Chapter 5
Simon stopped answering questions somewhere in mid-Michigan. He was more interested in separating parts of his personality and body into categories. For the animal, all was one in a gooey disorganized mess. The man hated that. Overwhelming emotions were steadily pushed down into the bear and his cage. Certainly, he missed the bear’s contentment with sunshine and green trees, but that loss was miniscule compared to the steady quieting of confusion. Bears did not travel at eighty miles per hour down a freeway, so even though the man understood cars, the animal felt nervous with it. Pushing that away helped the man take control. As did focusing on freeway signs and the symbols they contained.
By the time they hit Lansing, he recognized the golden arches of McDonald’s and the green splatter of lines that was the Starbucks mermaid. Other memories were coming back, too. He spent twenty miles remembering how a car worked from the headlights through the tailpipe and every part within and around the engine. Which meant that numbers made complete sense to him. Letters couldn’t be that far behind, right?
His companion, however, remained a mystery. A female human with that intriguing nutty, pungent scent. She was drooping with fatigue and they still had several hours to go, but he didn’t have the mental skill to probe into that mystery. So his mind went elsewhere. He had been ten months unaware of the world. The man in him itched to focus on something other than the fact that he could not read.
So he turned on her radio and tuned it to the news, but listening was a struggle. The newscaster’s voice was too different from Alyssa’s, and he had to concentrate very hard. And still little made sense until Alyssa reacted. Her body tightened and her mouth flattened into a hard line.
Which was when he decided to ask her questions.
“What is he talking about?”
“The Detroit Flu.” She glanced over at him. “It’s some hideous virus that hit the city a couple weeks ago. There have been two outbreaks so far. I got it the first time and was a little cranky for a while.” Her lips twisted into a mocking smile. “Well, crankier than my normal.” Then her expression sobered. “Vic got it in the last outbreak. That was a few days ago. And he…and well, you saw what happened. That was the video.”
Simon shook his head. “That video was not real.”
“I shot it myself—”
“He fooled you. That was makeup. Prosthetics. Vic can be very dramatic.”
“Sure, he can. But he wasn’t faking that.” Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I saw the change. I saw his body go from normal to that.” She turned to look hard straight into his eyes. “I saw it.”
He believed her. There was too much fear in her for her to think anything else. And with her absolute conviction, he began to doubt. “Show me the video again.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and thumbed it on. A moment later, he watched as Vic screamed while staring at an arm thick with fur. Simon let the video play through. Then he played it again, stopping and starting as he tried to find evidence of trickery.
It took him a long time, and he came up empty. There were thousands of possibilities, but none that he could prove to her. So he kept silent and tried to think. Something was teasing at his memory. Something about hybrids and half-shifters, but that made no sense. No one could half shift.
“Does it smell bad when that happens?” he asked.
She shot him a startled look. “He reeks. Like the worst thing I’ve ever smelled. Why? What does that mean?”
Simon shook his head. He didn’t know. He had no idea why he’d even asked the question. It was a memory from after he’d left the military but before he’d gone to the UP. Those few weeks when he was always angry, most times drunk, and a few times asleep. A very few times, which was another reason he went bear for so long. The animal had no trouble sleeping.
“It’s like I dreamed something about this,” he said. “But I can’t remember it.”
“Well try!” she snapped.
He didn’t react to her temper. He understood she was desperate to help her brother. And he was equally annoyed with himself that he couldn’t grab hold of the memory. But that was what happened with alcohol. He’d been trying to drown out the pain of losing his place in the military. No part of him had wanted to remember anything.
“We should listen to more news,” he finally said. “Maybe there is more information.”
There wasn’t except for a brief statement that there had been only two new cases of the flu since this morning. The CDC hoped that this time the outbreak was contained. Weather news followed, then ads. Nothing relevant, though it gave Simon time to practice listening to other people, other voices. He also spent a great deal of time watching Alyssa.
Her mouth remained tight and flat. The brief flare of hope when he’d asked about Vic’s smell had died into a heavy determination. Her entire body seemed weighted down, into her seat, on the steering wheel, and even her chin angled down.
She didn’t start rubbing her fingernail back and forth over the wheel until they reached the outskirts of Detroit. Back and forth in a way that indicated anxiety. He knew it could not be him that was the cause of her nervousness. She had been more relaxed in central Michigan. Therefore, it was the approach to Detroit and what awaited them here.
“Are you afraid of Vic?” he asked. “Do you think he will be violent?” In his experience, violence was a female’s biggest threat.
“No, he wouldn’t hurt me.” She spoke the words slowly and without conviction. “Not on purpose. It’s this…um…flu or whatever. It makes him crazy.”
“What does that mean? Did he hit you?” He’d intended to speak with the same measured tempo he used as a man, but his bear surged inside him making his breath forceful and the words sharp.
She shifted her grip on the wheel, her fingers tightening as she seemed to twist against the plastic. “He didn’t touch me, but he broke a shelf.”
“That frightened you?”
