Skinned Read online

  Running into a clearing, we quickly stopped. The moonlight was poorly through the canopy of trees, stressing our human eyes. But something was there. Stepping forward hesitantly, we saw them.

  There, on the flat face of a giant rock were two bodies tossed aside. One appeared slack, slimy, with a flushed roseate pattern noticeable across his or her nude form. The second body was rigid, though little else was distinguishable. No defining features. He was almost translucent.

  Daring closer, I removed a keychain-sized flashlight from my pocket and shined it over the crime scene. That's what it was, a crime scene. Only, there had been one crime, not two.

  "What the fuck?" I breathed heavily, fighting the unnatural smell of burnt body juices and over-boiled wantons.

  Drey stepped up beside me. "Brantley."

  Somehow, in an act I would have sworn to be impossible until this moment, Brantley had been skinned. Not just a'la slasher film skinned. He had been forced to shed his skin into a tidy, clear husk that bore little resemblance to its maker, retaining no detail other than shape. It was its own delicate ornament, bathed in a surreal shimmer. As I leaned over it, I could see the gray hues of the rock underneath with little effort. It could easily have been mistaken for a fragile ice sculpture.

  Serpentes are known to shed their skin at key growth cycles during their lives. Brantley, however, had been a were-hyena, an animal perfectly in tune with keeping his flesh on and in one piece.

  "That poor bastard," Gable concluded, shaking his head.

  We stared open-mouthed at Brantley's exposed muscle groups, which caused the roseate coloring. He was completely intact, like a medical school corpse on display. No gashes or piercings indicated that his skin was manually ripped away. Supernatural power was at play here.

  "Drey, you wanna get a selfie with Bran for me?" I tossed him the flashlight.

  He scoffed, "Do I look crazy? You do it," tossing the flashlight back.

  "No way in hell. My phone is synced. I can't have this shit up in my cloud for just any snooping official to trip over."

  A flash of light interrupted our dispute.

  Gable's phone lit up each time he snapped a photo. When he was done, he tried not to gloat. "I've got an encryption system. Nobody's getting in here." He wiggled the phone in his hand before shoving it into his back pocket. "I'm sort of a tech junkie."

  Drey and I mumbled approvingly before turning our attention back to the body.

  "I'll carry Brantley. You carry...that," I ordered, pointing to the bizarre husk.

  "That seems wildly unfair." Drey crossed his arms.

  "It does, doesn't it," I noted, saddling Brantley's limp, sticky body over my shoulder. Thicker things started running down the back of my white tank top, sloughing onto the backs of my shoes. It was nothing I couldn't stomach.

  The clear casing that had been his skin freaked me out. The smell. It was aberrant. I wanted nothing to do with it. And neither did Gable as he dragged it with such obvious contempt.

  Reaching the motel, we stopped by Tomas' room to show him our findings. His face was unreadable as he inspected the body draped over my shoulder like a high society animal pelt.

  "I know, I know," I said, "Once everyone sees it, they're all going to want one."

  Ignoring my foul sense of humor, Tomas fought the rage of his lion, pushing it down with a few deep, calming breaths before asking, "What the hell happened out there?"

  Drey stepped forward, making room for the abominable husk. "Something unnatural."

  "That much is clear." Tomas turned to me. "Put him in the ice chest for now."

  "Where do you want this?" Gable pointed to the thing.

  "Leave it for now. I need a closer look." As we left, Tomas cleared his throat. "Fray, your brother and lepe leader are en route. I thought they needed to be here sooner rather than later."

  I only nodded. In my head, however, I was cursing up a storm. Was it too much to ask for two days away from that pair? Was it too much for the fucking universe to grant me this tiny allowance, to give me a sliver of freedom?

  Suddenly, I was angrier with the corpse at my shoulder than with the perpetrator who killed him. Rage knew nothing of making sense. It was pure animal.

  We shoved Brantley into the commercial ice maker, scooping out extra ice to make room. The surrounding cubes quickly turned pink until it looked as if we had made the world's ugliest snow cone. If so, I would name the flavor 'thanks for the memories, assface.'

