Page 9 of Misfit Monsters (Pack of Outcasts #1)

Periwinkle

W hen I walk into the workout room where the self-defense classes are held, my heart sinks twice.

I see the burly, ruddy-haired shadowkind from the admin team standing at the front of the room, looking just as gruff as when he suggested I be banished to the shadow realm, and the thumping organ in my chest seems to drop to my knees.

My gaze slides over to Gloss standing by the far wall, and it plummets right to my feet.

What’s she doing in this class? It’s supposed to be for reform students.

“Wonderful,” Fen mumbles next to me.

I summon all the good spirits I can for my friend’s benefit. I should be cheering her up, not dragging her down.

“Maybe we’ll learn something to defend against her ,” I murmur, and consider it a win when I earn a giggle.

As more students arrive, it gets harder to keep up my optimistic attitude. Mirage bounds into the room with a flip followed by a somersault, but the next beings who pass through the doorway are the brawny woman and her clawed friend, Vim, who got angry with me in the Geography and Culture class.

The moment they notice me, their eyes narrow, as if they’re deciding how to best stomp me into kibble.

A few of Gloss’s reform student friends sashay in next, giving her a wave and our teacher coy looks through their lowered eyelashes. Lust laces the air like overripe plums.

One of them takes on a sultry tone. “How are you today, Gnash?”

If she’s trying to flirt, he doesn’t appear to be interested. “Looking forward to finally getting this class started, Tansy,” he says with a scowl.

More students trickle in, including a few who go to stand by Gloss. There are seven beings now who I haven’t seen in my past reform classes, their badges with circles rather than reform triangles.

It’s a smaller class than usual, only some of the level ones. Why would they bring in extra beings on top of that?

Fen must pick up on my confusion. She tips her head closer to mine. “For the self-defense classes, the teachers ask trusted higher-level students to help with the hands-on exercises. Unfortunately, we don’t get any choice in who those students are.”

Gloss glances our way at that exact moment. Fen clamps her mouth shut even though I can’t see how the other woman could have heard her.

Gnash claps his hands together, and all twenty or so pairs of eyes in the room snap to our teacher .

He prowls from one side of the room to the other. Fen mentioned to me that he’s a tiger shifter, and even in human form, the powerful feline influence shows in his movements.

“There are three types of humans who know of shadowkind and will approach us with malicious intent,” he says.

“Collectors, who focus on lesser shadowkind creatures as curiosities to cage. Sorcerers, who use us as tools for their own ends. And hunters, who we’re talking about today.

They buy into the myths humans have made up about the various shadowkind they’ve encountered over the ages— most of which are total lies—and see us as nothing but monsters.

Many of them want to not just capture us but to outright destroy us. ”

A shiver races over my skin. The one upside to the shadow realm is that while I could starve there to the point of being the thinnest shade of myself, I’d never actually die. When we’re completely immersed in the shadows that made us, they can sustain us.

In the mortal realm, even the darkest night can’t quite match the atmosphere of our home. Here, we’re all mortal too.

Mirage springs forward with a burst of his fox ears from his head and a sharp-toothed grin. “To end us they have a great thirst, but there’s nothing to fear if we smash them first.”

My lips twitch at the singsong rhyme and the illusionary applause that follows it, but Gnash simply glowers at the shifter. “Less smashing, more avoiding attention. Put your ears away.”

Mirage complies with a nimble backflip. It’d be hard for any hunters to catch him in the first place.

Gnash’s peeved expression doesn’t change. He stalks over to the seven higher-level students and hands out batons with streamers of yellow fabric. I think gymnasts—those humans who tumble around a lot like Mirage does—use those.

Do hunters also perform gymnastics?

The tiger shifter gives us an ominous look. “One of the hunters’ primary weapons are whips with streams of concentrated light. If the light hits you, it’ll damage your essence—temporarily disabling you. So if you encounter a human wielding one, you dodge until you can make a run for it.”

He motions the higher-level students forward. “Two students to each helper. Take turns avoiding the whip. The fewer times our helpers manage to make contact, the higher your grade will be.”

Fen and I hurry over to join a skinny, pointy-chinned male shadowkind who’s moved to the farthest corner of the room from Gloss.

