Page 77 of Shaped to Be Yours

“Hurry!”

I looked at the exclamation, and the ogre was returning with another monster. I didn’t know what it was, but it was ableto project water from its mouth like a dragon breathing fire, putting out the flames not yet doused by the lessening rain.

“You,” the ogre growled when her eyes landed on Jensen Senior. She started stalking toward him. “It was others like you that thoughtlessly decided starting a forest fire was better than capture—”

“Wait!” I dove in front of her, arms spread to keep her from mauling Jensen. He was a dick, and it wasn’t as if I forgave him for what he’d done to Kai, but we didn’t have time for this. The ogre stopped when she realized it was me. “We need to help each other, not fight anymore.”

I whirled around without waiting for a response to address Jensen Senior.

“Lead these people out of the woods down the path to my backyard.” I gestured to it. “Tell my mom you’re the dick who hurt Kai, but that I sent you because you’re sorry for all your dickishness. Say it exactly like that, or she won’t believe I sent you. And don’t let the cat out. Got it?”

Whatever emotions or conflicting logic was warring inside Jensen’s brain, he nodded.

“And if you see anyone else along the way, tell them to get their heads out of their asses.”

The Jensens and the now no longer missing people hurried down the path.

“That is going to eventually close,” I told the ogre about the portal. The other monster came up beside her now that the fire was out. I didn’t know where the human guard was, but I hoped he’d been brought to safety. “Stay here to make sure no one else tries messing with it, but it should be safe until it disappears.”

“Who put you in charge—” the ogre began.

“Stay here.” Ricky came up beside me, while Dad stood at my other side and gripped my shoulder. “I am part of the research team, which gives me the authority to give orders. We need todeescalate the rest of this. What can you tell us? Is everyone by the lake now?”

The ogre grinded her teeth in frustration but eventually blurted, “After you got sucked in, more and more people kept showing up, trying to start shit between humans and monsters. There are all out brawls going on in some cases, and the guards and officers arriving are barely holding it together. But yes, most have been pushed toward the lake.”

“Someone is going to get killed,” Dad fretted.

“Oh shit!”

Our attention was once again drawn to the tree line toward the lake, where four people I didn’t recognize had been in full sprint until they realized where they’d ended up. They saw the portal, saw the machinery, saw the monsters guards, and tried to rush them.

Dad swept in front of me, returning to his leshy form in an instant, and lashed out with whiplike vine tentacles the same way I’d lashed out at, well, grandma. The attackers were all tripped and knocked onto their backs, giving the guards more than enough of an advantage to apprehend them, especially when several police appeared, having chased after the others.

They were human, and their eyes widened when they saw Dad.

“Just helping calm things down, officers,” Dad said.

It worked. Not just the resonance of his voice, but something about his presence, about the touch of his vines still making sure the attackers couldn’t get up right away, seemed to infuse them all with the calm we needed.

“We can calmpeopletoo,” I whispered to him, “just like animals and the elements?”

“It takes significantly more practice, but yes,” he whispered back.

The noise from the lake was growing louder.

“We need to get over there,” Ricky said, “or at least see what’s happening and which direction might need us more.”

“Jason.” Dad nodded at the sky, retracting his vines from the attackers now that they were calm, and the guards and officers had them.

I looked too and spotted a hawk in the tallest branches above us. “So? What does…?Oh.” I realized what he wanted me to do. “But I can’t just turn into a bird person at will.”

“You can. Try.”

There wasn’t time for trial and error, but at least if I fucked up, I knew Dad could do what I couldn’t. Maybe that would make it easier, knowing it was okay if I failed.

“You know who and what you are now, Jason,” Dad said. “Believe you can, and you can.”

Those two sentences back-to-back were a lot to hear from the father I’d barely remembered and hadn’t seen in over twenty years.

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