  While I understand that shifter and 'were' communities need our help from time to time, like this poor bastard, these missions serve a dual purpose. Ever since I stopped fighting, stopped feeling like myself, they were my escape. From Darien's heavy eye. From Blair's hypersensitive approach to my problems. Mostly, from that part of myself that is unrelenting, insufferable, and un-goddamn-forgivable.

  Looking as bleak as I felt, I taped an 'Out of Order' sign to the lid that Gable acquired from the front office and headed to my room for some peace and quiet. I swiped my key card. The door swung open and I was met by shocked faces. Some Brantley had leaked onto the white key card. Staring at the faces staring back, I rubbed the card clean across the thigh of my jeans before tossing it onto the round table.

  Lydia and Warren were cuddled on the bed closest to the door. My bed. Cody was in his usual spot at the table, cowboy hat flicked at an angle so he could see who was coming and going with the illusion of privacy. And Joshua sat at the edge of the second double bed, head hanging over an open book.

  Without so much as a 'hello,' I stalked into Gage's adjacent room, reappearing moments later with three mini whiskey bottles in hand. Twisting the cap off one, I upended the bottle and tipped my head back. I repeated the motion twice more, until three empty bottles hit the trashcan. A burning trail of ethanol with a hint of smoked oak warmed my insides as it slid to my gut.

  I dropped into the chair on the other side of Cody. He promptly swept his legs off the table, staring at me.

  "Hard day at the office?" he finally asked.

  A partially opened pizza box across the table caught my eye. Cody slid it over and held the lid open for me, as you would for any wild animal in the clutches of a feeding frenzy. I helped myself to three slices, piled with four types of meat.

  Warren inhaled a sharp breath. "Shouldn't you wash your hands first?" Even as he said it, his question lost steam by the fourth word, leaving him muttering the rest to himself.

  Lydia scooted to the end of the bed. "Is that Brantley?" she asked, moderately emotionless.

  I nodded, unable to stop eating. My stomach had practically caved in on itself in the last hour. As I sat up to grab a fourth piece, my shirt peeled away from the chair back, the drying, sticky bits of Brantley creating a Velcro sound. My white tank top had turned fifty shades of gore. I strove not to taint my food with the gritty bits around my neck and shoulders from where I carried the body, though they were everywhere: the floor, the chair, the tabletop.

  Silently, I finished the last bite, grabbed some clothes, and tucked away in the bathroom for a long shower, hoping the room would be empty when I emerged.

  No such luck, cupcake. In my world, when it rains, the ceiling caves in on a holiday weekend with no handyman in sight.

  Chapter Eight

  I had bathed in the hottest water the motel pipes could tolerate. Gage, Cody, and Arrie were lounging in front of the television when I opened the bathroom door, steam barreling out behind me.

  "The snakes are sending more backup," Gage said in between messy handfuls of cheesy popcorn from the vending machine.

  I shuddered. "It will start to feel like a real snake den if we don't watch our backs."

  Cody lifted the hat covering half his face as he reclined on the bed closest to the door. "You don't like the snakes?"

  "Why do you care who I like or don't like, Cowboy?"

  "Well," he said calmly, and with more than enough Southern charm, "I guess I shouldn't, but my parents didn't raise a fool. I'll
either be one of them soon, or you'll be buying an extra ice cooler." Eyeing Gage and the nymph, he added, "I have a feeling humans don't last long in your corner of the world."

  A short laugh escaped my lips. It sounded twisted and sickly. "Our corner stretches a lot farther than you think."

  "Hey, it's starting. Cool it." Gage sat up, taking a swig of his Gatorade. Inhaling a deep breath, he released it, the sound not dissimilar to the slow release of a fog horn.

  "Yeah, cool it," I mimicked to Cody. It was sure as shit out of character to joke with someone I barely knew, but I actually had listened to Nash's advice. 'Laugh at the little things' was the mainstay to keeping his fangs at bay when he was most vulnerable. Incidentally, it kept my ever-charged resentment in check, much the same way.

  Cody was surprised by my turn of emotion. Rather than spoil it, he kept his mouth shut. The evening felt bearable at that moment. Of course, I would have run screaming into the arms of Brantley's killer had I seen what Gage had in the paper sack beside the bed. It was worse than any porno or cheap thrill mag.

