Skinwalkers

Chapter Twelve

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Chapter Twelve

Zave had never been happier to see the sun. It rose above the treetops to chase away the night, bringing with it a light fog to gently envelope the forest. He paused, standing on the edge of the cliffside road, to look out over the woods below. Mist reached up from between the trees with long tendrils, curling in the wind as they strained to touch the clouds above.

After the night they'd just had, watching the swirling fog was inexplicably comforting.

"Move it, human, or we'll leave you behind!" Fey snapped from up ahead.

With a sigh, Zave tore his gaze away from the mist-shrouded forest, and looked instead at the two women waiting for him farther down the road. One of them was Fey, back in her human form and just as cranky as ever.

The other was both familiar and unfamiliar. He had never seen her face before, but at the same time he felt like he could have recognized her anywhere. Clueless had, with Fey's help, taken on her human form for the first time that morning. It was incredible, Zave thought, how she could go from a golden retriever to a young woman, and somehow still look the same. Her fur was gone, but the long, golden hair on her head was the same as it had ever been. If it weren't for the slightly vacant look in her eyes, she could have passed off as a normal human being.

Of course, being human for the first time brought its own set of problems—first and foremost among them being the matter of clothes.

"Clueless!" Fey snapped.

Clueless froze, the shirt Fey had given her halfway over her head. Reluctantly, she lowered it back down again. "Don't like it!"

"I know you don't," their guide said for what had to be the hundredth time, "but you have to do it. People can't go around naked like animals do."

"Why not?"

Zave smirked. "Yeah, Fey, why not?"

Fey glared at him, but didn't answer. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Clueless began fidgeting with the waistband of her sweatpants.

"Why can't she just turn back into a dog?" Zave suggested. "She won't have to wear clothes, and she already knows how to act like one."

"NO!"

Zave jumped in surprise. Fey hadn't been the one to yell at him—it was Clueless. She rounded on him, hands curled into fists, and Zave took a step backwards.

"O- Okay," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "If you don't want to, you don't have to."

"Don't want to!"

"Sure, that's fine. But...why don't you want to?"

Clueless looked at him, and then looked away. Zave took a hesitant step forward, and was shocked to see Clueless' cheeks turn red. Her first ever blush, and he didn't even know what he'd done to embarrass her.

"She needs to get a handle on being human," Fey answered for her. "As soon as we get to the next town, we're going to take a bus the rest of the way. Dogs aren't allowed on the buses, so she'll need to know how to blend in well enough to not attract attention."

Zave hesitated, then nodded. They started walking again, the temperature slowly rising the higher the sun got in the sky. This was an old road, weaving snakelike through the wooded hills, and wasn't commonly used. In the hour or so they'd been walking, only two cars had passed them, both going the opposite way. Still, Fey promised that the monsters, whatever and wherever they were, were less likely to attack them out in the open like this. Zave wasn't sure he believed her, but since he had no better ideas of his own, he'd kept quiet.