CHAPTER EIGHT
As soon as she saw herself and the kids safe in their room, Penelope sat down on the edge of the bed and hid her face into her hands, elbows resting on her shaking knees.
“What the hell? Oh my God, he’s crazy!”
Juniper and Thorn knelt at her side, and the girl touched the long, blonde hair that was covering Penny’s face.
“It’s okay, Penny,” she said. “Nothing bad happened.”
Penelope sniffed loudly, pushed her hair away, and straightened her back.
“Nothing bad? Poor things, you don’t even understand what’s going on.”
“We do,” Thorn said, timidly.
“He asked you to shift! As if you were shapeshifters! Sheep? Sheep-shifters? No, he’s clearly gone insane!”
The twins were silent this time, and Penny glanced at them suspiciously.
She had heard of shifters before. It wasn’t a secret that they existed, but they were rare, and usually didn’t like big cities.
Personally, she had never met one. Or, if she had, then she hadn’t known, because shifters were very good at acting perfectly normal and human as to not bother anyone.
As long as they minded their own business, humans minded their own business too, and everyone was happy.
“Nina, Kosta… you’re not shifters, are you?”
She couldn’t believe she had asked the question. As soon as she said the words, she wanted to take them back because, if they said “yes”, then the implications of the scene she’d just witnessed downstairs could be horrible.
“Please tell me Goldman is just a crazy old man who got it all wrong. You’re not shifters. He… he kidnapped the wrong kids.”
That word… Kidnap. It made Penny sick to her stomach.
“He didn’t kidnap us,” Juniper said carefully.
“I remember he came to the orphanage and asked to see us and only us. He didn’t want to see any other children.
He said he’d done a lot of research and asked around before he found us, and he promised he would take us away from there and we could live with him and his family in a beautiful house in America.
He said his house was like a palace, and we could have our own room, eat whatever we wanted, and play with all the toys we liked. ”
“Oh my God.” Penny covered her mouth with both hands. “He didn’t!”
Thorn nodded slowly. “We believed him. He was nice to us then, but when we got here, he changed.”
“He said we could go with him on one condition,” Juniper continued. “We had to shift so he could see for sure that we were sheep-shifters, and not a scam.”
“We… we thought he was a good man who wanted to protect orphan shifters,” Thorn added.
“You know… it’s hard when you’re an orphan, but it’s even harder when you’re a shifter, too.
All the other kids bullied us, and the ladies who worked at the orphanage treated us badly.
They wouldn’t even feed us sometimes because they said there was not enough food for everyone, and we could go without dinner because we were shifters and were more resistant than the other kids. ”
“Jesus!” Penny stood up and started pacing the floor. She didn’t know what to do. She felt like screaming, like punching a wall, like taking Juniper and Thorn into her arms and promising them she’d never let them go.
“You don’t believe us,” the girl said.
“No, no… I-I believe you!”
“Do you want to see?”
“See what?”
Juniper nodded at her brother, then they both stood up.
The next thing Penny knew, their little bodies started changing right before her eyes.
Bones snapped, muscles rearranged, their faces elongated, and their clothes ripped at the seams when soft wool sprouted out of their pores.
Soon, all that was left of the girl’s dress and the boy’s shirt and jeans were strips of fabric on the floor or hanging off their back and hind legs.
In the blink of an eye, Juniper and Thorn weren’t two children anymore. They were two lambs.
“Holy mother of…!” She bit her tongue to stop herself from cursing.
The white lambs stepped closer to her. Her first instinct was to back away and put distance between herself and the two shifters, but she made an effort to stay put.
The last thing she wanted was to make them feel even more rejected.
The fact that they’d shifted after they had refused Goldman earlier meant they trusted her.
They needed her help, although they hadn’t asked for it yet.
Penny took a deep breath, released it slowly, and centered herself.
She bent down and reached for Thorn. When her hand came in contact with his wooly head, he sighed and leaned into her touch.
She giggled. She hadn’t played with little lambs since she was a kid and she’d visited some distant relatives of her mother who lived at a farm.
She knelt on the floor and reached for Juniper as well.
Soon, she was pulling at their ears playfully, scratching their back, and digging her fingers in their soft, rich wool.
“Now you believe us,” the girl whispered.
Penny blinked in surprise, then shrugged. Okay, so they could talk even when they were in their sheep form. She could get used to that, too.
“I believed you the first time, but thank you. Thank you for trusting me with your secret.”
“It’s not a secret,” Thorn said. “Mr. Goldman and his wife know. And Killian.”
“All the people who were at the party, too,” Juniper added. “Now, Mr. Salvador.”
“Enzo didn’t know before?”
Thorn shook his head. “We don’t think so. Maybe he suspected something, but I think Mr. Goldman has confirmed his suspicions tonight.”
“Wow!”
Her brain was working at full speed. She felt like she was close. She couldn’t see the whole picture yet, but she would soon put two and two together and be able to come up with a plan to help the twins.
Juniper sighed. Her gentle eyes looked sad and lost.
“I thought Mr. Salvador was on our side.”
“Why would you think that? Didn’t you see how he treated you two earlier? Like you were… were… stock?”
“I felt something at the party. Thorn did, too. When he looked at us… I guess we let ourselves misled again.”
“He’s the worst!” Penny was boiling with anger now. “Just the thought of him… Ugh! He played me! He wanted to gain my favor just so he’d get to you. I can’t believe I didn’t see right through him. So many red flags, and I ignored them all…”
“Don’t blame yourself, Penny.” Thorn nudged her with his nose. “There’s nothing any of us can do. They’re stronger than us.”
“The people at the cocktail party,” Penny suddenly realized, “… they have to be part of the club Goldman was talking about. That’s why the event was so intimate, and my parents were not invited! Of course! My parents have no idea what Goldman and those other filthy bastards are doing.”
But… what were they doing? That was still unclear to her.
She looked at the lambs’ innocent faces and decided it was not a good idea to ask them.
They had seen and suffered enough. She had some idea about what Goldman had in plan for Juniper when she grew up, and the thought chilled her to the bone.
And Thorn… a ring fighter. She didn’t even want to think about it.
Not now, at least, when the kids were watching her so intently and she could easily betray herself.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” she said, determination and certainty in her voice.
“I’ll figure out a way.” She cupped their faces and looked them straight in the eyes.
“I promise you neither Goldman, nor any of his friends will ever lay a finger on you. Just hold on tight, okay? I’ll come up with a plan. ”
Juniper’s eyes sparkled with hope, but Thorn shook his head gently.
“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “What if you get hurt?”
She ruffled the wool on his head and smiled reassuringly.
“I won’t. Don’t worry about me.”
There was a knock on the door, and all three jumped in shock, hearts hammering in their chests.
“Who is it?” asked Penny.
“Dinner for the children,” answered the maid.
“Oh… just a second. They’re… they’re changing.”
She picked up the torn clothes off the floor and the strips hanging off their wool, then stuffed them in her bag.
“Quickly, shift back and get dressed. I’ll take these with me and throw them away, so no one will know you showed me when you refused to show Goldman and Enzo.”
The lambs nodded and ran into the bathroom. Just as Penny was getting ready to open the door and let the maid in, Juniper turned to her.
“Will you come again tomorrow?”
“Of course I will! Right after you finish your classes, and we’ll spend the day together.”
It pained her that she had to leave them for the night, but there was no other way. If she didn’t catch her boss on the way out, then she needed to have a talk with him first thing in the morning. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance she could fix this the reasonable, sensible way.