Page 65 of Shaped to Be Yours

“Jason…?” I asked.

He swung upright like Dracula rising from his coffin and looked right at me. The glowing amber orbs pulsed. Jason’s mouth opened, with lipless, fanged teeth, and his voice boomed with a whole new resonance, “What… the actualfuck?”

All my tension fled me.

He was still Jason.

“What the actual fuck is right.” I flew back to his side to sit next to him. He was even taller than in his previous forms with this new skull-like head, that still somehow had silver fur-like hair and wolf ears. He was even more of a mix of everything, like some god of nature, life and death, flora and fauna. “I have no idea what you just turned into, but I think your antlers are growing flowers.”

Jason stood, but he had to hunch to keep from hitting his head on the lower ceiling of the basement. He was taller because much of him was stretched. It was as if a skeleton was wearing the hides of monsters it had killed, and wearing over those a suit made from Groot or an Ent.

“Don’t panic,” I said as soon as I realized how wide Jason’s glowing orbs had become while he stared at himself in the mirror above my dresser. “You’re not in pain, are you?”

Jason shook his head several times before saying, “No, but… what even is this? I saw this thing.” He turned to me, and the skull face could still somehow form expressions as if it was flesh. “I saw this in my dream. It took you.”

“I’m fine.” I went to him again and grabbed hold of his bark-like hands. Only they didn’t feel like bark. It was smoother. It felt like skin where there wasn’t fur or scales.

“It… it took you,” Jason said again, lifting one hand to cup my cheek. The hand was massive and could have cupped my whole head. “Then it took me, even though Iwasit. I am it? And then… then I saw what really happened. I saw the night my dad disappeared.”

“You did?” I placed a hand over his on my cheek. “Are you sure it wasn’t just overlap from the change—”

“No. It’s not only that I saw it. I remember now. I remember what happened.”

“Okay. Come here. Sit.” I drew him back to the bed. The mess between us was dry on my skin now, but I didn’t care. I sat us down, though he was still so tall even when he leaned on his knees. “Tell me everything.”

Jason stared forward, while I rubbed soothing circles into his back. “That day, playing outside with Dad, I felt something pulling me. Calling to me. Even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to leave the backyard, I followed it, drawn into the woods. I followed it all the way to the clearing with the portal.

“I heard my dad calling after me, but before he could reach me, the air cracked open like lightning had struck the clearing. Something that looked just likethis—” he looked at himself with a tremble in his arms “—was inside it, beckoning to me. It must have done something to me, because I felt that pull increase like I was literally being dragged inside.

“Dad grabbed me. He caught me and kept me from being sucked in. But he moved in front of me to block my body from the pull. Thisthing—” he snarled at his new body “—sucked him in instead. I don’t know how it infected me. Maybe it didn’t, maybe not until the attack last summer, but it changed me, it took my dad, it took all those people, and now I am just like it.”

“Jason.” I hugged him, tight around his middle, as hard as I could.

He started to sob, but no actual tears spilled down his bony cheeks. Slowly, he brought his long arms up to hold me back. Little by little, the vines started to unwind from him. When I felt fur and scales recede too, I looked, and Jason’s human face was staring back at me.

I kissed him, so he’d know there was nothing that could ever make me want to stop kissing him.

It was too early to get up, but neither of us could go back to sleep, so we held each other until we heard Sandy leave for work. That meant we were technically late, but I’d messaged the team to expect us late. I understood that Jason couldn’t face running into his mother this morning.

I don’t think Kai even realized we’d snuck over to the other room. When we finally went in to wake him, his swollen eye was already almost back to normal, and the bruises weren’t as bad. His species were incredible healers.

He still wore his cloak when we left the house. On our way to the facility, I received a message from Beck.

“Oh no.”

“What?” Jason was driving today. Before I could explain, he was already turning into the parking lot, and we saw for ourselves.

A full protest was happening in front of the main entrance. The dozen from yesterday was two or three dozen now, with everyone shouting and most carrying picket signs.

“Monsters are Mayhem!” they chanted, which was the primary message on the signs too.

“Oh no. Oh no…” Kai sat between us in the front seats of the truck and pulled his hood over his head to hide his face.

“Hey,” Jason said as he parked. “You got us, and we’re not going to let anyone touch you. Ever again.”

Kai’s eyes blinked at us from within the hood with such heartfelt thanks, I slid an arm around his waist for a sideways hug.

“Why don’t they call the police again,” Jason grumbled.

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