Nothing To Lose

8- Attacks and Kisses

“I’m going for a run,” I told Riley as I headed towards the front door. She gave me two thumbs up, knowing what I meant by that. I was going to go to the forest and shift into my Tiger. I hadn’t shifted in a while and I was starting to get antsy.

I stopped at the first tree, shed my clothes and shifted. Then I went into autopilot; letting my tiger spirit take control. It was Tuesday and I had the day off of work, my first day off since I’d started working part time at Canella Ice. Things were also going well with Max’s band; they were letting me perform with them on Saturday to see how it went. If it all went well, I was going to be considered as a band member.

As for Mr. Baker- that was more complicated. I’d ended up falling asleep at his apartment on Friday while we were watching a movie and Riley had been extremely mad when I got back early Saturday morning. Since then we hadn’t had much time to talk and every day in class I was reminded of how wrong it was to date him. But it felt so right…

I suddenly snapped back into reality when an arrow flew past me, imbedding itself into a tree. I turned and took off as fast as I could. Who would be out here hunting a tiger? My white fur made it even harder to believe, because it was very rare in California, even among Tiger Shifters. A few more arrows flew past me, but all of them missed and I managed to arrive back at the tree where I’d left my clothes. I shifted back and threw on my clothes before running to my bike and taking off as fast as I could.

“You weren’t gone very long,” Riley said when she saw me. She took in my appearance and raised her eyebrows. “And you look like you went skydiving.”

I shook my head, still dazed by what had happened. “Someone was hunting! I was almost hit with an arrow like four times.”

“Someone was hunting you?” She screeched, jumping up. “Are you alright?” I nodded and she continued ranting. “I can’t believe someone would hunt you; don’t they know it’s illegal to hunt tigers in California? And why would they use arrows? Maybe they were after you specifically…”

I laughed nervously. “Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know… Is there anything different about your tiger?” She asked.

I nodded. “I have white fur.” My words made her freeze up and I could see she was terrified, but she hid it quickly.

“I’m sure that’s not it… Go get cleaned up,” she instructed me, but I stayed where I was.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “First tell me whatever you’re hiding. I have a right to know considering it almost killed me.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said in a tone filled with finality. I groaned and marched up the stairs to the shower. Then it finally hit me; someone wanted to kill me.

We never got around to talking about what happened and before I knew it I was back at school, in English class to be precise. I was with Elise and Austin and we were rehearsing the scene that we were performing today.

As I listened to them talk, my gaze wandered to the teacher. Mr. Baker was sitting at his desk and he met my eyes, giving me a wink before looking away and acting as if nothing happened. As much as I tried to stop it, a small smile found its way onto my face. Why was I thinking about rejecting him again?

“Tally; did you hear what I said?” Elise asked, making me turn my attention to her. She was looking at me with a questioning expression.

I shook my head. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I think we should add the kiss. I mean, who gets married without kissing?”

She laughed, but I felt sick. “I think that it’s fine without it. Anyways, the school has a no PDA thing, remember?”