Second Nature (34 page)

Jorie yelled at herself to duck, to flee, to do something... anything, but her fear kept her rooted to the spot. The decision to attack flashed through the cat's whiskey-colored eyes. Jorie screamed.

The sound of her own voice woke Jorie. She sat up and pressed both fists against her eyes, groaning. She was used to vivid dreams, but rarely did she have more than one per night and not all of them ended with her almost being eaten.

Getting more sleep seemed impossible tonight, so she decided to get up and work on her latest scene. As she reached for the laptop she had placed next to the bed, she lifted her fists from her eyes — and froze.

Her barely calmed heartbeat started to race again.

Someone was in her bedroom. Someone big.

Jorie scrambled out from under the covers, hoping to make it to the door.

"No!" a familiar voice roared. "No, don't run! If you run —"

"Griffin?" Jorie hesitated with one foot out of the bed. Was she still dreaming? Griffin hadn't slept on her couch tonight again, had she? She searched her still sleepy and panicked mind for an answer. Her eyes adapted to the darkness, and she could make out Griffin's large form looming over her.

She stared down at Jorie exactly like the predator from Jorie's dream.
She even has the same eyes.
The thought flashed through Jorie's mind. For a moment, she wasn't sure whether she was awake or still dreaming. She told herself it was just a figment of her overactive imagination, as she had done all her life, but this time, the voice in the back of her head was stronger. Her instincts told her that Griffin wasn't here to admire the wallpaper in her bedroom.

Jorie's gaze fell on the object that was lying on the carpet right in front of Griffin's feet.

A knife! What is she doing with a knife?

She saw Griffin's gaze follow hers. One long arm reached out to pick up the knife.

She's going to kill me!
Jorie scrambled back in panic. One foot got caught in the blanket, and she stumbled and went down. She landed on the floor next to the bed. Pain flared through her arm when the edge of her laptop crashed against her elbow.

"Jorie!" Griffin's steps made the floor vibrate under Jorie as Griffin crossed the room to her side of the bed.

Her panicked gaze flitted around, searching for an escape route, a weapon, or a place to hide. There was none.

"Jorie, I'm not —"

Jorie didn't wait for her to finish or to attack. When Griffin reached for her, Jorie's fingers closed around the next best weapon — her laptop. She got to her feet and swung the laptop up with both hands, using it like a club.

With a dull sound, the laptop hit Griffin's head. Her momentum made Jorie crash into Griffin too, and they both went down.

An angry roar, sounding like that of an animal, rumbled up from Griffin's chest and through Jorie. The hand that had reached for Jorie widened into a paw. The seams of the thin gloves strained and then burst, giving Jorie a glance at reddish fur that spread over Griffin's skin. Griffin groaned as her shirt ripped and her spine contorted.

What the hell?
For a few moments, Jorie could only stare, still lying half on top of a dazed Griffin. Thousand questions shot through her mind, but she knew she couldn't stay around to get the answers.

When Griffin moaned in pain and tried to get up, Jorie jumped up and ran for the door.

*  *  *

Griffin found herself naked in Jorie's driveway, with just the remains of her clothes hanging in tatters around her. Blood from a laceration on her forehead was dripping onto the gravel.

Slowly, the haze lifted, and Griffin glanced around.

Jorie's car was gone. The stinging scent of her panic trailed off, replaced by burned rubber and exhaust fumes as Jorie had sped off as fast as her old car would take her. Apparently, Griffin's cat form had given up the chase when she lost sight of the car.

Damn!

The front door was still standing wide open, and she hastened back into the house before an insomniac neighbor could see her standing naked and bleeding in Jorie's driveway.

The house was a mess. In the living room, a chair was tipped over, and shoes, newspapers, and other objects were scattered all over the hall, probably because Jorie had frantically snatched up a pair of shoes and her car keys on her way out the door. There was no sign of the cats anywhere. Griffin was almost sure that Will was under the couch, his favorite hiding place, but she had no time to check.

