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  Whatever dark magic Alistair had used, his ill-fated spell hadn’t exactly worked as he’d intended. Thousands of people had fallen victim to his mind-control, but when they’d shown signs of mentally breaking free from his hold after a few days of being controlled to commit horrible acts, including murder, Alistair had killed them with yet another spell, casting it on live television after taking over a station. But then, Alistair himself had suddenly died, people could only assume from overtaxing himself by casting spells.

  The world was by no means safe after Alistair’s death, though. He’d instructed his followers, all sorcerers themselves, to see to it that the world be conquered by the Angel Coven, which is what Alistair had called his group, thinking of them all as dark angels and not the evil murderers that they were.

  Right away, Alistair’s successor emerged, a sorcerer named Maxwell Bliss. Using dark magic, he and several hundred members of the Angel Coven took over various global territories for their own. Their end goal was to conquer the entire world, killing or enslaving all humans, and panic spread far and wide, because it looked like they might ultimately be able to accomplish their goal. Bullets were useless against members of the Angel Coven, as they seemed able to deflect them with magical shields. Various other weaponry used by different nations had no effect, either. When the Canadians tried to destroy one of the dozens of Angel Coven factions around the globe by using tanks, the Angel Coven sent the tanks flying miles through the air. Not even bombs worked. The Angel Coven quickly claimed territory in every nation on earth.

  However, within just weeks of Alistair’s death and Maxwell’s rise to power, it became clear that one group could stop them. As some completely bizarre “side effect” of Alistair’s initial failed spell, thousands of regular human men had been turned into creatures everyone began calling shifters, men able to morph into animals at will. Their first morphing had occurred the day of Alistair’s first spell, and had simply happened, stunning all these poor men nearly to death.

  There were bear shifters, lions, and wolves, all over the world, and they all quickly divided into groups, determined to try to stop the Angel Coven if they could. And, to the world’s relief and elation, it soon became clear that these shifters had power far beyond any man-made weaponry. They were able to kill some of the Angel Coven members in a fairly gruesome way, by decapitating them with bites to the throat. And the kills weren’t easy, and many shifters were killed and hurt by Angel Coven members, but at last, there was a way to fight the Angel Coven and stop them from taking more territory.

  At about the same time that the shifters began assembling into an army of sorts, with different bases all over the world, another group of heroes emerged, making it clear that Alistair’s bungled spell hadn’t only affected human men. Hundreds of human women, most of them young, had developed supernatural powers, seemingly overnight, and these powers first manifested even without the young women doing anything. Some young women just suddenly began shooting beams of light from their hands, beams they quickly discovered were lethal. Others discovered they could levitate people and objects, and still others could levitate and shoot beams of light. These women quickly came to be known as Gifteds.

  I’d discovered that I was a Gifted who could levitate when a pencil I’d been reaching for had suddenly flown into my hand. Then, shocked, I’d found that I could lift other objects just by thinking about it. Unlike most other Gifted women, though, who’d happily volunteered to join the shifter encampments to help defend their various nations against the Angel Coven, I’d kept my power a secret. I knew I was no hero. I was just an average woman who never wanted the world to find out what a coward she was. Just an average woman who wanted to live the life she’d been planning on before The Takeover had happened. However, that wasn’t to be.

  After The Takeover, a lot of state and federal money reserved for public education was immediately diverted for national defense, and my position at the school had been cut. I’d worked exactly twelve days. Since the entire city of Chicago had been taken over by the Angel Coven, I couldn’t exactly go back home. Not that I had anyone to go home to, anyway. I’d never known my father, my mom had died when I was eight, and the grandparents who’d raised me after that had both passed away while I was in college. And all my close friends in Chicago had thankfully managed to flee the city before the Angel Coven had moved in.