  An hour later, the pore strip across my nose itched and the blue facial flaked into my eyes. It had become a grotesque funeral mask while the incessant Jeopardy jingle signaled a hell I promised myself never to participate in again. Gage's screams and flailing limbs, causing the bed to jostle me and the nymph in a barbaric rhythm, might as well have been the force holding us beneath the heel of Death's filthy boot.

  When the door beeped and swung open, the look in my brother's eyes could not have been more shocked. Darien and Blaire stopped in the doorway, basking in the oddity of our blue faces and white striped noses as Gage screamed, "Thank you, Mother!" and jumped on the bed, high fiving the ceiling. He was in the lead of his imaginary stint on Jeopardy.

  Darien, ever the big brother, tried to salvage the scene by respectfully ignoring it. "We came as soon as we heard you were in danger."

  "Of winning game night," Blaire spat.

  "Obviously, you do not appreciate nuanced Americana trivia." I glared straight through Blaire's soul, refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation or Gage's celebratory dance behind me.

  Dropping his bag on the tacky Berber carpet the color of my first boyfriend's pelt, Blaire's nostrils flared. "I don't appreciate my time being wasted. I canceled important meetings to be here."

  Hopping off the bed as I ripped the strip from my nose, I found myself standing directly in his path. "Don't worry, the body is still cold. Wouldn't we hate it if a resurrection ruined Blaire's weekend, Gage?" I never diverted my attention from Blaire's icy stare.

  Grunting incoherently, Gage waved Arrie off the bed. As the two retreated into their room, he shut the door lightly behind them.

  Coward! I screamed in my head. But was I talking about Gage or myself?

  Though we had not moved, the mounting pressure of Blaire's anger oppressed me. I felt it crawl over my skin, snapping at my senses. The alpha of his leopard was trying to assert obedience. While the power impressed my coiled feline, it only managed to piss me off.

  Cody interjected coolly, "There's a bus that looks like a tin can and an ice cooler that won't ever be the same. I'd say that's the start of a pretty decent problem. Definitely worth canceling a few meetings for."

  If looks could decapitate, Cody's hat would have been in dire need of a new head to perch on. The anger flickered across Blaire's expression, settling into the creases around his soured scowl.

  In a fluid gesture, I picked his bag up from the floor and handed it to him. "You can stay with my brother." A simple yet loaded gesture.

  What if I needed Blaire tonight? What if the nightmares didn't get the memo that I was suppressing my current problems in order to chase someone else's? Fear began rising quietly to the surface, mingling with thoughts of death and snake nests.

  Blaire left. No apology. No condemnation. He was just as tired as I was.

  "Boyfriend?"

  I locked the door and collapsed on my bed, hands behind my head. "Ex."

  "He has a lot of balls for an ex."

  "Well, he's also the leader of the Western Lepe, so if you really are the new snake king you just made your first enemy."

  "Damn, that must be a record, right?"

  His insolence against authority mirrored mine so perfectly, I couldn't help but stare. Could this man be the next king? He had the attitude as well as the composure. Where I lacked humility, he seemed to bathe in it. There was something I couldn't pinpoint, though. Being human was a shit place to start, but that wasn't it. Something lurked that had potential. Whether Cody was a merciless cowboy or a wicked storm on the horizon was yet to be discovered.

  "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

  Resting my eyelids, I mumbled, "A photograph cloaks the senses. I want to know what you're hiding."

  "Other than bad credit and my favorite pasta salad recipe, I'm pretty mundane."

  My snappy comeback never left my tongue. Without realizing, I drifted off to sleep. My dreams began restless and incoherent, steadily nose-diving from the top of a rollercoaster, until I was running through fire. Smoke scorched my eyes, the flames of the fire grabbing at my arms. I tried to move away but a weight held me in place. When I looked down, Jack, the pride boy, was lying across my lap, naked and dirty.

  "Jack?" I shook his shoulders, hunched over his slack body. When his mouth jerked open, I thought he was alive. I demanded, "Open your eyes, Jack!"

