The Baby Shift- Arkansas Read online

  The Baby Shift: Arkansas

  Shifter Babies Of America 49

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  “Your first time in Middleshire?”

  Wesley Radcliffe tore his gaze away from the window to glance at the driver in the front seat of the cab.

  "Yes," he said. "Yes, this is my first time."

  "Oh, you are gonna love Middleshire. I've only been here three months, but I could tell there's no better place to be in all of Arkansas," the driver said.

  “Well, I’m not planning on staying for too long.”

  The man said as he drove the car around a corner, "Oh, businessman. I can tell from your three-piece suit and briefcase. You are one of those Wall Street guys, huh?"

  Wesley glanced at his briefcase. It contained his three favorite guns and some bullets, but of course, the driver did not need to know that. After all, what he traveled to Arkansas to do did involve a wall and a street.

  Wesley smiled. “Yes. Wall Street guy.”

  “If it isn’t the false shifter himself. And just in time too,” Garett Whitman teased when he saw Wesley walk into the hotel room.

  Wesley tightened his fist. He remembered what Kean Grayson, his mentor had told him during his briefing for the mission in Middleshire: "The werebears of Arkansas are bullies; however, they are one of the most useful members of the resistance. I can bet you; they will bring up your inability to shift. Try to stay calm as much as possible. It's only for two hours."

  So, Wesley tried to stay calm. He sucked in a deep breath and replied to Garett, “good to see you again, sir. You should visit Wisconsin again soon.”

  Garett, who had three men standing beside him on the bed on which he sat, shook his head. "If I enjoyed my brief stay in Wisconsin, trust me, I would return. Well now, you're here, allow us to show you how WE handle our missions over here," he said. He was a large man—easily the largest in the room.

  “I look forward to seeing that,” Wesley said, dryly. “Do you have a location?”

  “Yes,” one of the men said. He had blond hair and shoulders that were almost as broad as Garett’s but not quite. “I managed to hack into a security camera on the street. The target hasn’t been taken out of the building yet.”

  “Good,” Wesley said. “Then what are we still waiting for.”

  Garett rose. “We leave to retrieve the target in five minutes. How long do you need to set up your gun when we get to the fence?”

  “A minute,” Wesley replied.

  “Good,” said Garett as he rose from the bed. Then he added, “must be tough, having to rely on weapons because you happen to be a shifter that can’t actually shift.”

  Wesley felt the anger rise from his stomach. He clenched his fists and stared up at the big man. “You seem to forget you’re talking to a pure-born lion,” he said.

  Garett snickered, “well, that makes it all the more pathetic, doesn’t it?” He shook his head. “Such a waste of genes.” Then he turned to his men. “Get your things and be ready to leave.”

  Wesley watched him as he walked away.

  The third ring of the doorbell came when she was just about reaching for the doorknob. "Okay. Okay. I'm opening up already," Kate Henderson said. She turned the lock and swung the door open.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” one of the two men at the door said. She recognized them well enough. Even their casual jeans and T-shirts did not make her forget these men were highly trained bodyguards.

  “You are late,” she said. “Mr. Lawrence should know better than that. If he wants me to go to this hospital every week, the least he could do is be conscious of my time.”

  “We are sorry for the delay, ma’am. We had some issues to attend to. But it may be prudent to remind you that everything Mr. Lawrence does is for your good and the good of his baby,” the man said, pointing at the prominent bulge on her stomach.

  “No, this can’t be for my own good. I go for antenatal sessions, and I visit the doctor as often as is required by any expecting mother. What I don’t understand is why I have to go to this creepy underground clinic of yours to see those creepy doctors who do nothing but probe and test and stare at me all afternoon.”

  "I'm going to have to ask you to calm down, ma'am," the man said. He glanced at his colleague, and the latter reached out a hand to grab Kate by the wrist.

  She tried to wriggle free at first, but at the look in his eyes, she decided it wasn’t worth it. Even if she somehow managed to break free of these men, the entire compound was surrounded by guards like them—men charged with protecting her round the clock and no doubt keeping her indoors. So, she let them lead her to the car. It was a white Range Rover and already had the driver sitting in front.

  The car door was closed behind her, and one of the men came to sit beside her while Kate found herself wondering how she got into this mess in the first place. The offer of being a surrogate mother to the child of a rich business tycoon had been appealing enough. She had never expected Mr. Lawrence to be as overprotective and paranoid as this. Funny enough, despite his overbearing nature, he still had never met with her even once to see how his child was doing. Kate guessed all the medical checkups and testing were to make up for his negligence.

