Healing Ties (Ties, Book 2) | ✓

Chapter 40

Yore instinctively grabbed hold of Fanner's arm and pulled him down at the sound of the first gunshot. There was screaming, more gunshots, and then... silence.

Yore braced himself, ready to shift if he needed to. They were either under attack or about to be rescued. Or... so he had thought. He heard the sound of a man taking his last breath further down the hall, and then nothing else.

"I don't hear anything," Yore whispered. "What happened? How did we get here?"

"Humans shot you," a Taylor offered. Yore vaguely recalled seeing the Taylors, and then... oh. Yes, he had been shot.

"But..." Yore said, turning to look at Fanner and, even more confusingly, Duran.

"A magical cat brought us here," Duran explained.

"A... okay." Honestly, Yore didn't know how the cat was involved, but he had already known that Fanner had been whisked away to Duran. It wasn't hard to guess how they had then ended up with him now that he was starting to think a little more clearly.

Yore began to drag himself to his feet, and Fanner quickly got under his arm to help him. He hadn't felt this weak since he'd still been in recovery. His stomach hurt and it was still cut and bloody in some places, but from the amount of blood he'd been laying in he had to assume it had been a lot worse before Fanner had stepped in to fix him up. Fanner may well have just quietly saved his life.

There would be time for thanks later, though. With help from Fanner, Yore crept to the door and sniffed around the cracks at the side where air was coming through. He could smell blood and human, but nothing that gave a hint at who or what might have attacked them.

"I don't think anyone's alive out there," Yore told everyone else.

"Do you think we could break down the door?" Duran asked.

"Hm..." Yore took hold of the knob and gave it a sharp turn until he heard a crack and it gave way.

"Sure, or that," Duran said.

"I'll see if it's safe," Yore said as he started to open the door.

"Wait," the chubbiest of the Taylors said. "I'll go, just... hold on."

The Taylor stripped out of their waistcoat and pants and laid them out neatly on the floor. They stretched their arms out and their whole body stretched with them like they were made of rubber. Some of the other Taylors stepped in to help pull, and as the Taylor was pulled apart, they began to morph into two identical halves. Suddenly they came the rest of the way apart and two identical, skinny Taylors now stood in place of the single chubby one.

"I'll go," one of the new Taylors volunteered as the other began to put the clothes back on. "We haven't had enough time apart to become different people yet, so if I die, it's no real loss."

"I don't see it that way," Yore said. "But you're small and quiet, and I'm in no condition for stealth. I can't deny you'll make a better scout than I would. Scream if you need help, and I'll come."

"Sure," the Taylor said, not sounding particularly concerned.

The Taylor crept out of the room and Yore waited by the door, listening as they pitter pattered down the hall, paused for several seconds, and then pitter pattered back twice as fast.

"Dead humans," the Taylor reported as they slipped back into the room.

"Anything else?" Yore asked.

"Hm..." the Talor said. "Nope."

"Could you tell what killed them?"

"I don't know, am I a doctor? I think maybe they shot each other. Seems like something humans would do."