred people in line tonight.

“Families in the left line, individuals in the right—single file, wait your turn,” a sergeant barks into a megaphone from an overseer tower high above the fray. The Major had me and the grunts out all morning figuring out how to set up the queues for tonight’s festivities. We ended up looting all the retractable belt-barriers from an abandoned, bombed-out theater on 42
^nd
street. Between those and a few dozen assault rifles, the crowds are behaving great.

“Keep the lines moving. Get your Christmas bag and move along!” shouts the sergeant at nobody in particular. Way to spread the Christmas cheer, buddy.

I watch from my walkway perch as the grunts shove civvies through the line one after the next. They can’t be bothered to spare a second’s kindness to the poor saps trapped in this hell-hole of a city, not even on Christmas Eve. God, I hate this job sometimes… still better than being upstate, though.

“One bag per family unit. Keep the lines moving, people!”

I shake my head in disgust and climb down from my perch. The rickety, corrugated aluminum stairs creak and groan every step of the way.

None of these poor civvies deserve to be trapped here like this—their only crime was being in the city when the first bombs fell. God only knows how we missed it, but all it took was one small plane with a big-ass payload to glass the city.

No… that ain’t quite the word I’m looking for. Sure, the epicenter of the blast was totally leveled, but the big surprise was the fallout. As I hear it, ain’t nobody ever heard of a bomb like this one before—we’ve known about nuclear fallout since before I was born, but this stuff’s different.

It changes people. Some of them, at least. Makes them stronger, faster… more animal-like.

No… it straight-up makes them into animals—shifters, we call them, since they can change forms at will. They prowl the city streets at night, and they’re why the army’s here in the first place. It’s the army’s job—and my job—to keep the shifters contained in New York, and those poor, radioactive civvies are stuck along with the shifter scum.

Not like we can tell them apart until they change form, anyway, and if they do… well, it’s probably too late by then.  That’s what they tell me about my brother Ben, at least.

Poor Ben. He got jumped by a shifter while on patrol one night and never saw it coming. That’s why I’m here now. I enlisted the day my mother got the bad news, and if I ever see a shifter, I’ve got a bullet with the fucker’s name on it.

One of the grunts sidles up alongside me as I begin my patrol around the perimeter of the food lines. A plastic sign shaped like a giant lobster hangs like an oversized carcass above the entrance to our makeshift kitchen. It was there when my battalion moved in—the civvies say it used to be a restaurant. Kind of fitting, if you ask me.

Nothing gets in or out of our barricades around the city, and that includes food and supplies. Everything these civvies have comes from us since they can’t get it anywhere else.

“Evening to ya, Cage,” he greets me.

“Evening to you, soldier.” Officers aren’t supposed to fraternize with the grunts, but our company commander didn’t come for the festivities tonight and I ain’t nobody special.

“They keeping you busy? What’ve they got you up to tonight?”

“Just taking in the sights,” I answer, pointing at the enormous crowd pushing and shoving in anticipation of their holiday meal. He nods and grins.

“Yeah, some real lookers in the crowd tonight, let me tell you,” he drawls. “Check out that chick over there near the front—she’d be a real babe if it weren’t for the radiation.”

I hardly know what to say to something like that, so instead I say nothing. Knowing when to bite my tongue’s gotten me a long way in life—not many 22-year-old captains out there, let me tell you.

“Oh don’t tell me you ain’t been looking,” he says, nudging me with his elbow and digging his grave just a little deeper. “It’s Christmas Eve, Cage. Have a little fun already.”

I groan inwardly as we patrol and then scan the crowd to play along. The thing is, I haven’t been looking at all. I couldn’t care less about getting some radioactive ass, to tell the truth. I’m here to do my job, keep my head down, and sock enough cash away to leave this whole sorry place behind after my term’s up.

“Nope, ain’t seeing anything worth my time,” I finally answer, and he rolls his eyes at me. He can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen. Was I this stupid when I was his age?

“What about her? I bet she’d be great in the—”

“Soldier,” I interrupt, “don’t you have a job to be doing?”

He stares belligerently up at me, and just as I’m certain I’m going to have to knock some sense into him, he nods his head and submits.

“Walkway overlook… keeping watch, sir.”

“Then get to it,” I order. “Now.”

“Sir, yes sir,” he answers, giving me an exaggerated salute, and then he finally turns face and leaves me alone. Thank God.

I leave the crowd behind and turn right at the corner, moving out of the temporarily bright lights of Times Square and heading slowly down 42
^nd
. I’m going to loop around the block, I think, and then make my way back to my perch. I haven’t seen a damned thing out of the ordinary tonight, but I can’t say I expected to. No shifter in its right mind would come out in the open like this—it’d take a brazen lunatic to show up with hundreds of civvies and a lookout with enough firepower to level the whole block.

Still… it’s a bit of a disappointment. I mean, the whole reason I signed up was because of what happened to Ben, and two years later, I ain’t had even one chance to avenge him. Two years in this god-forsaken city and I haven’t run into a single—

“Ow!”

I turn the corner and barrel straight into a civvie going the other direction, nearly knocking the tiny woman clean off her feet.

She yelps in surprise and her metal cane falls to the floor with a clatter as she loses her balance. She grabs tightly onto my arm as I reach out to steady her, and I can feel her nails digging into my arm through all three layers of clothing as if it’s little more than butter. Jesus, she’s got a strong grip for someone so small—if she’s more than five-foot-two, I’ll eat my hat.

