Everwild

"So what's tomorrow's lesson?" she asked.

"Ah," said Milos. "Tomorrow's is the best lesson of all!"

As they left to rejoin the others, Milos held his hand out to her as always, and as always Allie didn't take it, but she couldn't deny that she felt more and more tempted.

While Allie spent her days being tutored by Milos, Mikey spent his time practicing his own skills as well, although he practiced alone. Each day he went off to some secret and solitary deadspot, and there he would spend the day focusing on the one thing he could do better than anyone else. Change. It was the one aspect of his existence that he still had control over--or at least he could have control if he practiced enough.

Allie was off with Milos. Fine. He couldn't change that. He couldn't control what they did or said to each other. But he could grow feathers and scales. He could sprout extra arms and legs. He could even grow a rhino horn and moose antlers. And just like skinjacking, changing himself was irresistible--for who can resist their nature?

The transformations were becoming easier and easier to achieve. The hard part was changing back ... but just as Allie was begi

On the night that Allie and Milos played games at the Grand Ole Opry, Mikey was caught in the act.

He had found a nice sized deadspot--a street that had been torn down to build a freeway overpass. None of the buildings had crossed into Everlost, but someone must have had fond feelings for the street itself, because it had crossed over, along with all the streetlights, which still cast a pale glow all around him. It was careless of him to be practicing his transformations in such a wide-open, brightly lit space. Considering the transformation he was working, he shouldn't have been caught at all, because he quite literally had eyes in the back of his head, among other places. He had been trying to see how many eyeballs he could sprout. He had gotten up to fifty-three--they were popping up all over his body like large blue-eyed chicken pox, and each of them had a unique perspective on the world around him.

When he heard a gasp behind him, every available eye turned toward it, and he saw Squirrel trying to run away.

Wasting no time, Mikey took off after him, turning his arms and legs into tentacles that he used to fling himself from one lamppost to another, flying right over Squirrel's head, and landing directly in front of him. Mikey gave himself a set of fangs as he snarled, just to addle Squirrel's acorn-size brain even more.

"Please, please don't hurt me," Squirrel whined, which was stupid, because Mikey couldn't hurt him. That was the blasted problem with being an Afterlight. He turned one of his tentacles into a jagged green insect claw, and thrust it forward, wedging Squirrel's neck against a lamppost with a clang.

"You didn't see this," Mikey said, pleased at the slithery, inhuman sound of his own voice. "And if you tell anyone you did, I'll use this claw to snap off your useless little head."

Whether or not he could follow through on the threat didn't matter; it was enough to scare Squirrel into absolute obedience.

"Yes, sir," squeaked Squirrel. "I didn't see nothing! I didn't see nothing!"

Mikey forced his claw and tentacles back into arms and legs, then sucked all his eyeballs back into his body, leaving only the standard two to glare at Squirrel. His voice returned to normal. "Now, we'll go back to the others, pretend this never happened, and everyone will be happy."

Squirrel gave a few fast, brain-rattling nods. "Sure, sure, everyone will be happy," and Squirrel ran off, stumbling over his own feet.

Mikey laughed and laughed. The choice to become terrifying--if only for a moment--ensured Squirrel's silence, so it served its purpose. But Mikey could not deny how good it had felt to be a monster once more.

CHAPTER 13 Bye-bye, Miss American Pie

Allie couldn't say she particularly enjoyed the company of the Nashville Afterlights. Every vapor of Afterlights was different, and this group was so standoffish--even while attempting to be hospitable--that the time spent with them was awkward at best. It was a relief to leave them behind.

"Nobody trusts skinjackers," Milos commented as they hit the road once more. "Mary Hightower's books make it difficult for us."

"Someday," said Allie, "I'll set everyone straight."

"Someday," said Milos, "I would like to set Mary Hightower straight, personally."

Mikey was silent on the matter. Allie found Mikey to be silent about everything. He had always been somewhat inscrutable, but now he seemed so distant that Allie found walking beside him had become almost painful.

"Talk to me, Mikey," she begged him.

"Why?" he asked. "I've got nothing to say."

"Say anything! It'll make the day go faster."

"No, it won't," he said, glancing ahead of them at Milos, Moose, and Squirrel. And that was that. Silence returned--and although Allie was tempted to catch up with the others, where at least there was laughter and conversation, she resisted, and hung back with Mikey, but resented it.

At dusk they rested, and both Mikey and Milos disappeared. Allie asked Moose and Squirrel about it. Moose, who had limited peripheral vision out of his helmet, hadn't seen much of anything, but Squirrel had.

"Milos went off that way," he told her, pointing to a neighborhood off the side of the road. "He said he was looking for something."

"What?"

"Didn't say, didn't say--but whatever it was, he said he'd be back soon."

"Did Mikey go with him?"

At the mention of Mikey, Squirrel got even more squirrelly. "Nope, nope--Mikey don't go places with Milos," Squirrel said. "I saw him go off the other way. Don't know what he's doing either--and I don't want to know."

Squirrel looked to Moose with a gaze of dread that even Moose didn't understand.

"Whatsh up with you?" Moose asked.

"Nuthin'," said Squirrel. "Why should anything be up with me? Huh, huh?"

This should have been a further indication to Allie that something was wrong, but her thinking had been confused by so many things lately, denial was the easier path to take.

When Milos returned later that evening, he was all smiles. "I promised you the best lesson of all tonight," he told Allie. "Are you ready to begin?"

Allie couldn't imagine an evening of skinjacking better than what they had done at the Grand Ole Opry, but she was willing to take a leap of faith. Milos had taught her so much already-- not just technique, but acceptance of herself, and what she could do. She was truly learning how to enjoy skinjacking. For better or for worse, it was something she needed to learn.

"Lead the way," she said, and realized she had put out her hand for Milos to take. Milos gave her the biggest smirk she had ever seen him give--and he refused to take her hand. She laughed to mask her own embarrassment that even that little gesture had, for the two of them, become a game--and Milos now had, so to speak, the upper hand.

He took her to a nearby neighborhood--a wealthy western suburb of Nashville, where tract mansions rose from what was once farmland. Everything was winding streets and culde-sacs. Allie lost all sense of direction in the moonlight but Milos seemed to know exactly where he was going.