it makes you feel better about the situation, but I give it a week before you go to the highest bidder—two weeks at most. That could work out. I could claim your bounty but spend that windfall to buy you. You might just be worth your price tag. For some reason, I expect you’ll give me the slip a time or two before I get you to where I can claim your bounty. Keep on your toes, Miss Tamrin. You’re as good as bought and sold as it is, and if you’re smart, you’ll figure out you’re safer with me than the others after you.”
I liked to think of myself as smart, and I had contacts in high places; it would take a trip into Asylum, but I’d get down to the bottom of the bounty on me. While I was at it, I’d ask around and figure out exactly when the United States had gone back to its roots and traded in human lives. I figured my ears and tail played a part.
What didn’t look quite human no longer counted as human. What no longer counted as human could be bought and sold without remorse. Worse, the numbers of those who no longer counted as human grew a little each day. I gave it a few years before most women, outside of the wealthy and influential, joined the club of those up for sale.
Some days, I really questioned why I didn’t just shift into a fox and stay that way. Foxes led simple lives.
They also lived short lives.
That likely had something to do with my unwillingness to live as an animal exclusively.
Shaking my head, I restored everything in the shelter and headed for the door, pointing at the light. “Turn that off and set it near the hatch before you leave. Turn the wheel one full revolution to close it; you’ll feel it click.”
“Understood. I’ll see you very soon.”
According to his amused tone, he expected to catch me right away.
He had a lot to learn about me, and I’d enjoy taunting him the next time we crossed paths. I scrambled out of the shelter and up the concrete steps, grimacing when I reached the top and discovered the second level had completely flooded. If I wanted to use the cellar again, I’d have to salvage a pump and drain the entire damned thing.
Life needed to give me a break—and not the type that resulted in a cast and a long recovery time.
The water level made climbing out of the cellar entrance interesting, but I managed after digging a few hand and foot holds for myself. It cost me valuable time, but I didn’t need a lot of time once I got on the move. I sprinted a block away, climbed onto some of the new rubble, most of it from the shacks the twisters had tossed around during their temper tantrum. The rain fell in sheets, which would do a good job of hiding my tracks.
As always, shifting hurt, especially when I didn’t have time to ease into my new form.
My fur grew in first, stabbing through my skin. I bled, another unfortunate reality of being a full shifter; someone who changed forms too often could bleed out. I guessed I could shift six times in a day before I faced certain death, but I tried to avoid shifting more than three times.
I liked living too much to risk it.
My clothes and everything I carried shifted with me, a phenomena I didn’t understand but refused to question. Most left their clothes torn and bloodied on the ground around them. Once I made distance, I’d stop, shift again, and focus on compressing my body; when in a hurry, the laws of equivalent exchange applied, and a fox weighing in at well over a hundred pounds drew attention.
If anyone spotted me, they’d remember me, a mastiff-sized fox.
With luck, no one would notice me, and I’d find a safe place to finish shifting properly. Unwilling to find out if Sandro counted all of his Mississippis, I kept one eye on the sky and headed towards Inner Tulsa, one of the few places in the area the storms usually bypassed. The rise in elevation likely had something to do with that. When Benedict Mansfield had begun construction of Asylum, he’d picked the highest ground as the heart of his underground city. Each year, the storms drew closer, but I figured Inner Tulsa had a few years of life left in it before Mother