Silent Heroes: Wildcat

Chapter 16: Threads of Lightning

Once Deanna and Shane were out of sight, I took a deep breath and entered my new room.  Inside, it was bright, airy and spacious.  To my right, a pair of sleeping platforms jutted straight out from the wall, one positioned several feet overtop of the other.  A huge, potted fern stood in the opposite corner and my sensitive nose picked up the smell of clean, fresh earth.  Otherwise, the whole room was nothing but polished bamboo floors and wide-open space. 

The entire back wall was comprised of one huge window that bulged out like the side of a fishbowl.  Through it, I could see the trees and walkways and misshapen wooden buildings that made up my new home.

I stepped further into the room, my eyes continuing to explore, taking everything in.  A leather suitcase lay open near the sleeping platforms.  The inside was filled with faded black t-shirts and hoodies that overflowed and spilled haphazardly onto the floor.  A few dog-eared dirt bike and BMX magazines were scattered nearby.  There was dirt trailing from the doorway, leading up to a pair of mud-caked running shoes.  A skateboard was propped lazily against the wall.

I frowned.  What the heck was going on here?  Did they have me rooming with a boy?

I heard movement and a face appeared over the edge of the top sleeping platform.  I almost laughed at my own assumptions because the person looking back at me was most definitely not a boy.  She had a tiny, slender frame, although I could clearly see the defined muscles along her arms and shoulders.  She wore a plain, black t-shirt that hugged her small body like a glove.  Her ears were lined with bright, silver hoops.  Her skin was smooth and pale, her face small and pixie-like.  Her hair was cropped short and covered in random splashes of black and brown, with a streak of white just above her left ear.

She gave me a wide, friendly smile, immediately relieving some of my anxiety.  "Yo.  Wazzap?"

 "Umm... hey," I said.

"You the new roommate?"

"Looks that way."

The girl flipped her legs over the edge of the platform and dropped lightly to the floor.  I was startled to find she was even shorter than me.  Not a common occurrence.

"Well good to meet you, roommate.  I'm Jewel."

"Eve."

We shook hands, Jewel examining me closely.  "Yup," she finally said, as if drawing some revolutionary conclusion.  "Definitely."

"Err... what?"

"You're definitely a newbie.  No shifters in your family.  No history of shifters.  No idea shifters even existed until the changes started happening."

Her frank, accurate assessment provoked a grin out of me.  "Is it that obvious?"

"It is painfully obvious," Jewel informed me.  "You have that bewildered, deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression.  Which, frankly, is not terribly becoming of a vicious predator such as yourself.  But don't worry.  We'll get you sorted out." 

She bounded across the room and swept her running shoes up in one hand. "Hmm... a little dirty, aren't they?"

I giggled.  The things were caked with about an inch of mud.  "Just a bit, I guess."

Jewel shrugged and banged the shoes several time against the wall.  Clods of dirt came loose and scattered across the floor.  "There we go."

She stepped into her slightly-less-filthy shoes, tucked her skateboard under one arm and hooked her left arm around my own.  "Come on then, Eve.  I'll show you what's what around here."