Page 25 of Squatch Out!
Why does this keep happening? I’ve never had trouble controlling my shift before. What is it about Olivia that makes me squatch out every time I get close to her?
My nose twitches, and I expect to be hit with the bitter tang of her fear… but there is none. My brows knit, and when I look up, I’m not sure what surprises me more, the curious and unafraid expression on her face, or the fact that she’s smiling.
“This definitely explains some things,” she says with a breathy laugh before she glances over at Owen. “Um, so, if you’re brothers, can you do this too?”
There is a long pause. “Yeah,” Owen admits. “It’s sort of a family thing.”
She turns her wide eyes back at me. “Are there a lot of you in your family?”
“Just the two of us around here,” Owen answers for us. “The gene is passed down through our father’s line, so we have some cousins up and down the coast who have also inherited it.”
“But,” her shapely brows drop low over her eyes, “but there are so many sightings. Not just here, but all around the world.”
“Ours isn’t the only family who carries the gene,” Owen says into his mug as he takes a sip.
Olivia leans back into the couch, her coffee forgotten in her lap, as she considers this. I can practically see her mind working on questions, debating what to ask first.
“So, is this,” she waves between Owen and me, “an ‘if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’situation?”
Owen laughs. Probably harder than I’ve seen him laugh in a long time. Watching this woman break my overly serious brother out of his shell… I get the strangest sense that she belongs here, in our world.
But with me, because she’s mine.
“No, it’s not that kind of situation,” Owen assures her. “But we do have to ask for secrecy. You can imagine what might happen if any of this got out.”
The color in her cheeks fades, and her expression turns serious.
“Yeah. I understand.” She looks back at me and stays quiet for a long time before she nods, like she’s come to a decision. “I promise not to ever tell anyone about any of this.” Then the corner of her lips turns down. “But what am I going to tell the guys? They might buy my story once, but they saw you twice… I’m not sure I’ll be able to lie my way out of that.”
Pinned under her concerned gaze, I’m captivated. Not just by her beauty, although I can’t ignore the way my body reacts to hers. It’s more than just attraction. The way she’s accepting this…she’s like a puzzle piece I didn’t realize was missing, and I want to find out where her piece fits with mine.
Except, I remind myself, she’s just another tourist with no plans to stick around. For my own wellbeing, I need to slam the door shut on whatever this longing is, because it’s only going to hurt more when she leaves.
“I’m mostly worried about your friend Darren,” Owen says with a sigh.
Olivia scrunches her nose up. “He’s not really a friend,” she admits. “I just met him two days ago, and he’s mostly kept to himself.” She scrunches up her nose as she looks from Owen to me. “To be honest, there’s something he said the first night I met him that I haven’t been able to forget. He told us that a bigfoot killed his brother.”
A tremble runs through my body when her eyes flick to mine.
“That–that doesn’t really happen, right?” she asks, her tone turning hopeful. “I mean, you’d never…”
She trails off when Owen and I share a knowing glance.
“Uh. Well…” Owen sets his mug aside and leans forward. “Despite our abilities, wearehuman, and humans can be provoked to make bad decisions. Humans can also do bad things without being provoked. We do our best to police our kind, to keep things like that from happening, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t. But it’s very rare.”
The way she deflates at his answer sends a rush of irritation through me. I don’t want her to think Owen and I could ever hurt her, or her friends. Suddenly, the itching is back, and it intensifies until my skin is quivering under my fur.
The change is so fast, I almost don’t notice at first. The look on Olivia’s face and the way her soft brown eyes suddenly spring wide is what makes me look down to see that I’m me again.
At least my shift didn’t shred the sweats I’m wearing this time. Although, it stretched the already too big material, so it fits even looser around my hips and legs. I let out a low grumble when I think about how my next paycheck is going to go toward replacing clothes, doors, and keys.
“What’s it like when that happens?” Olivia’s eyes are bright with curiosity as she leans forward with her knuckles tucked under her chin.
“It doesn’t feel like anything,” I say honestly. I’m not sure how else to explain it. “One minute, I’m a squatch; the next I’m not.”
“But how?”
I open my mouth, but then turn to Owen for help. He’s much better at these types of things than I am.
