Page 9 of Shifter's Homecoming

He sat up. A precipice was a few feet to his left, land that sunk so swiftly into nothing, Trent almost wanted to call it an abyss. Far below him, clouds floated. Trent scooched away from the precipice like a crab until he felt safe, then jumped to his feet, whirling to look the other way.

There, stretching to either side, as far as he could see, was a forest of towering White Oak trees, planted impossibly close together. Somehow, they actually weaved together into what seemed an impenetrable wall of trunks. Above them towered a canopy of leaves and branches that also seemed woven so close that not even light could get through. Directly in the middle of the forest, directly in front of where Trent had hit the dirt, blocking what must be an entrance to someplace important, were two massive, polished-wood doors, big enough to hold back a T-Rex. They were built to impress and Trent was impressed.

He realized he was back in the meadow, or at the outside entrance to it.

He stared, noting how the doors were intricately socked into the trunks of massive trees on either side. He took a few steps forward, waiting for something to happen, admiring the doors, taking in the forest, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

Just how much… confusion and death did Smokey plan to put him through? Or was Smokey just a soldier like Trent? Was Smokey someone who was just doing his job, like Trent? If so, who gave him that job, Trent wanted to know. And more importantly,why?Trent knew he was having an extraordinary experience, a … a divine experience, but he still could not get a handle on what the experiencewas,and why it was happening.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he was bleeding out in some ditch, in some world, imagining that he was on some mission for some goddess who wasn’t very goddess-like…

Trent frowned, about to get pissed off, a state he seemed to know well lately… ever since thedragenhad shown up and told him a few things…

Trent remembered his injury. He looked down at his leg. His uniform pant-leg was whole but spattered with dried blood. Trent poked the spot where he’d been shot, knowing what he would find. Solid, unbroken skin under the cloth. He growled lightly, the lack of the wound making him more irritated. Either somebody was fucking with him, or the meadow healed wounds… or maybe he was dead again and this time for real. Who the fuck knew?

Trent looked around again but saw nothing other than trees and sky and those big-ass doors.

He wanted answers.

“Smokey,” he barked at the forest. “Are you here?”

Nothing responded. Trent could hear nothing but the beat of his own heart.

Trent stared at the doors for a long time waiting for something to happen, anything to happen.

Nothing did.

A sudden pain in his leg made him cry out. He doubled over and ….

***

… Trent opened his eyes to night-time and sound and pain and confusion. He opened his mouth and took a great gasping breath that sounded like it had blood in it.Not dead, not yet, and not in the meadow anymore, either. Just what in the hell was going on?!

If Trent wasn’t working so hard not to die, he would have been livid. As it was…

The pain came again, hard and sharp and Trent groaned with it, realizing he was no longer in a truck. He was in the open air, moving, but sitting up … he was in a wheelchair and Troy was behind him, pushing him along a one lane road— the pain came again— some guy was running with them, bent over Trent’s leg, poking at the hole there!

Trent bellowed and swung weakly. The guy backed away.

Troy shouted at him. “Trent no! That’s a huma-, ah … he’s a doctor.” He spoke inruhi.Just shift, Trent, and I’ll turn you the fuck around and we are out of here.

Trent tried. He couldn’t. “My wolf…” he tried to say. They went over a bump and he was jostled. Trent held on, trying to keep himself in the chair. Troy weaved through a crowd. People were everywhere, humans… everywhere, watching them in the light of the moon and dim streetlights.

The doctor stopped moving. Troy stopped, too. The doctor’s eyes were wide. He shook his head and spoke quietly, nodding his head at Trent. “He’s not human, is he?”

The people around them, the humans closest to them murmured densely, definitely sounding, “hostile,” to Trent, making him wonder what kind of a world Smokey had dumped him in.

“Look, Doc,” Troy growled at the guy. “You got me, ok, he’s not a human, he’s a fucking shifter, a wolf to be exact. But he can’t shift, and if you don’t help him, he’s going to die.”

The doctor backed up a few paces in silence.

Rocko ran up on their left and took over pushing the wheelchair so Troy could come around to the side and help hold Trent up. They were moving again, the doctor in front, the crowd parting for them. He pointed out a building, his eyes wide, the expression on his face saying he couldn’t believe he was doing this.

“This is the hospital?” Rocko said. “It’s a garage.”

The doctor snapped at him. “Come on, you know howyour kindforces us to live. In shacks. In shanties. In tents. In holes in the ground. Since you don’t need doctors, and you don’t need hospitals, then we aren’t allowed to have them either. So tell me,shifter, what exactly were you expecting?”

Rocko growled deep in his throat. The crowd murmured again, more viciously.

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