  So, I’d remained in Ridgewood, not knowing what else to do. Now unemployed and without friends in town, I’d fallen into a deep depression, which was made worse by conflicting feelings about my determination to keep the fact that I was a Gifted well-hidden. On one hand, I felt like it was the most cowardly, selfish thing imaginable to continue to keep my power a secret. But on the other hand, certain that I could never be heroic and actually help by using my power, I felt that I was doing the right thing.

  Although most Gifteds discovered their gifts shortly after Alistair’s initial spell, some didn’t, and over the next year, the government remained on the lookout for these “late bloomers,” sending agents to interview them and bring them to the various defense posts around the nation. Not all Gifteds had to go, though, and same with the shifters. Gifteds and shifters who were married or had children didn’t have to do a thing. They had the option of declining to serve, or they could serve with frequent family leave, or they could even bring their families to live at the various defense posts along with them. From what I’d heard, though, hardly anyone did this, because it was just too dangerous. Most defense posts were right on the line of Angel-controlled territories.

  A lot of Gifteds and shifters were obligated to go to the defense posts to defend the nation, though, because since it had happened that since most shifters were fairly young men, and since most Gifteds were fairly young women, many were single and many were not yet parents. Like me.

  In response to what Platinum Blonde Lady had said about my life in Ridgewood basically being in the toilet, and how moving to my assigned post would be a “complete fresh start,” I lifted my shoulders in a slight shrug. “My life here in Ridgewood is actually looking up. Over the past nine months, I’ve attended the local college by taking online classes, carrying a course load of the maximum allowed eighteen credits a semester, and just this past week, I earned a degree in business administration. I’m actually set to start a new job as an office manager this Monday.”

  It was all true, though I wasn’t exactly excited about my new career path. But it wasn’t like I’d really had much of a choice to take it. With the education cuts, no new teachers for any subjects were being hired, and as far as art-related jobs went, they were nonexistent in Ridgewood. It had been a radical career change or eventual eviction and starvation, I’d figured.

  “So, my life in general is on the upswing. Once I start my new job, my finances will get straightened out, and everything here in Ridgewood will continue to be just great for me.”

  Platinum Blonde Lady took a sip of her coffee, then asked her next questions just as casual as you please. “And how about your dating life here in Ridgewood, Miss Clark? Has that been going ‘just great’ for you? The demographics of this town reflect that most men are older, and married, so I can’t imagine—”

  “My dating life is none of your business. And I refuse to talk about it.”

  Primarily because in talking about it further, I’d have to admit that my dating life in Ridgewood had not been going “just great.” In fact, it hadn’t been going any way at all, because it had been virtually nonexistent. After a single date with a long-haul truck driver shortly after arriving in town, I’d kind of given up on dating indefinitely. He’d spit tobacco juice on the floor of the run-down bar he’d taken me to, and his friends had all done the same. To make matters worse, I later discovered that he was engaged to be married.

  In response to what I’d said, Platinum Blonde Lady shrugged and opened her mouth to say something, but Deep Male Voice/Snorty beat her to it, setting his mug on the table with a near-bang.


  “We’re wasting time, here. Miss Clark, it doesn’t matter if your life here in Ridgewood is great, not great, or what. Doesn’t matter what degrees you’ve earned, or what jobs you’re set to start. We’ve come here to take you to your assigned post, and that’s what’s going to happen.”

  The agent sitting next to him, who I’d come to think of as Silent Guy, because other than mumbling thanks on his way in, he hadn’t said a single word, finally did. “It’s really best if you just accept things.”

  I wasn’t even close to doing that yet, and I suddenly had an idea. I wasn’t even sure where it had come from, but now that I had it, I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t occurred to me before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  While Deep Male Voice/Snorty helped himself to another cookie, his third already I was pretty sure, I took a long drink of my coffee, planning what I was going to say.

