Lunacy by R.A. Sears Page A

breathed a sigh of relief, followed by Jynxx
voicing what we were all thinking. "When can we tell him? If he
never changes, do we never let him know?"
    Elomina gave a very Gallic shrug. "The likelihood of
the genes passing him by is very slim. There is a small
possibility, but then it would be up to you whether to inform him
or not. He could be in danger either way."
    If he’d been my brother, I would have told him. He
had much more of a fighting chance if he knew what he was dealing
with, especially in a combat situation. But Jimmy wasn’t my
brother, so it wasn’t my place to say anything. Jynxx speaking
again took me away from my troubled thoughts.
    “We’ll worry about that when it comes to it. As for
this whole shifting thing…” he trailed off, saying it with a snarl
like it was a dirty word.
    Elomina sighed. “I suppose it is the best place to
start.” She got up and Conner, Jynxx, and I followed suit. “Teigan,
tend to the birthday boy, please.”
    “Of course,” was his simple yet cultured
response.
    “The back yard will be the best place,” she was
saying as she led the way. “Although there are no neighbors nearby,
it will be safest to not worry about someone driving by and
accidentally seeing something they should not.”
    “Or something that’ll drive them nuts.” Conner
murmured back, sounding bitter. It piqued my interest, but the time
for questions about his past would come later.
    The back yard, which may as well have been considered
part of the forest, was heavily shielded by trees and greenery. The
leaves on everything not coniferous were a beautiful myriad of
colors that made it seem as if someone had set the woods ablaze. It
was gorgeous out here, a lot like back at my place, but even more
secluded and full of the quiet serenity of nature. We could have
committed a mass genocide out here and no one would have heard the
screams.
    That thought was disconcerting as Elomina closed the
door behind all of us, trapping us outside in the wild. There was
something ominous and final about the way it shut, like it was
sealing our pasts away. Pasts we could never return to as we were
thrust into this new future where the world was full of more
monsters and weirdness than we ever could have imagined, even in
our worst nightmares.
    "Let us begin, then." Elomina said, rubbing her hands
together against the slight autumn chill. "We shall have you begin
the process with Conner, as he has shifted more than two of the
other wolves in that room combined. You're much less likely to hurt
him, and we wouldn't want you to accidentally rearrange Jynxx's
insides for him when he has no way of knowing how to right
himself."
    I somehow kept from having my jaw fall off at that
last statement. I stammered out a few incoherent words that didn't
make a lot of sense together. "Rearrange..? How in the..? What- Why
would I..?"
    Conner rolled his eyes and looked to the older woman
in exasperation. "Oh, for fuck's sake... Did you have to scare her
with that, Mina?" He came over to me and took my hands in his and
it startled me from the very vivid mental image I suddenly had of
an inside out quivering blob of flesh that was once Jynxx Davison.
I physically jumped and he rubbed his very warm hands over mine.
Those amber eyes looked down into mine and I felt a little better
just from being near him.
    "She's older than dirt, but she has absolutely zero
tact sometimes, Kaysh. I'll be fine. I can get shot, or hit by a
car, and I'll survive it and be perfectly healthy and whole once I
shift. So don't worry about anything. You're not going to hurt me;
she's just trying to inform you of what could possibly happen." He
gave me a wink and that sly little grin of his. "And besides, I
like a little pain now and then."
    That snapped me out of it, and I was suddenly much
more aware of the crisp fall air around us as my cheeks filled with
so much heat that I half expected steam to be coming off my face. I
shook my finger at him. "Why do you