Page 12 of Bound By Earth (The Nature Hunters Academy 1)

“Welcome to my world. Here, you try.” She held the scissors out toShelly.

The girl blanched. “I’m not going to try to hurt you. I mean, I know I’m crazy and I threaten you all the time, but I would never actually hurt you. Unless you took my man, then I’d cut a body-selling-woman-of-the-night, even you. But just to hurt you for the sake of hurting you? I can’t dothat.”

Tara sighed. “You wouldn’t be hurting me. Youcan’thurt me, Shelly. That’s the point. You cannot hurt me. At least notphysically.”

“I can’t. No. Absolutely freaking not. That’s gotta be against some hoes before bros code or in the bitches can’t be snitcheshandbook.”

Shelly slashed her hand through the air as if that somehow made things final. She should know better. Tara was every bit as stubborn as her counterpart when she wanted tobe.

“Hey, you actually cursed,” Tara said with asmirk.

“Only because ‘female dogs before tattletales’ doesn’t sound near ascatchy.”

Tara shoved the scissors into Shelly’s hand. “It’s not against any codes if I’m asking you to do it, you dork,” she muttered as sheforced Shelly’s hand around the scissors and brought the point down on her own arm before Shelly could even cry out. There was a small twang, and the scissors bounced harmlesslyoff.

Shelly’s skepticism changed to fascination at a frightening speed. It was as if she’d just realized that an alien species did exist, and she was the first person to get a look at them. Tara had to admit it was a little creepy but then shrugged because it was her own fault for pulling Shelly into her world.“Can I do it again?” Shelly asked as she bounced on the balls of herfeet.

Tara laughed. “You’re a little disturbing. You know that, right?”She pulled up her sleeve. “Here. Aim for the shoulder. Pretend you’re giving me a shot.” She heard Shelly suck in a breath before the girl jabbed. It felt to Tara like she’d been stabbed with a blade of grass. Shelly lost her grip, and the scissors fell to the floor with aclatter.

“Seeing it and then actually feeling that it’s impossible to penetrate your skin are two very different things,” said Shelly a littleshakily.

“It takes some getting usedto.”

“It felt like I was stabbing a brickwall.”

“And isn’t that what every guy wants in hisgirlfriend?”

“Yet your skin feels as soft as my own. You were right,” said Shelly. “YouareSuperman. No, wait, you’re”—she paused, seeming to fish for the right title she wanted to give Tara—“you’re Brick WallGirl!”

“That sounds so sexy,” said Taraflatly.

“It may not be sexy, but it’s definitely wicked,” Shelly replied and then added, “You know what else is wicked? Your first time totally isn’t going to hurt, you lucky female cow that’s never had ababy.”

Tara’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You call me a heifer and then go straight to sex? That’s where you went with this? First, you don’t believe me. I have to stab myself to convince you, and then you jump to imagining how painless losing my virginity willbe?”

“Oh snap,” Shelly said. “What if you can’t lose your virginity at all? What if you have an impenetrable hymen? Mother of pearl, what if you seriously can’t do it?And hello. It’s me you’re talking to. Of course, I went there. Every girl knows the first time hurts like hell.Youwon’t have an ounce of pain. How is life fair? You got a rockin’ bod and an impervious vagina. If I didn’t love you and knew you’d actually feel it,I’d want to cut you. Except for the fact that you also might have an impervious hymen. Then I don’t envy you at all, and you can keep yoursuperpower.”

“I seriously have no bloody idea how this conversation went from me sharing this huge secret with you to speculating about my potentially impenetrablehymen.”

“That’s because you lack imagination and the ability to think about things from multiple vantagepoints.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with aresponse.”

“Excellent. Now, tell me everything. Start from when you were in the hospital after the crash. How was the hospital able to treat you? I mean, you had to have had an IV or blood drawn or something. If not you wouldn’t be here. You’d be in some top-secret lab having all your parts studied, including yourhymen.”

“You’re going to have to let go of the hymen,” Tarasaid.

“I will when youdo.”

“Remember when we met and I wanted to throat punchyou?”

Shelly tucked her chin down as if to protect her throat and then said, “Go on. From thehospital.”

Thirty minutes later,Tara had told Shelly everything she could remember about the accident, which wasn’t much, and how she’d been in the hospital for a week afterward. She explained how, sometime after her wounds had fully healed, she slowly realized she couldn’t feel pain. It had started with little things, like dropping a can of corn on her toe and not even feeling it. Then she’d slipped on ice one day and fallen directly on her elbow. Again, no pain and no injury. Tara told Shelly how she’d been afraid to tell her foster mom or anyone else because she’d been scared the government would come and take her away and experiment on her. At which point Shelly, oh so helpfully, reminded Tara that they’d also have experimented on her hymen. The girl was disturbed. “If you don’t let go of my impervious hymen, I’m going to twist your nipple until you scream like a girl while I point out that you can’t retaliate because my nipples are untwistable. And I won’t feel bad about it atall.”

“If I didn’t love you and your sadistic ways so much, I’d totally be offended rightnow.”

Tara then told Shelly all about her fruitless efforts to find out why she was like this. There was simply nothing, at least no credible information, out there on hercondition.

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