  His crusted lips mimicked my words, even as his lifeless, cloudy eyes opened, staring at nothing particular. "Open. Your. Eyes. Jack." The voice sounded strangled, like death on the wind.

  "Stop it!" I yelled.

  "Stop. It." As the bubbling, airy voice taunted me, it never quite gained believability. It never sounded more than a dummy repeating his master's words. A dummy with cold flesh and rigid joints.

  Clutching him to my chest, I squeezed my eyes closed, repeating, "Forgive me. Forgive me," until the dummy became a real boy.

  Color wound through his veins. The hollowness of his face disappeared under full cheeks. Golden hair thickened until no more bald patches or pieces of broken skull were visible. And his lips were the color of cherries. It was a miracle. Cradling this living boy in my arms, having wished to see him whole longer than I had known him dead.

  The fog of his milky eyes cleared, a crystal impression of Tomas' eyes staring back at me. He was so much his father. That much I knew. That much hadn't changed between the boundaries of life and death.

  I expected Jack to smile or laugh. His flesh was rosy, and his neck was no longer tilting in that sickening angle. But he winced, his jaw shuddering in pain.

  "Jack?"

  When he spoke this time, his voice sounded alive and more real than the voice in my own head. He whispered, "Do you trust them?"

  Searching his face, I asked, "Trust who?"

  Pain forced him to double over, hugging his stomach. He refused to look up for the longest time. I grabbed his shoulders and turned him to me.

  "Who, Jack?"

  His mouth jerked open and shut, a fish out of water. "Do you trust?"

  Without warning, bile and spiders spilled from his mouth. A tepid wash of squiggly goo flowed over my arms and legs, sinking between my fingers and settling around my thighs. Long arachnid legs climbed from the seepage, probing my skin. So many had climbed free that nothing was left of Jack except a clear shell.

  A low plea grew into a scream. "Help me!" I screeched, feeling the burn of the pitch in the back of my throat. Balancing on my knees, I tried to push the spiders and fluid back into what was left of Jack's body. I tried to push life back into that useless space. "Help me!" I was yelling for Darien. For Gage. For anyone who could make this stop. I wouldn't have even turned Blaire away. "Help me!" I choked.

  Arms grabbed at me. Holding me, shoving me, making me feel everything but safe.

  I was awake. Everyone was awake.

  The lights burned my drowsy eyes. The voices were too many
, speaking too fast.

  "Stop," I managed.

  Lydia's voice seemed uncharacteristically timid as it rose above the rest to ask, "Fray, are you okay?"

  My mind was reeling. As I searched the tiny motel room, all I could see were faces. My roommates, Darien, Arrie the nymph, the bears, Cody, Drey, and just for good measure, the chest I was being secured to belonged to Blaire. I didn't have to see his face to recognize those arms around my body.

  "Do I goddamn look okay? Get off me!" Struggling out of Blaire's grip, I climbed off of the bed with as much dignity as I could muster. Straightening my blue V-neck, I fought the traces of the dream. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I silently pleaded for the nightmare to relinquish its hold on me. The look in Jack's eyes as he asked if I trusted them. The feeling of helplessness as the spiders spilled all that he was into my lap. The...

  The spiders.

  My brain powered through the haze paralyzing it. Could Jack have been talking about the arachnea? Did I trust them? Hell no, I didn't trust them.

  But we had entrusted Fred to them.

  "Shit!"

  I bolted from the room, which was of great annoyance to the others. Their groans and protests merged into an auditory ball of bullshit. Easily ignored, actually, as I found myself banging on the door of rooms eleven and twelve.

  "What are you doing?" Blaire demanded at my back, trying to pull me away from my mission.

  "Fray," Darien interrupted, "What's happening?"

  Blaire lifted me off the ground, whispering, "Please stop fighting."

  With my arms secured in his bear hug, I channeled all of my force into one kick until the door busted from its hinges. Room eleven was empty. Fred's chair was empty.

  By this time, the entire motel guest list had collected at our backs, trying to gawk past us into the abandoned room.

  "They took him." Darien balled his hands into fists and practically roared.

  "They were with him," I growled.

  Blaire, Darien, and Drey cased the room, inspecting everything.