Page 2

?

?

NO LIGHTS SAVE the glow from the control panel on the fridge shine in the kitchen. Still, a shadow moves across the counter—silent as a dead man’s heartbeat. I brace myself, sensing without seeing. The shadow is cautious, pausing just outside my range.

My skin tightens as the shadow tenses.

It’s coming. It’s leaping. It’s…!

“Stop!” I cry out, but the assault continues without end.

The sandpaper tongue quickly switches to teeth, and I yelp. In a flash, the nondescript eggplant left lying on the counter transforms into the full-grown body of a man now named Aubry Gene.

Just as I slip off the counter and land on my feet, I catch the ten-pound orange menace trying to slip away.

“Damn it, Astin.” Cuddling my cat like a baby, I dot my finger to his nose as he stares up at me. “We don’t bite Daddy’s stem!”

He mewls at me, his one brain cell working overtime.

“No, we don’t,” I chastise but not too harshly. Astin’s all I have left in the world.

Not that he much cares. Twisting and pressing his claws into my forearm, Astin works his way out of my arms. He kicks his back legs into my bare chest. “Fine.” I give in to my cat and let him go.

He lands with unnerving grace on the granite countertop, then stares up at me. I can never be sure if he sees me as a man or a giant, talking vegetable when I shift. Maybe that’s why I find his presence comforting…when he’s not trying to devour me.

“You can go,” I tell my cat, “but you won’t get any treats.”

Astin freezes on a dime. Staring over his shoulder, he gives the biggest, saddest “I’m starving” meow. I’m walking to the locked cupboard before I even decided to give in.

As I reach for the Friskies, I catch my reflection in the fridge. I haven’t worn my hair this long since I was a kid, and I really miss the beard. But that belonged to another man. I was Aubry now, a recluse who only talked to his cat.

“Is this what you want?” I jangle the bag, getting an impatient meow. “Only good kitties get treats,” I say knowing that I will hand one over and that—once again—my orange idiot will try to eat me.

Fearing he will starve, Astin begins to purr as I drop the treat. The second my hand’s away, he lunges, devouring it to crumbs. I run my fingers up his back, swallowing down the urge to tell Astin how my whole day was. A month of solitude has warped my brain.

That was why I had to vanish. This town is a cat crumb on the map. There’s no chance they could find me here. But still, I have to be cautious. So I boarded up the windows, went full eggplant, and hid in my crisper drawer for a few weeks.

Wanna know a fun fact? Vegetables don’t sleep.

I felt every minute of every hour of every day slipping away.

And what did my waning brain have to do with all that time?

Why not scroll through every stupid decision that led to me becoming the recluse on the hill whose only friend was a cat that’d eat him. There are a lot, so it kept me busy.

One night. I thought, surely, I’d be fine with one night. No one had seen me, no one would recognize me in Loomis—a town famous for nothing. I was finally safe from Mr. Ato’s reach.

Go to a bar, get a beer, listen to the music. Just sit in the corner near other humans…

Finished with his treat, Astin noses my medic bag. I’d brought it on instinct. For ten years, it was as much a part of me as my arm or seeds. I just didn’t expect to have to need it.

I almost let her die. It was maybe a millisecond, believing someone else would save her. Surely other people would know how to handle an allergic reaction. But no one was stepping in. And, for as big a risk as I was taking, my training kicked in, and I had to act.

She was cute—ignoring her face turning blue, then beet red from the hives.

There were the right amount of curves to make a man risk his neck, assuming those weren’t all from the swelling.

I am a whole bucket kind of man—thighs, breasts…

ass. She was blessed in all three categories, no doubt, but she saw me.

No, she stared at me. I ran through all the members I could in my head, but came up blank for an Indian woman with tits for days and a mouth that never stopped.

It also seemed unlikely they’d put a woman into anaphylactic shock just to drag me out of hiding.

Not entirely impossible with Mr. Ato, but unlikely.

“I saved a life,” I tell my cat unimpressed with my heroics. All he wants are more treats for his swaying belly. “Feels good to do that again instead of…”

Biting my lip, I stare ahead, thinking of rows and rows of cabbages. Big green ones, leafy purple ones, all basking in the sunlight. The memory passes but the guilt remains.

I knew she had to get to a hospital. Epipens were good in a pinch, but that bad of a reaction required proper help.

What I didn’t expect was for the cops to show up with the ambulance.

As they loaded her onto the gurney, she kept reaching for me, asking my name.

It caught the cop’s attention too. Three of them, eyes beady, lips twitching.

Hard to know who was on Ato’s payroll. Could be all of them.

Was probably none.

But that’s what this life has done to me. I can’t walk past the produce section without nearly having a heart attack, watching every vegetable to see if any move.

Even if I’d told her my name, it wouldn’t have meant anything to her. It barely means anything to me.

No, that was a close call. I need to lay low. No leaving the house, only order over the phone. Delivery apps are one of the first things they’ll tap.

Accepting and dreading my fate in the same breath, I scratch my nails over Astin’s head. He leans into it at first before suddenly turning on a dime.

“What is it?” I whisper. Silently, I tug open a drawer. Reaching past the spoons, I slip my hand around a revolver.

Astin’s locked onto something I can’t see in the dark. It could be any one of them. Faces flash before my eyes. So many that’d be happy to take me out. So many I once called friend.

With a great meow, Astin leaps. I wrench the gun out. Spoons fly into the air as I take aim. Astin hits his reflection in the fridge door.

As he slides to the floor, hissing at his own shadow and gouging the stainless, I take a deep breath. I’d nearly shot a hole in my refrigerator. Holding the revolver feels as familiar as clutching the Epipen. Two tools for two very different jobs.

Pushing on the safety, I move to put the gun back. “I should probably do one more patrol. Just in case.” After sliding into my jeans, I slip my holster on over my shoulder. A part of me is tired of this. Of never knowing when the final bullet will come. Of wishing this could all be over.

But I wasn’t raised to quit. And if Mr. Ato really wants to take me out, then he’ll die doing it.

Unaware of the danger, my partner in crime chases a plastic milk ring across the floor. As I open the door to the backyard, he knocks it under the fridge and wails at the cruelty of this world.