  They drove the car into the early afternoon Middleshire traffic. Fortunately, the streets weren’t too busy, so Kate was grateful she could get to the hospital, have her checks, and return home as soon as possible. The car at the moment was moving at a steady pace deeper into the eastern region of the city. And then there was a sudden hiss coming from the left side of the vehicle. The next thing she knew, she was being thrown against her escort as the vehicle swerved left and right. She gasped and glanced at the front seats. The driver was apparently trying to get the car under control. The swerving reduced as the car slowed down, and seconds later, the driver managed to park the vehicle on the side of the road.

  “What just happened?” Kate said.

  “One of the rear tires must have deflated,” said the man beside her. “Stay here while we...” He could not finish his sentence.

  His head suddenly drooped as he fell back on the seat. When she saw the hole in the car window and the even larger one in the side of his head, she screamed.

  Dark shapes passed by the windows on her right and left. The car doors beside the front seats suddenly detached from the vehicle and were flung away. She saw the terrified looks in the eyes of her escorts as they fumbled for the guns attached to their belts. She watched as large and furry arms reached into the car and dragged the men out of it before they could pull out their guns. Kate’s heart felt like it was going to burst. She was next. These horrific creatures were coming for her. She closed her eyes, and the deathly screams of her last source of protection rang in her ears. So, she waited for the inevitable.

  “Open your eyes,” a harsh voice said.

  Kate could not believe the creatures could talk. Yet, she did as she was told, albeit reluctantly, and opened her eyes. The door closest to her dead bodyguard was open, and a man was standing outside, glaring at her with stern eyes. Kate had never seen any man look so huge. Beside him were two giant bears whose sizes were also incomp
arable to any she had ever set sights on.

  The man grinned. “Now come on out, unless you want me to send them in to get you out themselves.”

  Shooting the rear tire of the Range Rover from a fence at a distance was a piece of cake for Wesley. Killing off the man on the passenger's seat had been even easier. The bullet from the silenced pistol he used did the job perfectly. He had to silently admit that, for him, the hardest part of the entire mission was running to the small car and driving it to meet the others. By the time he reached where the Range Rover had been forced to park, a secluded road with no other vehicle in sight, the werebears appeared not to need his help anymore. All the escorts were dead, and the woman was being dragged into a nearby bush by Garett while two bears followed closely. She was slim, despite the slight bulge in her stomach, and had long flowing dark hair that flailed about in the wind. Wesley got out of the car and jogged forward to meet them.

  “Why are you doing this?” the woman asked, stumbling forward as Garett dragged her by the hand. He finally flung her to the ground in front of him. The bears circled around her, snapping at her heels with their sharp teeth to quell any thoughts of escape she may have. Wesley suddenly realized that all these were not necessary.

  “What are we doing here, Garett? I have the car. Let’s take the woman and leave before someone sees the bodies on the side of the road,” Wesley said.

  Garett did not look at him when he said, “We both know how much havoc an elite shifter can wreck if in the hands of the Boon. Kean must have told you how hard it was for us to get the first one.”

  “Well,” Wesley said, “we have the mother now, so the resistance has all two of the elite shifters.”

  "But for how long?" Garett asked, not taking his eyes off the woman who, in her confusion, was struggling to form her words. He continued, "she still has to carry that child for five months. Why give the Boon that much time for them to try to get her back or for her to escape? We don't know how deeply she has been sucked into this."

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying it is up to us to end everything. And we’ll do just that.” Then he turned to the bears. “Kill her.”

  As the animals closed in on the sobbing woman, Wesley found himself considering the possibility that Garett may have a point. Taking the woman in could prove to be more dangerous than having her on the loose. She was most likely a Boon agent, and the last thing the resistance needed was to compromise their main facility. The bears were almost on top of her now. She took a fearful glance at him, and their eyes met—only for a second, but it was enough for him to realize something. Nobody deserved to die without being heard out, and no baby, no matter how genetically engineered, deserved to be slaughtered like this.

  “Stop!” Wesley yelled as he took out his silenced pistol and placed the muzzle against the back of Garett’s head. “Call them off or I will shoot. What you are about to do is disobey a direct order from Carl himself, and I can’t allow that.”

  Garett raised a hand and the bears paused. “Missions go wrong all the time, Wesley. We could just say she got in the way, attacked one of us, and we had to put her down. No one will care, trust me.”

  “Well, I care. And I can’t let you do this. Tell them to step away from her.” He pressed the gun harder against Garett’s head.

  “Step back, boys,” Garett said.

  Wesley turned to the woman. “Do you know how to drive?”

  “Yes,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Get up and go start the car. Not the Range Rover. The one with all the tires still intact.”

  She rose as hastily as she could and stumbled out of the bushes back into the street. Wesley backed out of there too but kept his gun trained on Garett's skull. "One wrong move, Garett. You know I won't miss, even from here."

  The werebears stood on one spot, watching him with such heated hatred that he wondered if he was truly doing the right thing. The car started behind him. Wesley turned and ran into the passenger seat at the front.

  “Thank you,” the woman said to him with tear-filled eyes, then she stepped on the pedal, and the car shot forward along the deserted pathway.