  Then, I set my mug down and scanned the faces of the four agents with what I hoped was a look of complete sincerity on my own. “Look. I’m just going to come clean. The reason I didn’t want to answer the door tonight, and the reason I don’t want to go to my ‘assigned post’ is because I’m embarrassed. You see, I’m not really a Gifted. I just happened to be nearby yesterday when that little boy leaped out of the way of the car, and for some reason, the people who witnessed him leap just interpreted what they saw completely incorrectly... probably because the sun was so bright, I think. It probably was half-blinding people, not to mention that it was making blinding glare on the cars. I certainly didn’t levitate the little boy out of the way of the car that almost hit him. That’s crazy. I don’t have a gifted bone in my body.”

  Deep Male Voice/Snorty snorted. “What a crock.”

  I shrugged. “Believe what you want, but I’m not a Gifted.”

  Living up to his new additional mental nickname, he snorted yet again, then pulled his phone out, pulled something up on the screen, then turned the screen toward me. “So... the young woman in this video. The one who gasps and whips a palm up toward the little boy walking across the street just a split-second before he goes rocketing into the air, out of the way of the speeding car... that wasn’t you yesterday? That wasn’t you seen slowly lowering your palm at the exact same time as the little boy was slowly floating back down to the street? Because to my eyes, the young woman in this video looks an awfully lot like you. And to my eyes, it looks like this young woman has the gift of levitation.”

  Cringing inwardly, I didn’t say anything.

  Seemingly satisfied, Deep Male Voice/Snorty put his phone back in his jacket pocket. “Bet you didn’t know that one of the onlookers who witnessed the whole thing just happened to be randomly recording a video of the street, just trying to figure out how to shoot video with his phone. And bet you didn’t know that he sent his video to us in DC right away, with a message that he was pretty sure he’d captured a clip of one of you rare ‘secret Gifteds’ in action... one of you rare women determined to remain hidden and shirk your national duty, for whatever reason. But you know all this now, don’t you, Miss Clark? Now you know that we know with certainty that you’re a Gifted. So, no more wasting our time with crock-of-baloney denials, if you don’t mind.”

  I was really, really starting to dislike Deep Male Voice/Snorty.

  But, not knowing how to respond to what he’d just said, I just took another long drink of my coffee, and he continued.

  “Look. You seem to like keeping secrets, so if you have a special secret sweetheart in town that you don’t want to leave, married man or whatever, know that you’ll be able to come back to visit him whenever you please. Your post isn’t that far away. You’ve been assigned to work with the Timberline Clan, the group of bear shifters up in that little camp, or town, or whatever it is, that they call Timberline, which is what? Three miles north of here?”

  I shrugged, hugging my arms to my chest. “Closer to five.”

  “Well, then, see? Plenty close enough. You’ll be able to visit your secret boyfriend any time you want. Who knows? The leader of the Timberline Clan might even let your boyfriend move on up there with you.”

  “I don’t even have a boyfriend, secret or otherwise.”

  Deep Male Voice/Snorty did a snort for the ages, the force of air through his nostrils actually moving his white paper napkin a few inches across the table. “Well, then, what’s the damn issue here? You think you’re too pretty to help defend the nation or something? You think your looks should make you exempt? I agree you’re a looker, and you’ve got a nice little body and a nice set of—”

  “Let’s all keep our focus, here.”

  Peacemaker had spoken, giving Deep Male Voice/Snorty a brief but clear dirty look while he did so. This made me feel somehow grateful, just to know that Deep Male Voice/Snorty was irritating someone else, which made my eyes suddenly misty for some strange reason.

  Absolutely refusing to allow myself to cry, I quickly blinked the moisture back before speaking.

  “Look. You all want to know the truth? Well, here it is. I’m too cowardly to help defend the nation. I’m the most cowardly person you’ll ever meet. I’ve heard stories about how brave all the animal shifters are, and how brave all the Gifteds are, and that’s just not me. I’m not brave. I can’t save anyone. I’m a chicken. More than likely, I’d just be a hindrance to everyone if I tried to help. I’d probably get in the way and let everyone down. People would probably even get hurt because of me, maybe even lose their lives.”