“I’ll go first!” I volunteer. It’s just a ribbon—no big deal.

The skinny guy lashes it toward me. A sheen on the fabric gleams beneath the overhead lights as if it really is made of light.

I jump to one side and then scramble to the other, my feet skidding on the exercise mats. Despite my best efforts, the ribbon catches my elbow.

After I’ve wriggled free, the student helper speaks up in a bored tone. “Keep track of all your limbs. Don’t just think about your core.”

I bob my head. I thought I was doing that, but I’ll give it a better shot.

I start tucking my arms closer to my body, but the next time he flicks the ribbon against my calf. Taking a deep breath, I prepare myself for another round.

It’s all right. I’m just getting started.

As I dodge another sweep of the ribbon, a twinge of pain jolts through my ankles. I stumble—and feel the ribbon snagging on my wrist.

In the next group over, Vim snorts. “Looks like someone’s klutzy with both her mouth and her feet. I bet you’d be scared of humans if you ran into one with a weapon like that.”

Embarrassment sweeps through me. I know it’s flickered in my hair, because her eyebrows leap up.

Tansy has joined Vim and her brawny friend. She tsks her tongue mockingly. “Poor thing. You’ve upset her.”

I paste a determined smile on my face. “I’m all right. I’m sure we can all learn how to survive.”

The brawny woman frowns as if she’s taking that comment as an insult too. I whirl back toward my student helper.

After several more dodges, a couple more flares of pain, and a few more snags of the whip, I welcome the chance to step aside and give Fen a turn. As she begins the dance of dodging, my gaze slides over the other students.

Yellow ribbons are swishing through the air all around the room. Gnash walks between them, pausing to observe one group.

The woman next to him pops her hip to the side and juts her chest out a little farther. The one who’s scrambling to steer clear of the ribbon catches sight of him and leaps up rather than to the side—maybe because that makes her skirt swish with a glimpse of her panties.

He gives her a couple of tips, and she beams at him with a flirty tilt of her head. More whiffs of the ripened fruit flavor reach me.

The tiger shifter teacher has a lot of fans, whether because of his muscular power or because he’s one of the school’s highest authorities. When he moves on to the next group, I see one of the male students start preening rather than paying attention to the exercise.

With her lithe frame and flexibility, Fen has managed to evade all but one smack of the ribbon. But when our teacher prowls over to watch her, a look that’s pure terror flashes across her face.

She hops to the side, ducks, jerks backward, and nearly trips over her own feet. She might have been able to recover, except in her anxiety, a dribble of water seeps down her arm.

Her sneakers slip on the sudden puddle, and she tumbles into the mat face-first with the ribbon slapped across her back. A kick of tabasco-sharp embarrassment hits me a moment after the impact.

One of Gloss’s friends snickers. Her voice carries across the room in a false undertone. “There the drip goes piddling again.”

I clench my hands against a spurt of anger, but Gnash ignores the comment. He waits until Fen has gotten back to her feet.

“You have to get a grip on that wishy-washy talent,” he says, and stalks off without another word.

I touch her arm. “You were doing really well for most of the exercise.”

Fen nods with a jerk, but shame still seeps out of her.

Once everyone’s had their practice, the student helpers rejoin Gnash to report everyone’s scores. The tiger shifter records the numbers before unzipping a duffle bag by his feet. “For the second weapon we’ll study today, I’ve brought the real thing to show you. You won’t want to get too close.”

Using two steel rods, he lifts a mess of shimmering gray strands out of the bag.

As the glinting object unfurls in front of us, my heart lurches so hard I lose my breath.

It’s a net. Like the one—the one that caught me? —

Tansy’s barely muffled guffaw brings me back to the present. She’s staring at me. “She’s a wimp after all. Terrified just looking at the thing.”

I raise my hands to my head, and an orangey-yellow glow wavers across my forearms. A few of the other students giggle.

Swallowing hard, I breathe as evenly as I can. The glow of fear fades alongside the tension whirling inside me.

“What’s the matter, Periwinkle?” Gloss asks in a crystal-smooth voice. “You can’t get that worked up over a little silver and iron, or they’ll catch you without even throwing the net on you.”

