Page 32 of Shaped to Be Yours

“You’re welcome,” Whitmore said.

“Okay,” Ricky started again, “here’s what they told me.”

He recapped everything he’d learned, and by the end, I felt like my favorite meal might revisit me in the wrong direction.

Five people had gone missing, if you counted the one we’d heard scream, and it was likely the portal was the cause, sucking people into it.

“But it’s so deep in the woods,” I said. “If that’s what happened to my dad, why would he have gone in there without me? Unless…”

“Unless?” Whitmore pressed.

“Unless the thing that attacked me got him too. If it came from the monster realm, what if it was here back then? What if it took my dad?”

“I imagine you cannot say that for certain?”

“No, I don’t remember anything from that day. Just… my mom crying a lot after.”

I did believe Whitmore’s sympathy was genuine, which made him slightly less annoying to have around. “If it is the same or connected in any way, the real question is why now?” he asked. “The official portal being operational could be part of it, but have there been other disappearances we don’t know about? Are these accidents or purposeful by whatever attacked you? If yes, what triggered the portal a year ago? What triggered it twenty years ago?”

“I can’t answer any of those questions,” I griped.

“That’s why we need to study it,” Ricky said.

“Wait, what?” I gaped at him. “I know that’s what we’d guessed, but you can’t be around that thing if it’s responsible for multiple people going missing.”

“There’s a guard now.” Ricky shrugged.

“Oneguard?”

“I… think so?”

“No. There has to be at least two people. All the time. And…fuck, I do not want you in those woods!”

“I know.” Ricky took hold of my hands. “But we have to figure this out, or more people will be in danger.”

“Yeah,you.”

“Jason, it’s my job. It’s what I want to do. And if I can help figure out what happened to your dad…”

“Fine, but, like, you promise me that team is going to have every safeguard in place, like, a million safeguards.”

“Everything we can think of. I’ll make sure of it.”

I hated this, especially getting misty eyed for the second time in front of Agent… Not That Big of an Asshole. “Are you going to tell people to stay out of the woods?” I asked him.

“Of course. But not the reason,” Whitmore said. “We can’t afford to cause a panic, so the official report will be that a wildwolfhas been spotted in those woods, and until it is caught, we encourage people to steer clear.” He made a move like he was going to go back to Mom, but I tore my hands from Ricky to stop him.

“One other thing. I wasn’t sure, I’m still not sure, but when we were in the woods yesterday, I thought… maybe I sensed something. It was faint and I might have only been paranoid, but it could be what attacked me. That thing could for real still be in there, whatever it was, whatever it wants, and it was fast.”

Whitmore nodded. “Thank you for cooperating.”

“I’m still not letting the fish people poke and prod me.”

“Fair enough.” He started to walk toward Mom again but glanced back. “Oh, and yesterday, I don’t recall seeing your location change to being in the woods.”

“No? You look at that spy app constantly?”

“Not even I can do that, Jason.”

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