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“When it comes to her, I’ll throw my attitude wherever I damned well please,” Thorn barked back as he pulled down the ladder to his attic hideaway. “I know you’ve touched her. Tasted her. I know you took that boy’s body.”
“Oh, good, so youwerewatching me,” Ruse replied as he quickly flitted his mothy wings up into the attic to finish their confrontation. “I hoped you might have been.” Once the shifter was fully inside Thorn’s attic den, he shifted into something with more substance—a barn owl—and perched on an exposed pipe. “I didn’ttakethe boy’s body, by the way. I simplyborrowedit. As far as he’s aware, he passed out after taking a blow to his nose and woke up very confused on the lawn a few hours later. Embarrassed that he couldn’t hold his liquor, he made his own way home.”
Thorn slumped down in his nest of old blankets and shed fur. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him. It’s not like you to leave people alive when given the option.”
“What can I say? I’ve got a… what do they call ‘em?” Ruse asked, tilting his avian head a perfect ninety degrees. “A heart of gold, that’s what. Certainly had nothing to do with me not wanting to deal with the aftermath of a pissed off Nox, but I’ll warn you… if you clue the girl in on the fact I spared her boy-toy, we’re going to have problems.”
“Please,” Thorn said as he rolled over and curled into a massive ball. “As if she’d give me the chance to talk to her even if I wanted to involve myself,” Thorn said as he rolled over and curled into a massive ball. “As far as Nox goes, you know he just doesn’t want more people sniffing around here. It’s hard enough remaining inconspicuous when the whole town already thinks this place is some sort of evil headquarters.”
Nox’s shadowy form appeared from a crevice in the rafters and stood between the two.
“You’re absolutely correct, I don't want more people milling about here,” he interjected. “Turning ourselves into more of a sightseeing opportunity for the empty-headed folks of this town is something I’d hoped we all wanted to avoid. Should I assume that is no longer the case?”
“What the hell, Nox?” Ruse asked as he shook out his wings. “Should we just assume you’re spying on us at all hours of the day?”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘spying’ so much as I would call it ‘babysitting,’” Nox sneered. “Especially when it comes to this girl. Her influence has been odd, and I’m afraid with our recent bargain, her relationship to us is going to become even more… odd.”
Just after Nox stopped speaking, the three creatures paused, hearing the triumphant sounds of Logan puttering about the house with her speaker blasting as she sang along.
“She seems pretty comfortable with everything,” Thorn said hopefully with his head raised off his bed.
“Good for her,” Ruse snapped at the beast in return. “But like I was going to say to you before we were so pleasantly interrupted—I think we would all do well to remain wary of her.”
Nox scoffed and found a wall to lean against. “Why would we be wary of her and not the other way around?”
“It was mostly directed at Thorn,” Ruse admitted, pointing a wing toward the gangly creature trying to make himself comfortable. “He’s literally in heat for the girl. We’ve never had to deal with something like this between the three of us in all these years.”
“True.” Nox sighed. “But don’t act for a moment like Thorn is the only one struggling with her presence. I can’t recall any other time you’ve helped yourself to tasting one of the Man’s offerings like you did last night.”
Ruse shifted back into his chosen human form and gestured again with his powerful arms at Thorn, who was doing his best to sink into the background of their almost-argument.
“I did it to get underhisskin!” Ruse insisted in an aggressive but hushed tone, nervous of the possibility of the girl overhearing their childish back and forth about her. “Not because I have any secret passionate desire for her, specifically. I honestly hoped my spectacle might have pushed her closer to something like ‘fear,’ but she’s definitely a toughie. Kind of a freak, too, turns out.”
Thorn began to shake with frustration, annoyed that everyone used the space he claimed for his own as their meeting place so often. He knew it was because it was easier to come to him up here in the attic than it was for him to follow them anywhere they might be.
“You’ve both said you know she’s special, that she’s something else, something different from we’re used to,” the beast said, sitting back up on his bed, glaring at each of his companions. “I’m just the only one of us who feels like they can admit it.”
Nox and Ruse were struck silent as Thorn spoke, each of them taken aback by their companion’s sudden confidence.
“We’ve been in here for so long, we’ve lost the hope that maybe someday we wouldn’t have to waste away here until the house crumbles beneath us and the Man’s family line finally dies out,” Thorn continued, doing his best to keep his momentum. “So what if I like her? She’s interesting, and pretty, and she smells nice, and unlike everyone else I’ve ever met in my long life, she is not immediately horrified by me.”
The beast rose off his nest and wandered to the attic door that opened downward onto the second floor. He pressed his snout to a small gap and inhaled deeply, wallowing in the lingering scent of her perfume.
“What if she’s the key to our imprisonment?” he asked as he turned his face back to the others. “Both of you have to admit: right now, we’re facing the only chance we’ve really had at ending this miserable lockdown.”
“You’re right,” Nox said as his voice spilled from his darkened face like honey. “And I need you to know that I am on your side, Thorn. I recognize your pain and your want. I am drawn to her as well, I’m not afraid to admit.”
Ruse listened intently to the others as he picked at his nails and chewed on the inside of his cheek. As cute and hopeful as Thorn and Nox were being, he refused to get his hopes any higher than they were currently. If he didn’t expect or hope for success, he wouldn’t be disappointed.
“And what if she succeeds, and we get to leave this place?” Ruse asked with a stoic face. “The world has changed since we were last free. All the dark parts of the world we lived in are full of people now. We’ve seen it happen before our eyes as people walk in here with more and more gadgets, more and morestuff.”
He could tell both his companions wanted to interrupt with some idea that maybe he was wrong, but they never did. It was probably because his words were hitting home in one way or another and instilling a new fear they hadn’t considered before.
“At least here, we’re fed regularly,” Ruse said with a shrug. “At least here, we’ve got one another for company. Thorn, your herd islonggone, and Nox? Your way of life would have to make some big changes. The likelihood of people getting conveniently lost in the woods is probably a lot lower than you were used to.” The shifter shrunk down as he changed into a small bat and made his way toward a small hole in the ceiling. He turned back to the others once more before vacating the premises. “It’s just a little something to consider.”
The remaining two monsters’ eyes followed the little brown bat as he flew away to find somewhere else to mope.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Nox said partially to Thorn and partially to himself. “Even if he’s right, a life out there that’s different from what we’re used to is still better than a life stuck here year after year.”
