Page 48 of A Cock and Bull Story

Oh, I suppose it could be worse—Jude could be one of those bugs that has thousands of legs.

“Well, I'm not going anywhere,” I state firmly. “I don't care if you turn into a specific type of beetle, and I don't care if you’re a fish and you’re a bullfrog.”

“Toad—I’m a toad,” Arthur also corrects. “There’s a difference between toads and frogs.”

“Whatever. And if you are a—what are you?” I ask Jack.

“I’m a donkey,” he answers.

“Yes, that's right. No wonder you have such a fine ass,” I add with a wink. “You guys accept me for the sex freak that I am, and I accept you for the—”

I stop.

Calling them ‘animal freaks’ might offend them.

“I accept you for how you are,” I state firmly, “and I'm not running away. We're going to get through this together.”

Jude looks at me like I'm insane.

“There's nothing for you to get through with us. They'll just kill you. Do you not understand this?” he demands.

“I understand,” I parry smoothly.

Arthur looks over at Jude.

“I don't think she understands,” he whispers.

I throw my hands up in the air.

“What is there to understand? If these Tertiaries get me, I'm dead, correct?”

Jude and Arthur nod.

“I guess she does get it,” Jude muses.

Arthur mutters, “Maybe sheisbarmy1.”

I give him a scathing look.

“I'm not insane!” I snap—assuming that’s what he means. “I'm just not going to leave you alone because they're going to get you, too.”

Jack shrugs

“Maybe. Maybe not. They might think that we were involved in watching them, but they know that there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we would want to do anyways—there's no enforcement in our world. And if there were, they’d be the Tertiaries—the very people who have perpetrated this crime. Primaries are so minuscule to them that they probably won't even bother us. We're like flies.”

I frown.

I hate –that to the Tertiaries—the boys are nothing but pests. What a bunch of alpha assholes. I might cut a bitch and make me a fur coat.

“But,” Jack presses on, “you, on the other hand, you are not one of us. You're ahumanwho knows about us. You are a threat to our well-kept secret—something that the Tertiaries will not stand for. You need to leave this country—immediately.”

“In fact, you probably just need to disappear completely.” Jude reiterates after Jack is done. “How are we going to do this?”

He starts pacing around worried.

“No, no, no, no. I'm not doing it. We are in this together.” I restate sternly. “And I have nowhere to disappear to. Besides, I'm not going to go back to my home. What happens if they do follow me? What happens if they do track me down? Then I'm putting my parents in danger. I'm not doing that. I'd rather be dead than put them in danger.”

Jude’s shoulder slump. He knows I got him there.