Page 66 of Shaped to Be Yours

“They did,” I said, nodding toward the lone squad car keeping watch. “The facility probably doesn’t want to make things worse,so they’re allowing it as long as no one gets violent. Police presence yesterday and the arrests only riled people up more.”

“But they—”

“Deserved to be arrested. Yeah. They broke the law and were completely in the wrong. But repeating the cycle won’t change anything.” I hated it, but I knew it was true, just like Whitmore kept trying to instill in us. I’d hated the first time myabuelasaid the same to me. I was second generation and still had to hate it, because growing up in Nevada, growing up anywhere these days, meant this type of protest happened for more than just monsters.

I think Jason got that, because his usually short fuse when the protesters swarmed us and practically screamed their rhetoric in our faces, showed only as a grinding of his teeth.

We protected Kai between us as we moved through them. Thankfully, there were a few security officers outside this time to help monsters and personnel get in and out safely.

Zinnia and Beck were right inside the doors, waiting for us.

“Mi jhavi.” They took Kai from us and hugged him.

“You are okay?”

“No one touched you?”

“I am fine,” Kai said, nuzzling into their embraces. “I had Jason and Ricky with me. And we had much fun last night watching movies. I even bonded with their cat!”

“Thank you both,” Zinnia said. “But where is Bina?”

“Bina?” I questioned. “She’s not with you?”

“She went out this morning with friends,” Beck explained. “The protest made us nervous. We asked for her to come home. We thought she would beat you here.”

Jason and I exchanged a look like we might have to brave our way back out there and search for her, but just as we turned, the front doors opened again.

“I am going to change my middle name to mayhem!” Bina called through the protesters, waving as her friends drove away—all human. “Then you’ll just be calling me the badass I am. Thanks for that.” She made a motion like flipping non-existent hair and continued forward to join us.

“Badass is right,” Jason said. “Go Bina.”

“Who are you?”

Rather than inform her that he was “snake-man,” Jason just patted her on the shoulder and said, “Better get to work. I have something new to show all of you.”

The process started again, conducting tests in the lab of Jason’s newest and unidentifiable form. Kai and Bina stayed to watch this time, since Whitmore was absent again.

It was about half an hour in that Bina exclaimed, “Is this snake bae from the other day?”

Jason’s force of nature form, while even wilder when we tried to compare results to his other forms, finally gave us a breakthrough.

“I have seen imagery of such monsters,” Zinnia said.

“You have?” Jason was finally allowed to shift human and peeked out from behind the partition while he was changing. “What is it? What am I? Tell me.”

“I do not remember the name,” Zinnia explained, “but therook—look—of that form I have seen. There is an incubus we have been in contact with in another newer tester town to the south, Gilmer Rock, who studies and collects data on various species from our realm. Such voices those monsters have. Very, um… sensual."

"Mom!" Bina complained.

Zinnia waved a hand in dismissal, and Beck merely chuckled from across the room. "He was vexed when we explained your other transformations to him," Zinnia continued, "but he sent some imagery of more obscure monsters that have been knownto shapeshift. Let me see…” She pulled out her phone to scroll through emails until she found the one she wanted. “Ah, here it is.”

Jason, dressed in normal clothes again, joined us just in time for our eyes to land on the monster together.

It looked exactly like him. Like something made of plants and animals with a skull-like face and antlers.

“That’s it. That has to be it,” Jason said. “Does it say the name in the email?”

“No, but I will follow up with him immediately for every scrap of information he has.”

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