Prickly as a Porcupine (FUC Academy #49)

Chapter 1

Joline Kaminski rushed to class. She was on track to be late to her Introduction to Interrogations class—again.

But it wasn’t her fault. A recurring nightmare had her throwing quills in her sleep, leading to a mess of epic proportions that took forever to clean up, lest she discover what her roommate would think of quills spattering the wall like a game of cricket gone rogue.

Trina hated messes, and Joline did her best to keep their dorm tidy for the cheetah shifter.

Something as simple as not tucking the trash can liner in the right way could put the wildcat on edge.

Joline didn’t want to find out what the reaction would be to her post-nightmare results, so she hurriedly pulled her quills out of the walls and filled the holes with toothpaste.

It was all she could do on short notice.

Now she dashed through the halls, praying for a miracle to help her not be late to class.

After rounding a corner in the hallways of WANC—the Working and Administrative Networking Core, where most of their classes were held—Joline had to swerve to avoid crashing into a redhead who seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“Sorry!” Joline apologized, slowing as she noticed the way the woman’s shoulder-length auburn hair swayed as she stopped abruptly and narrowed her green eyes to slits.

“Be more careful next time,” the woman called out. “Why is everyone in a rush around here?”

That stopped Joline in her tracks, as the way the woman’s gravelly whiskey voice sent a little flutter through her chest. She pushed her black-framed glasses back up the bridge of her nose before replying, “Because this is FUCN’A.

” When the woman looked at her blankly, Joline explained, “The Furry United Coalition Newby Academy. It’s where FUC trains cadets to become agents.

The best of the best.” She puffed up her chest with pride.

Out of thousands of candidates, Joline was one of a few hundred to be selected as a new recruit. It was an honor.

“And they say I have a cult mindset,” the woman said dryly as she glanced down the corridor as if deciding which way to go.

Joline cocked her head sideways at the strange remark.

“Are you lost?” Joline asked. Perhaps her instructor would forgive her lateness if she could explain that she’d been helping a visitor.

Plus, she actually was concerned about the strange—and beautiful— woman.

What kind of future FUC agent would she be if she ignored a person in distress?

“No.” The woman shook her head, her hair dusting the tops of her shoulders. “You can’t be lost if you’re not going anywhere.” She sounded almost sad as she said it, as if she’d lost her purpose in life.

“Oh… oh.” It clicked. This wasn’t one of the many FUC agents who drop by to do a stint as an instructor or to use the Academy as a base of operations for an important mission.

Housed inside WANC, in addition to the administration offices and many cadet classrooms, was the hospital floor, where shifters were treated and rehabilitated.

Many of those living there were rescued experiments, being nursed back to physical and mental health.

This woman was probably one of them, wandering around and looking for something to do.

“I’m Joline.” She held out her hand to shake, but the woman looked at it as if it were a viper, ready to strike.

“Like the Dolly Parton song?” the woman asked, leaving Joline’s hand hanging.

Joline pulled her hand back to her side and smiled, doing her best not to cringe.

Almost everyone said that to her, and it could get a little annoying, though usually no one was trying to be rude when they said it.

She nodded with the grin plastered to her face, trying to stay polite. “Yes, just like the song.”

The woman nodded slightly, though her face remained passive, as if decidedly uninterested.

Joline wondered if, like her, the woman was lonely.

Did she need a friend? Joline had moved into the dorms a year ago and still hadn’t connected with anyone, not even Trina, considering they didn’t have much in common.

While she’d never thought she could feel lonely, she was beginning to realize she was wrong.

As the days ticked by, loneliness competed with boredom for the most common feeling.

Classwork only took up so much of her time.

Joline decided the woman in front of her deserved a friend, even if she seemed more prickly than a porcupine.

Joline would know. She was a porcupine shifter, after all.

Not that porcupine shifters were unfriendly, they just usually kept to themselves.

Joline, luckily or unluckily, didn’t share that trait.

She clapped her hands together with a sigh. “Well, if you’re not lost and I can’t do anything for you, then I guess I need to get to class. But if you’re bored later, you can find me in the cafeteria. I eat dinner around five.”

The woman blinked as if unsure what to do with the invitation. “Thanks,” she said slowly, as if the word was afraid to leave her mouth. Before Joline could think about what to say next, the redhead turned and walked away. She shuffled down the hallway before disappearing into the crowd.

Many would find that rude, but not Joline.

Joline knew about that all too well that everyone was different, and not everyone was adept at social situations.

She herself was terrible at relationships.

Maybe terrible was too strong a word, but she was at the very least different, and most people she interacted with didn’t know how to interact with her—especially romantic partners, but she was piecing that together, too.

However, it was not the time to reflect on that. She had a class to get to.

As she made her way through WANC, the mysterious woman stayed present in her mind.

What did she mean when she mentioned having a cult mentality?

If she really was one of the rehab patients, Joline could only imagine that the woman must have been through something.

Something terrible. Joline couldn’t help but think the redhead’s green eyes had seemed haunted somehow—a common attribute of the rescued shifters, or at least the ones Joline had met around campus.

It made sense. They’d been through things that some, like Joline, couldn’t even imagine. It made her sad to think about it.

Joline briskly walked down the last hallway, determined to make it only a few minutes late. She was almost there. Figuring out the mystery behind the woman would have to wait. Joline had more important things to occupy her mind. Like if she was going to get in trouble for being late. Again.

Though, as she took her seat and attempted to focus on the class topic, she couldn’t help but wonder if the woman would show up for dinner…

If Ariel Russo was going to be stuck at this dumb facility, she was going to make the best of it, though wandering the halls provided little entertainment. FUC was determined to rehabilitate her, no matter how stubborn she was. They didn’t seem to care for her opinion on the matter.

Ariel decided there was little she could control, so she tried to push her captivity from her mind.

The ankle monitor she wore strapped to her leg at all times felt as heavy as a brick.

It was a constant reminder that she wasn’t as free as FUC tried to make her think she was.

That was typical, she realized, the longer she was there.

They made you think they were doing you a favor, but there were always strings attached.

Like, she could roam freely, but if she wandered off campus without permission, she bet a million agents would pop out of the woodwork to apprehend her.

And then there was the “help” they gave her in the form of a prosthetic leg.

Ugh. She was only allowed to use the one they provided.

Not the one she’d arrived with, the fancy one Dr. Grimm had given her, with the gadgets and ability to sense the pressure her stump applied to the floor, which helped make walking easier and also increased her balance.

Since she’d been taken into FUC custody, they’d made it clear they didn’t trust her with it one bit—sure, they tried to say it was Grimm’s tech they didn’t trust, but she saw through that.

Yet they expected her to trust them. Ariel rolled her eyes just thinking about the double standard.

She thought back to Joline’s invitation to join her at dinner.

Normally she stayed far away from anything resembling socializing, so she’d not received any kind of invite like that in her year at FUCN’A.

But the woman’s helpful spirit had charmed Joline for a moment—long enough for the woman to actually suggest they meet again.

How strange. Normally, Ariel’s brittle personality had people immediately leaving her vicinity and definitely not asking for more time together.

Should I go? Gaining a contact—a cadet, at that—wouldn’t be the worst strategy.

And the fact that the shifter was easy on the eyes with a sweet personality to match?

Just a bonus. Plus, Joline seemed eager to please.

Her accommodating nature could come in handy.

Maybe it could help Ariel find out where the agents were keeping the prosthetic leg Dr. Grimm lovingly made for her.