Shifted

10.

​She should have kept me in my cage where I belonged. The humans were right, shifted were animals. That much was obvious. We acted and behaved like animals.

​"Will you go on a date with me?" She blurted out, interrupting my thoughts.

​"Date?" I smirked. I knew what it was, but I've never been on one. Date to us shifted was when a couple would go to the only bar we had and get drunk together, going back to one or the other's house and fooling around. Or even, for the more romantic type, walking around the edge of the fence, laying in a small field, and staring up at the stars.

​"Yes, right here in my room, right now," she insisted, her wide eyes looking into mine as she came closer to me, as if she could feel the pull between us, like I did.

​I should say no. She was probably just looking for a thrill and once she realized it wasn't so thrilling, messing around with a shifted like me, she'd walk away. Maybe I was just a fetish for her.

​And then I'd be the one who got hurt in the end. Because even as my brain was coming up with escape plans and how to use her to free my people, my heart was twisting and fluttering when she was around.

​Did I really want that?

​Did I really want to have a weakness? When my mother died it had nearly broken me. Should I really let someone else in only to be crushed later? The real question was, would I survive another heart break?

​"Ok," my mouth formed the word before I could fully make a decision as her face started to fall, despite my mind screaming no! I couldn't bring myself to be the reason she stopped smiling. "What do you have in mind?" I asked as she beamed at me like a child told there would be a full dinner to have tonight.

"While I set up, you can use my bathroom to bathe and change into these," she placed folded up clothes into arms. "I already filled the tub, and you can use anything you see. Father sleeps like the dead, and our maid, Lilac will warn me if he gets up," she reassured me. Sleeps like the dead Huh? I wonder if she did too. It would be easier for me if she did. I didn't want to have to hurt her if she interrupted my plans tonight.

​As she moved back to set up a quilt on the floor, opening the bag of goodies she had, setting it all out, I walked away, Feeling guilty at my thoughts.

Not much later, I felt cleaner than I've ever been. Unplugging the tub that once had clear water, that now drained black, the guilt still eating away at me at what I would have to do.

Walking back into the room, with a fresh white blouse and black softer feeling pants, my stomach growled as I looked at the wide variety of fruit, cheese and bread laid out next to two glasses of wine. Josalena picked up the glasses and walked over, a look of total glee on her face.

"This is my first date," she said honestly and I feel myself soften towards her.
A smile tugged at my lips as I took the glass from her with one hand and grabbed her now free hand with my other one and gave it a light squeeze. "Mine too," I spoke as I pulled her down on the blanket she made.

I watched as Josalena gulped her whole glass and fidget with her skirt hem. "Do you like girls?" She blurted as I started to raise my own glass to my lips.

Taking a sip of my drink before answering her, at first confused by her question. Did I like girls? Do I even like anybody? Was there anyone in this messed up village that I could even trust? There was that betrayal that landed me here. By a girl. "I like you Josalena," I stated as I placed the glass down next to her empty one and started stroking her leg, pulling it so it was laying over my lap. With my other hand, I picked up fruit and popped it in my mouth, figuring if I was going to be escaping I would need a full stomach. And to be honest, I was starved. It took everything in me to now wolf down the whole selection she laid out. My hands shook slightly as I popped another piece of fruit into my mouth, painfully aware that she herself hadn't even reached for one while I've eaten a few pieces. Eat something so I can i scarf down more! My mind screamed

"You don't know me to make that assumption yet," she picked at her thumb nail, I could still hear her heart pumping away. Was she scared? Excited?

"Here try this," I told her, as I held a piece of what had to be mango to her lips, instead of answering, because it was true, I didn't know her enough yet. But I liked her too much. So much already from what I've already witnessed of her. How she treated shifted for one spoke volumes. Her whole life she was taught that we were abominations, nothing more than beasts who could speak her language. It was hard to blame kids who grew up to hate us when it was drilled into them. But she had her own mind, her own thoughts and opinions and she didn't let herself be brainwashed. She was kind and gentle. And that's what I knew about her so far.

I wanted to know everything about her and instead of knocking her out like I should, and getting a head start on killing a sleeping General and saving everyone downstairs, I was playing this part. And it was a part that I was playing. Because never with anyone else would I agree to sit around and talk about ourselves to each other. I didn't have luxuries like that. Couldn't even afford to bond with anyone. As too many of us died or were taken away to another village . Too many of us desperate to turn on the other for survival.

As she took the mango from my hand with her mouth, her tongue darted out slightly and licked the corner of my thumb. A shiver ran down my body as my mind took a dirty turn. I wanted to squirm as she licked her lips in the most seductive way. I blinked not knowing if she was a master at seduction or if she were just naturally that alluring.

"Let's play a game to get to know each other," I felt lost as she pulled away from me as she spoke, sitting up straighter and crossing her legs as she took my hands into hers.

"A game?" I asked slowly, trying to recall any games other than racing and fighting.

"Yes," she squeezed my hand as she said, "yes, a game."
I clenched my hands, nervous as she was when we first walked into her room together. "Get to know each other?" Great, should I start with how I cried when I snatched a rat up and snapped it's neck for the first time after mother had died. She did it for me. And out of sight. So it was new to me, the killing. And when I saw a shifted with a naked tail like the rats, I vomited, overthinking it.
Should I tell her how my life is a constant state of fear and hunger and by being in her room alone I felt as if I were in another world. One beyond my reach even as I sat so close to it? Would she ask if I ever been with anyone else and I'd have to break it to her that I've been with a lot of someone else's, and not too long ago either. Would she ask if I could be trusted? If I was loyal? Would she ask if I've ever killed someone?

And would I be truthful? Or better yet, would I be able to lie and she not know? She was human after all, she wouldn't be able to hear my heart rhythm to know if I was lying. Her eyes wouldn't zero in on the tiny sweat that would break out on my skin as I spun a tale. I was shifted, of course I could lie my ass off.

So why did the thought of her catching me in a lie, the look on her face as she realized I was no good, pain me?

"Ok," she began, not noticing my inner struggle. "We each get a turn asking a question, but we both have to answer it and the person who asked goes first, to ensure a truthful answer from the other, a gesture of good will for not asking a question that one wouldn't answer herself," Josalena declared as I stared at her in wonder, my mind clearing as I hung onto her every word.

"Ok then, go ahead, ask me a question," and with my words I ensured she went first.