  On my right, Peacemaker spoke in a quiet voice that didn’t reflect any surprise at what I’d said, as if he’d almost been expecting it. “You say you can’t save anyone, but you saved that little boy yesterday.”

  “Well, that was a fluke. Normally, under pressure, I completely choke. I think I was only able to save that little boy yesterday because it was just a split-second reaction kind of thing. I don’t do well when I have a little longer to make a decision about what to do. I tend to freeze and then run, which makes me not a Gifted, but a complete coward. Not someone they’d probably want in Timberline.”

  Platinum Blonde Lady set her mug down with a sigh. “Miss Clark, we know a lot about you. We know that you lost your mother in a car accident when you were only eight. We know you were present when the accident occurred. If that has something to do with—”

  “It doesn’t. And I don’t want to talk about that subject. At all.”

  With her tight, platinum blonde French twist throwing pale golden sparks in the overhead kitchen light, she shrugged. “Fair enough. But understand that you do have to come with us. With the nation in such peril, we don’t have the luxury of allowing one of you Gifteds to just simply refuse to—”

  “Well, what are you going to do if I do refuse? Lock me up in jail until I agree to go to my ‘post'?”

  Stunning me, she immediately nodded. “Yes. Because of a special law recently enacted, a Gifted refusing to be escorted to their post is now charged with a federal crime.”

  Digesting this bit of news, I didn’t respond, and she continued.

  “Please let me explain something to you. All the little posts and towns around the country where shifters and Gifteds work together to defend our nation... all these communities have shifter leaders who were carefully selected by their people because they’ve proven themselves to be good, fair men with the highest level of integrity. I’m sure that James Duncan, the leader of the Timberline Clan, is no exception. I don’t think he’s just going to push you out on the front line to fight the Angels before you’re ready. And if you’re never ready, I really don’t think he’s going to use torture to force you to participate in national defense. He may try to appeal to your sense of morality and duty, for certain, but... no one is going to force you out onto the battlefield, Miss Clark. However, you do have to go to your post. It’s now law that all Gifteds do at least that much. It’s either that or prison, and trust me on this... I think you’d much rather go to Timberline.

  “From what I’ve personal
ly seen on a few other Gifted escorting trips I’ve been a part of, and from what I know from our government file on Timberline, it’s a nice little community of about a hundred people. They live in lovely little cabins that they’ve built, and everyone who wants their own, gets their own, though I know that many of these folks now live two to a cabin. With nearly all of the Gifteds and shifters in this community having arrived single, you might be interested to know that some of them have quite happily found partners. Some have even gotten married and are looking forward to having children, children who might become shifters and Gifteds themselves. We might have to wait to find out about the Gifteds, but once the first babies are born, genetic testing will tell us if the male offspring will become shifters, anyway. Personally, I think this is all very exciting.”

  Platinum Blonde Lady paused, seeming to be waiting for some kind of a response from me. I gave none, just kept staring at my coffee mug on the table, and after just a moment or two, she continued.

  “Anyway, despite all the couples, there are still many single people at Timberline, and if I were a single young woman, I’d be thrilled to go to live there, among all the attractive single shifters. You do know that most shifters tend to be attractive, right?”

  I had heard that, but again, I didn’t respond, and again, Platinum Blonde Lady continued.

  “We’re not sure exactly why most shifters tend to be attractive... the spell, or the residual magic, or whatever it was that created them primarily affected very physically fit men between the ages of twenty and forty, a demographic that tends to be attractive anyway, so maybe it was just chance. But at any rate, it’s true that in general, shifters tend to be very attractive men. In fact, James Duncan is himself a remarkably attractive man, and last I knew, still single.”

  “I’m afraid I just don’t care about any of this.”

  Or so I was working fairly hard to convince myself, although I knew I definitely cared about not going to prison.