“You okay, miss?” I ask, instinctively putting my arm around her protectively. I didn’t mean anything by it, but my hand touches her hip. She stiffens and tries to pull away from me.

“Sorry,” I say. That’s pretty much par for the course for me when it comes to women. “You alright?”

“I… I’m fine,” she stammers, still trying to pull away from me. Or at least… I think that’s what she’s trying to do. She’s squirming against my hand, but something here doesn’t feel quite right.

“This just ain’t your day, huh?” I say, letting go of her and cracking a smile to try to lighten the mood. She finally looks up at me, and it’s as if time stops dead in its tracks.

Before I got a good look, I thought she was older. She’s thin and pale as if she hasn’t eaten in weeks, but damned if she isn’t one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen in my life. Beneath the hood, her dark hair frames her long, narrow face, and her eyes—I can’t tell if they’re green or blue or maybe both—draw me in like nothing I’ve ever felt before. For one short eternity, I’m absolutely speechless.

That’s when the stolen pouch falls out of the pocket of her ratty brown coat and ruins the moment.

The pouch pops open as it hits the ground, upending its contents all over the cracked pavement. Rations better suited for five families than one tiny woman spill out onto the sidewalk along with a small, red-haired rag doll, clearly earmarked for a little girl’s Christmas present.

This really ain’t her day one bit.

I grab her arm, but she breaks free of my grip and leaps backward away from me, grabbing her cane from the ground in one quick, fluid motion as she lands.

I take a step back from her, watching her lithe form as she hits the ground in a crouched position, almost as if she’s deciding whether to run for it or attack me. Her chest rises and falls quickly as she watches me, and her eyes dart wildly back and forth. She’s stunningly beautiful in a strange, wild sort of way.

Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with me? She’s a bloody thief and here I am admiring her. I should just shoot her and be done with it.

But I don’t. I don’t even raise my gun. I actually feel bad for her. We barely give civvies enough food to survive on even the best of days, so I can hardly blame her for grabbing extras.

I turn away as I bend down and pick up the delicate rag doll. Exposing my back to her definitely isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done tonight, but somehow I know she isn’t going to try anything. I just do.

I turn back to her, reach into my outer coat pocket, and then add my own little Christmas present to the pile as I hand her the doll. Every year, my mother sends me a little case of dark chocolate bars for Christmas—the type I used to love when I was little. I know for a fact that you can’t get them down here in the city; I hunted for them for months after I was first deployed.

I hand her the chocolate bar along with the doll and then back slowly away. I’d like to pretend I maintained eye-contact the whole time out of distrust, but the truth is, I don’t know if I could’ve looked away from those gorgeous, color-shifting eyes if I tried.

It’s Christmas Eve. Live and let live.

“I didn’t see nothing,” I tell her, smiling so she knows it’s no big deal. “Merry Christmas.”

Without another word, I break away from her intense gaze and hurry back the way I came. I can’t let myself be seen with a civvie, especially not one I’ve just let steal extra food, and I sure as hell don’t want her to feel like she owes me anything. The civvies have it hard enough, and they don’t owe me shit.

The woman’s blue-green eyes burn holes in my mind as I head back toward the ration lines, and even though I tell myself not to, I look back over my shoulder.

The street is dark and empty as if she’d never even been there.

Chapter Three

Bindi

I’m most of the way down the A line tunnel when I hear a noise from up ahead. A scrabbling of claws on the wet gravel ground. My eyes squint into the darkness and I freeze mid-stride, clutching the ration packages back at my hip so that I can pounce if I need to. Nothing emerges.

I sniff, but the air in the abandoned subway system is stale with rat droppings and rotted sewage and I can’t smell anything more than twenty feet away without wanting to gag at the stench, even in human form. I take another step and hear the noise again.

This time I see them.

Three pairs of eyes blink at me from the darkness, and in a second the monsters come pouncing out of the shadows.

“Eee!” I pretend to fall backwards as the two bobcats and the small fox barrel into me.

“Get off of me, you little monsters!” I’m laughing, tickling their furry bellies, and we all tumble to the ground together in one happy pile of rowdiness. Even though it’s cold down here, a nice warmth moves through my body as the kids nip and growl in fun.

Lily shifts back first, claws retracting, shaking her white-blond hair out of her eyes.

“Bindi, what did you get us?” She pokes at the rations packages with one finger. She’s too shy as a teenager to show her excitement but too young to hide it completely. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and I realize for the first time that the kids are growing up. They won’t be able to run around naked for much longer, shifting back and forth. They’ll have to pick a form and stick to it. For some reason, that makes me sad.

“Not now,” I say. “Let’s get back to the den first. You guys must be cold.” We’re far enough up the A line that I don’t think the soldiers will be patrolling, especially not with the crowds of survivors they’re watching downtown. Still, I’d rather be back in the den and safe with the kids.

“Three packs!” Logan has shifted back too, the mirror image of his twin sister, and he’s already digging through my pouch. “Did you get any more copper wiring for my projects?” I slap his hand away playfully before he can get to the pocket where I’ve hidden the rag doll.

“Cut it out,” I say, darting a quick glance down at Kit. Her fox snout is up, sniffing the air, her tail flicking back and forth. “There’s a secret present in there for you-know-who.”

Immediately she shifts back to girl form, wrapping her thin arms around my leg.

“Bindi! Bindi! A present? Really?!”

I tousle her hair. Even in the dim light of Logan’s makeshift lantern I can see her curls, bright red and frizzed beyond belief.

“Only if you promise to behave,” I say. “And if you help me make Christmas dinner.”