Page 42 of Shaped to Be Yours

“Fuck.” I grimaced. “Him again.”

“Who?”

“Stay inside, Kai. I’ll be right back.”

People gathering around an idiot was never a good thing, especially in front of the first monster run business in town.

I left my bag and tray of coffee behind and stormed out of the shop.

“—and it is places like this, encouraging unsupervised interactions, that worries me the most. What’s next if they continue to let these people into our schools without oversight? We will be overrun before anyone realizes it takes more than a visa and a handful of naturalization classes to keep our citizens safe.”

“Urg,” I voiced aloud, because seriously? He was using his precious lunch break to spout bullshit in public now? His overpowering Patchouli smell was just as bad as last time, even being outdoors.

A few people looked at me after my groan, but McDickhole was too busy listening to himself talk. Elder Ridge was not that big, so someone shouting in front of a business that served lunch at lunchtime was going to pull people in.

Worse was that a lot of them were nodding.

“Do they think us so small-town Hicksville that we’d believe the sudden signs around the woods warning of a wolf? A wolf? Here? We have never had wolves in those woods before, but we definitely have plenty of dangerous monsters flooding our neighborhoods, and I for one will not have the wool pulled over my eyes any longer!”

People knew about the signs already? Were they watching the woods?

Was this asshole watching my house?

“I have been talking to our good, trustworthy, native citizens, and there are more than just June Mulligan missing, or Ellen Moyer, who was reported missing just today.”

Oh shit. That must be whoever vanished the other night.

“Conveniently right after those signs went up. How many people do we not know about who have gone missing? And why now? I’ll tell you why. Because of lacking safeguards in place to protect real citizens of this town from dangerous, unknown elements.”

“Oh, come on!” I finally erupted, hands clenched into fists that might have had claws digging into my palms, but right now, I just wanted this guy to shut up. “We get it. You’re a bigot. Isn’t proselytizing on street corners for religious zealots more than—and I realize I’m guessing on some of this but—straight, white, nationalist assholes like you? I know those go hand in hand sometimes—”

“Bosco!” McDickhole shouted over me. “We do not need to hear from more monsters! We need to hear from the rightfully scared humans of this town! Which used to be a peaceful, safe, quiet hamlet before our mayor threw our name into the lottery without getting the full backing of his constituents!”

“You voted himin, dickhole! That’s how it works. And don’t go acting like people never went missing before monsters came to town. Mydaddisappeared in those woods, long before we even knew about the monster realm.”

McDickhole smirked.

That couldn’t be good. Nor could the amount of people staring at me more than him now.

“Convenient again,” McDickhole said. “Especially considering the woods in question are behind your house, putting you right in the middle of this then and now.”

I had walked right into that one. “You know, slander is a thing, even in a small town.”

“It isn’t slander if it’s true.”

“What is happening in those woods?” someone demanded of me.

“I don’t know what he’s talking—”

“You were attacked there last year, weren’t you?” someone else asked—Mrs. Truman. I knew her. I knew most of these people.

“I was—”

“And your father did go missing. I remember that.”

“What’s happening out there?”

“Is it true you’re a monster now?”

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