A little silver and iron. As if those aren’t the two substances most toxic to shadowkind.

I give myself a little shake. Even though my hair has stopped glowing, I can’t totally shed the lingering wisps of terror.

“Not so tough now,” the brawny woman jeers.

Do they think this is a joke? They have no idea what can happen to you if you’re trapped in one of those nets.

“We need to watch out for those things—and learn how to escape them,” I say as energetically as I can. “But I know we can survive the hunters if we’re strong. All you have to do is listen to the lesson instead of trying to hook up with the teacher.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve made another blunder. A mix of anger and humiliation wafts toward me from all around the room like rancid salsa.

Gloss glances toward Gnash. “She’s eager—maybe she should be the first to get a close look at the net.”

Every particle of my body recoils, but the tiger shifter beckons me forward. The presence of the noxious metals nips at my skin.

As I walk up to the gleaming mass, my ankles throb. I wobble, and Vim barks a laugh. “Look how shaky she is after all her big talk.”

Tansy sneers. “There goes her hair again, like she’s pissing herself with light.”

My teeth jar against each other. I’ll be fine. I have to be fine.

The thought feels more desperate than reassuring.

I stop a couple of steps from the net and hold myself rigidly still. More snickers bounce through the room.

I don’t like this feeling. It’s too much like the worst times—I can’t let myself dwell on it—can’t let myself get too upset.

I can’t admit to the man who wanted me kicked out that I might not be able to handle this lesson.

Gnash speaks in a growl. “Once you’re wrapped in one of these nets, you’re stuck. If you see one, you hightail it in the opposite direction. If humans throw one at you, drop as low as you can and dash or roll at top speed. We’ll practice with regular rope nets.”

He nods for me to step back. As I retreat, my legs sway again.

The brawny woman strides past me, stomping her heel very purposefully on my toes. “Now who’s the wimp?”

I never insulted her. I only wanted to help everyone.

But all I feel are the glares and the smirks. The mutters aimed my way. My pulse pounds in my head.

Gnash is just putting the metal net away when the peal of the bell signals the end of the class period. “We’ll try the practice nets next session,” he announces.

As we head for the door, my nerves scatter all over again.

To feel those bindings pressing against my skin—the coarse texture, the interlocking pattern?—

I hurry down the hall, not thinking even of Fen. A mocking call reverberates after me: “I don’t know if you can run fast enough, weakling.”

I dig my fingernails into my palms.

I just have to get away. Somewhere quiet and alone where I can simmer down.

A door up ahead shows darkness through the small window. The label above the frame calls it the Media Room.

With a renewed burst of speed, I push inside.

I stagger to a halt at the edge of a big dim room. Faint light emanates from screens behind glass booths along the edges of the space. A handful of beings are sprawled across sofas opposite the door, watching an image start to play on a larger projector screen.

“Mortals all over the country have been watching this show for years,” one of the shadowkind tells the others in an eager voice.

Then the bouncy tune of a sitcom opening theme fills the air. “When you reach the end of the day, well, it’s another day over.”

The most stating-the-obvious of all possible lyrics. I freeze in place.

“And you can’t forget all the things that you really should go for.”

That painful half-rhyme. A whimper builds in my throat.

The sound hurls me back to the dank room that held cages blazing with light, to the small TV always buzzing and jangling off to the side.

His favorite show. Every day, that song. No matter what he was doing to us?—

The cloying voice continues as if trying to win an award for triteness. “But open your eyes, open your arms, and ? —"

The horror rolls over me, too heavy for me to shove it away. Like the net, like when he caught me?—

The whimper bursts out in what’s closer to a wail. I hurtle back into the hall and stumble into a chemical-smelling space that looks like a supply closet.

And the thick, dark agony I’ve tried to tamp down explodes out of me.

It sears through everything nearby as forcefully as my joyful glow did at the wedding. Terror and anguish and fury blare together into a deluge of misery.

Through the flood, I feel a yelp and a rasp of pain. A shudder and a sharp sting as if my darkness has sliced right through someone’s essence.

I’m hurting them. I didn’t mean to.

I’m sorry, so sorry.

I don’t know how to stop it.