She ignored it all and stormed into the kitchen. Pain flared through her forehead as she pressed a tea towel against the wound. With her other hand, she opened the fridge and started gobbling down some leftover dinner. After shifting twice in rapid succession, hunger clawed at her belly.

Her thoughts were not on food, though.
How could I have let this happen?
At the very last moment, she had dropped the knife. Not because she'd lost her nerve. It had been a conscious choice. She had known all along that killing Jorie would have been a mistake, and standing in front of a peacefully sleeping Jorie with a knife, she had decided that it was a line she didn't want to cross.

Maybe, so she had thought, she could convince the council to spare Jorie or at least give her some more time to investigate.
But instead of saving her, I ruined everything. Now that she saw me change, we have no choice but to kill her. And kill her fast before she can tell anyone.

Her broad shoulders slumped. She had just signed Jorie's death warrant.

CHAPTER 16

F
OR ONCE, GRIFFIN couldn't enjoy the tranquility of the forest. She rushed through the undergrowth in search of Jorie. Branches hit her left and right, but she ignored it.

There had been no sign of Jorie or her car in all of Osgrove. If Jorie was trying to hide, she wasn't doing it in the little town. She was too clever for that. The only other nearby place that might provide some shelter was Jorie's secret writing spot, on top of the hunter's lookout.

Griffin stopped under the tree that housed the lookout. Her mouth opened, and she sucked in the air, tasting it.

The taste of earth and fallen leaves brushed over the roof of her mouth — the scents of approaching fall, not the images of spring that always came with breathing in Jorie's scent.

With a growl, she turned and hurried back to her car. She didn't need to climb the ladder to know Jorie wasn't here. Her senses told her that Jorie likely hadn't been near the hunter's lookout in weeks.

She brushed earth off her shoes before she got into her rental car.
Think! Where would Jorie go?
Without money or proper clothes, she couldn't have made it very far. If Griffin could find her before —

The loud ringing of her cell phone interrupted the thought.

One glance at the caller ID revealed that Cedric Jennings was calling her.

Time was running out.

Not answering was not an option. Jennings would send out a unit of Saru to search for her if she dropped off the radar. If she wanted to stay involved in the search for Jorie instead of becoming a target, she had to answer the phone. She would tell Jennings that Jorie had escaped because she'd made a mistake, not a conscious decision.

"Westmore," she said into the receiver, trying to sound calm even though her heart was beating loudly enough to be heard all the way to Arkansas.

"Is it done?" Jennings asked.

Oh, yeah,
Griffin thought.
I'm done with this assignment.
That wasn't what Jennings was asking, though. "Not yet," she answered.

"What do you mean?" Jennings's voice was loud enough to make Griffin lift the cell phone away from her ear. "You had your orders. Very precise orders. I told you to kill her tonight."

"I was planning on doing it," Griffin answered and wondered,
Did I? Did I ever really think I could slit Jorie's throat while she slept?
"There were complications."

"Complications?" Jennings said, drawing out every syllable. "Is that cat talk for 'I fucked up my mission, Tas'?" He growled.

Everything was black-and-white for Jennings. Not killing Jorie was a failure to him.

"What happened?" Jennings asked, his voice now lethally calm.

Griffin swallowed. "Jorie Price escaped. She hit me in the head with her laptop and got away when I dropped the knife," she said, leaving out the fact that she had dropped the knife long before Jorie had attacked her.

"She hit you with her laptop?" Jennings sputtered.

It sounded kind of funny when you said it out loud. Griffin resisted the urge to joke about Jorie's writing being pretty dangerous after all. While the witty remark might have relieved some of her tension, taxing Jennings's patience was not a good idea. "That's not all," she said. "It all happened so fast that I couldn't stop myself from shifting, and she used that moment to escape."

Silence spread through the phone line.

Then Griffin heard a heavy object hit the wall — maybe Jennings had thrown something or punched the wall. "She saw you shift?" He growled. "How did you let the situation get so out of hand?"