  Chapter 2

  “What were those creatures? In all my years in Arkansas, I’ve never seen bears grow as big as that,” Kate said as she tried to pay attention to the road when all she wanted to do was jump out of the moving car she was driving.

  He looked at her, and all she could read from his expression was pity... and something else she couldn’t quite place. The man beside her had his thick golden hair tied behind his head in a ponytail. His eyes, too, were the bright color of gold. He said, “those were shifters. Surely you’ve heard of us.”

  “Yes, I know about shifters. I just have never seen one up close and... wait a minute.” The realization hit her like a bullet. “Us? You are one of those...things?”

  “You know that’s a very racist term to use: things,” he said.

  "Well, what else do I call the monsters who tried to tear me and my unborn baby to shreds."

  “I think the proper term is werebears.”

  Kate's mind was still whirling. Not only had she witnessed the gruesome murder of innocent men, but she had also heard some very disturbing and confusing conversations in the last ten minutes. So, she said, "Thank you for sparing my life, but I am not comfortable being in the same car as a werebear."

  “I’m not a werebear, actually. I’m a werelion,” he said.

  Her eyes widened upon hearing this piece of information. “You mean, you are like them, but you turn into a lion instead?”

  “Yes. Only I don’t turn.”

  Kate really came close to jumping out the window; then the entire scenario was driving her crazy with confusion. “What do you mean you don’t turn.”

  “I’m unable to. Something...tragic happened to me when I was younger, and I haven’t been able to shift ever since. Which is why I rely on my guns to get things done, and among shifters, no one has better aim.”

  Another gruesome image registered in her brain. She remembered the man beside her in the car with his head hanging off his shoulders and a bullet in his skull. “That was you, wasn’t it? You shot that man dead. Why the hell should I even trust you?”

  “Those men who were with you were really bad men.”

  "Really?" She said. "Those men have been nothing but nice to me. Your friends tried to kill a pregnant woman in cold blood, and you are currently making me drive to God-knows-where. I don't know about you, but it is clear who the bad guys are here."

  He shook his head. “First of all, just keep driving. I’ll let you know where we are headed. And secondly, those weren’t my friends. We all belong to an organization, and I like to think we are the good guys.”

  "Last I checked, good guys, don't ambush people in the middle of the road just to slaughter them."

  He sighed. “I’m sorry they tried to kill you. They were just confused and afraid.”

  Kate could not believe her ears. “Afraid of me? My child?”

  “Your child. The baby in your womb is no regular baby.”

  She replied. "Look here. Aside from the fact that she was artificially inseminated into me, this baby is as regular as they come. You can ask the father he..."

  “That’s not the father. You’ve been lied to. We’ve been monitoring your social media accounts, and we know you signed a contract to stay off the grid while you carry this baby. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? The baby you are carrying is a genetically engineered shifter created by a blood-thirsty cult called the Boon. The child could grow up to be the most powerful shifter to ever walk the earth. It will have the ability to shift into multiple animals.”

  Kate considered the stranger for a while. He didn’t look crazy, but he may as well have been. There was no way all the rubbish he was spurting could be true. Yet, a part of her remembered all the visits to the strange and secluded hospital in the middle of nowhere. She remembered all the times she had b
een sedated and knocked out just before the weird-looking doctors carried out their “checkups.”

  Before she could say anything, he said, “where is your phone?”

  “In my bag, which I lost in the car after your friends dragged me out for the slaughter.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You are important to the Boon. They would no doubt have your phone tracked and bugged.”

  “Bullshit,” Kate spurted. “Please let me stop the car and leave. I promise I won’t say anything to the police. I’ll tell them I was knocked out and didn’t see a thing after that.”

  He rolled his eyes. “ You don’t get it, do you? I’m your best chance of survival. Those men are some of the best killers you can find. They won’t stop coming after you. Unless I get someone big enough to call them off. Just stay quiet, and keep driving. I need to make a phone call.”

  “Wesley,” Kean’s voice rang out of the phone when he picked the call. “I was just about to give you a call. What the fuck did I just hear?”

  Wesley sighed. News traveled fast within the resistance, he guessed. "I had to do something. I couldn't just let them kill her."

  “What are you talking about, boy?” Kean asked.

  “Garett tried to kill the target, which I believe wasn’t part of the mission.”

  “That’s not the story he and his men narrated to the resistance. According to him, you have been working with the Boon all along and sabotaged the mission by kidnapping the target.”

  Wesley’s jaw dropped. “Surely, you don’t believe that load of crap.”

  “Of course not. I know the boy I raised.”

  There was silence for a while as both of them tried to take in the weight of what was happening. Wesley glanced at the woman behind the wheel of the car. Although she was trying not to make it so obvious, he could tell she was straining her ears in a bid to eavesdrop.