* This is a short story for a bigger story that I am working on, it will be on Wattpad shortly. Thank you for reading.*
His Family Secret: A Shifter Short Story
He did know how everything went to hell so fast, at first he had been trying to find the missing child he had been hired to find then all of a sudden Julius Majors finds himself in a rickety old shack his panther had led him to. There was something in this shack that had him sniffing the air trying to find what it was that was calling to him. It was like it knew he was there and was screaming for him to find it. His senses were pulling him to the fire place, there he inspected the entire wall until he found what he had been looking for, a brick that looked like it had been moved a time or two. He ran his fingers over the rough surface and could feel the power that lay behind the stone, it moved through him and embraced him like he was family. The strange thing was that it actually felt like family, like a long lost family member trying to make connections.
Julius took out his pocket knife and pulled the brick out so he could get to what was behind it. It was dark in the shack but with his heightened panther senses he could see almost perfectly in the dark, there was something in there alright and it looked like a book of some kind. He loved book, he felt a surge of excitement and curiosity course through his blood, he gently grabbed the book and pulled it free of its dark tomb. He blew the dust off the top and saw that it was someone’s diary, someone named Emily Decker. That caused him to pause, his mothers maiden name was Decker, he wondered if there was any connection between the two. As he was pondering that thought there was a creak out on the stairs that led up to the front door. He put the book in the inside pocket of his coat and blended in to the shadows to wait for the intruder to come through the front door. The front door creaked opened and in walked a man that was at least a good foot shorter than him and heavier set than him. The man took a quick look around trying to find anything out of place, when he saw nothing that caused him pause he turned around and went right back out the door.
Julius did not even let himself think that the man was not coming back, he knew in his bones that whoever that man was he was not finished here. He heard the sound of voices talking and someone being dragged up the stairs and into the house. He felt his heart skip a beat as he saw who was being haled in, it was Sara White, the girl he had been hired to find. She looked beaten and scared, but she still put up a fight trying to get away.
"Stop fighting girl, it's not worth it," the short man said and shook Sara like he was trying to get her to shut up so he would not have to put up with her whining and crying anymore.
The abuse of a little girl was something that Julius would not and could not condone and neither could his panther, it was clawing at him to kill the men that had beaten the girl. He knew that the guys holding Sara had weapons, but Julius was a weapon himself and had survived one war and three tours to Iraq, besides that he had the strength and agility of his panther, he was not that easy to kill. With that in mind he went and silently walked around to the man that was holding Sara and walked right up behind him and before the other man had a chance to warn Julius's prey, he grabbed the man by the neck and snapped it with an ease of a Navy Seal trained to kill, and his panther purred at the sound happy with the death. He grabbed Sara and pushed her behind him and faced his second adversary with a killer smile.
"Now who the hell are you?" the man said and Julius's smile widened into a feral grin.
“I’m the man who has been looking for this young lady for the past week, and about to beat the hell out of you,” Julius said and took a step toward the short man who in turn took a step back just like he wanted. He wanted to back him into a corner, so he could get the advantage over him. Mr. Dirtbag just kept backing up, no idea what Julius and his panther had planned for him.
“Well we will just see now wont we?” Mr. Dirtbag said, and tried to push past him, but Julius wasn’t about to let him and grabbed him by the arm and twisted it behind him.
“Now lets try that again, I am the man who is about to beat the hell out of you,” he said right next to Mr. Dirtbag’s ear in a menacing whisper meant to intimidate.
Mr. Dirtbag gasped and started to struggle like a wild bore trying to get away from a panther. Julius merely help him tighter and let the man wear himself out. When Dirtbag finally stopped Julius laughed a little and turned the man around to face him smiling cruelly. “Please let me go, I wont go after the girl again, I promise,” Dirtbag begged and pleaded with Julius.
He just smiled, smelling the lie he said “Ah, but I don’t think you mean a word of that B.S. you just said.” he looked over to Sara, who was standing in the corner he had left her in, she was looking at the man he was holding with anger and contempt in her blue gray eyes. “Would you like me to kill him Sara?” he asked her knowing that it was her choice whether he lived or died, he did not really care which, but his panther wanted the man dead for his crimes against the girl.
Sara’s eyes moved to his as she searched his face for his willingness to do whatever she asked him to do. She hated the man in his arms he was certain, but he knew that she would not let him kill him because if she asked him to that would be stooping down to Dirtbag’s level and she would not be able to live with herself, so she shook her head. Julius nodded even as his panther growled his displeasure,and took the man’s head in his hands and and looked him dead in the eye, making him think that he was going to die.
“No! Please! Don’t do this!” Dirtbag shouted out and tried again in vein to get free but again Julius just help him until he stopped.
Julius just continued to stare at the man and said at last in a whisper “Nighty, night.”
The man looked at him with stark terror and was about to beg again when he smashed Dirtbags head into the wall and let him drop to the floor. He had not killed him, but knocked him out, and then called the police. Julius had solved his case and found a family heirloom all in the same day. His week just kept getting better and better. Now all he had to do was find out what the journal meant.