The same question had been running through Griffin's mind a hundred times in the last hour. All her life, she had been so good at keeping control of her body and her emotions — and now she had lost complete control. Part of Griffin called herself a sentimental fool for being unable to kill the peacefully sleeping Jorie, but the other, bigger part knew she had done the right thing. She couldn't justify killing Jorie. Taking away the lives of humans who might not even be a danger wasn't how she wanted to spend her life. Survival at all costs wasn't survival at all. It would kill her soul.

"The council will have my head if we don't get the situation under control — but not before I have yours!" It wasn't an empty threat. Jennings had no tolerance for failure. He expected complete loyalty, obedience, and professionalism from the saru under his command.

"We should set up road blocks," Griffin said. At least this way, she could keep control over what happened when they found Jorie. And they would find Jorie. It was only a question of time. The local saru, who knew the area well, could help her stop Jorie from leaving the area and being captured by a unit of saru over which Griffin had no control. "She can't make it very far — she has no money, probably only half a tank of gas, and is still in her pajamas."

"I'll alert all our people in the area and call up the reserves," Jennings said.

Griffin closed her eyes for a moment. That meant her fathers would know about her failure before sunrise.
Forget your stupid pride. What your fathers think about you really isn't important here.
"Okay. I'll search —"

"You," Jennings interrupted, "will do nothing. You've done enough damage, so you'll stay out of this hunt. I'll be on the next plane, and you won't move a claw until I get there."

Her mouth tightened in helpless frustration. Griffin didn't want to sit around until someone came to tell her they had hunted Jorie down and killed her. After everything that had happened, she didn't trust the small-town saru and the reservists to keep control and not make Jorie suffer unnecessarily. She needed to find Jorie before they did, even if she didn't know what she would do once she had found her — kill her in a merciful way or try to keep her alive? She didn't allow herself to dwell on that crazy idea. "I can help find her," Griffin said.

"You've helped enough," Jennings said with biting sarcasm.

"But I know her. I know how she thinks and what her habits are. Let me help." Griffin took a deep breath and swallowed her feline pride. "Please."

A few endless seconds ticked by; then Jennings said, "Fine. But if you get in my way and ruin things again, I'll kill you along with the human." He ended the call before Griffin could respond.

*  *  *

Jorie pressed her foot down harder on the accelerator. Trembling hands had an iron grip on the steering wheel. The streets were still dark and empty, and she wasn't sure where she was going — just away, far away from the house and Griffin.
Or whatever her name is... If she even has a name.

Her heart and her thoughts were racing as fast as the car.
How can this be real? How did I go from writing about shape-shifters to meeting one? Hell, almost being killed and probably eaten by one!
Nothing in her life made sense anymore. Chaotic waves of emotions rolled through her, fluctuating between confusion, anger, fear, and betrayal so fast that it threatened to overwhelm her. On top of it all, she was worried about her cats. Leaving them behind hadn't been an easy decision, but she didn't have a choice, and now she could only hope that Griffin wouldn't harm them.
She seemed to bond with Will. But I guess that was all just part of the act.

She shivered in just her pajamas.
Calm down,
she ordered herself and eased up on the accelerator. Without stopping the car, she reached into the back, found an old sweatshirt, and struggled into it. For once, not being overly neat came in handy.

Who and what is she?
Icy fear and confusion rippled up her spine when an image of Griffin's hand broadening into a paw flashed through her mind. Creatures like this shouldn't exist outside of her novels and her overactive imagination. But Griffin was real — and she had wanted to kill Jorie.

Why? And why waste the time to befriend me before she does it?
Jorie found no answers to these questions. Instead, more questions popped into her mind.
How did she get into the house with the alarm system armed?
Groaning, she remembered who had installed the alarm system.
Her cousin was in on it. Who else... Ally? She told me Griffin is an old friend of hers, so she must have known.
Feelings of hurt and betrayal sliced through her, followed by panic.
Oh, Jesus, how many of these... creatures are there?
Suddenly, anyone could be an enemy out to kill her.