Chapter 8
I t took all Honey’s willpower not to turn around and stare at Buck in disbelief. With a heroic effort, she kept her gaze fixed on the trees.
“Are you trying to tell me,” she said, her voice rising with incredulity, “that everyone here is a werewolf?”
“Shifter.” Behind her came the rrrrpt of a zip being done up. “That’s what they call themselves. They come in all kinds of flavors, not just wolves. Bears, hawks, sharks, dragons—”
“ Dragons? ”
A snort from behind her. “Yeah, that was my reaction to that one too.”
Buck came into sight, fully dressed apart from one sock. He scowled up at the missing garment, still fluttering gaily from a branch above their heads, well out of reach.
“At least you found my boots. Would have hated to have to break in a new pair.” He tugged at his jeans, making a futile attempt to close the gaping rents at the thighs. “Come on. We need to talk.”
Honey followed him, feeling like she’d left sanity somewhere back with Buck’s sock. She couldn’t see any sign of a path, yet Buck led the way with unerring confidence. Before long, the trees thinned out to reveal the scattered buildings and open fields of the summer camp.
Buck headed for a tiny cabin set some distance from the others, right at the edge of the woods. He unlatched the door, holding it open for her.
The room beyond was about twice the size of her own, but cold and spartan.
There were no blankets on the bed—just a sheet-covered mattress.
An empty pin board hung on one wall, while a half-open door opposite showed a glimpse of a tiny bathroom.
The only signs of occupation were a tightly rolled sleeping bag at the foot of the bed, and a worn, faded rucksack propped up in a corner.
“Sit,” Buck ordered. Without waiting for a response, he kneeled to unzip a side pocket of the rucksack. “Put your head between your knees. Take deep breaths.”
Even with her head spinning with new information, Honey was all too aware that the only place to sit in the cabin was on the bed. Buck’s bed. In terms of regaining her composure, this was actively unhelpful.
“Really, I’m fine,” she started.
“Woman, you’re whiter than the sheet.” Buck shot her a glare over his shoulder. “Sit down or I’ll toss you onto the damn mattress myself.”
Her knees buckled at his flat, peremptory tone of command. For lack of other options, Honey sat—right on the edge of the bed, trying to make as little contact as possible.
“So the staff are all different kinds of were—” she stumbled, correcting herself, “I mean, shifters?”
“Yep. A whole motherloving menagerie. And before you ask, yes, the kids are all animals too. Literally.” Buck pulled a bottle of energy drink out of the rucksack. Cracking the lid open with a sharp twist, he held it out to her. “Here. Drink this.”
She blinked at the bottle. “Why?”
“Because you’ve just had the shock of your life, and I don’t want you to pass out face first on my floor when the adrenaline wears off.” Buck shoved the energy drink into her hand. “Sugar will help. Drink , woman.”
As she was fairly sure Buck would forcibly pour the liquid down her throat if she didn’t, Honey drank. It tasted too sweet and violently artificial, but after a few sips she did feel better. The room steadied, no longer seeming on the verge of slipping away.
Buck was rummaging around in his rucksack again, pulling out neatly folded clothes and setting them aside. With a triumphant ‘heh’ noise, he extracted a flat brown packet.
“Thought I still had one of these in here,” he said. Honey glimpsed MRE printed on the front of the package as he ripped it open. “Mmmm, menu 22, beef noodles. Theoretically. Lucky you.”
“Army rations?” Honey recoiled as Buck shook unappetizing, shrink-wrapped blocks out of the packet. “I’m not eating that.”
“Don’t blame you. Only people who enjoy MREs are stone cold masochists.
” Buck tossed her a small wrapped bar. “But the chocolate isn’t too bad.
Compared to the rest of it, at least, though I will admit that is not a high bar to clear.
Eat. It’ll help with the shock. Anyway, we’re missing lunch, and you must be hungry. ”
To her surprise, Honey discovered she was hungry. She took a bite of chocolate. It really wasn’t too bad. Buck glowered at her like a trapped hawk until she’d finished the whole bar.
“Okay, I promise I’m not about to faint.” She washed down the last of the chocolate with another sip of the energy drink. “Can we get back to the thing where you and everyone else at this camp can turn into an animal?”
Buck blew out his breath. “I’d rather talk about the fact that you can’t.”
“Buck, not being able to turn into an animal is not worthy of discussion. Not being able to turn into an animal is normal .”
“Don’t I just know it.” With another heavy sigh, Buck leaned against a wall. “Okay, I guess we have to get this out of the way first. Go ahead, shoot. What do you want to know?”
“Everything!” At Buck’s exasperated look, Honey groped for a more specific question. “Are… are there a lot of shifters?”
“A damn lot more than I’d like,” Buck replied with a grimace. “Odds are you’ve walked right past a shifter at the grocery store or out on the street, and never known. But they keep themselves to themselves, mostly.”
“But you said some of them turn into dragons.” Honey was still having a hard time with that one. “How do dragons stay secret?”
“More easily than you might think. A lot of the weirder types can make themselves invisible to normal people. And for the ones that can’t, well…
” Buck shrugged. “That’s how a lot of urban legends get started.
You know, alligators in the sewers, Bigfoot, that sort of thing.
From what I’ve been told, there’s a kind of secret agency that’s tasked with keeping everything hush-hush. Next question?”
That one was easy. It fell off her tongue without thought: “Are there dragons here at camp?”
Buck gave her another pained look. “Are all these questions going to be dragon-related?”
“Yes! Probably! You can’t tell me dragons are real and then not expect me to have questions about it!”
Buck heaved an even bigger sigh. “Fine. Yes, there are dragons here. At least one that I know about, though technically she’s a sea dragon. A Princess of Atlantis, no less. You’ve met her. Moira.”
“ Moira? ” Out of all the people she’d met at camp, Moira—calm, serious Moira—would have been her last guess as to who would turn out to secretly be a scaled, horned beast. “I thought you were going to say Ragvald. So what does he turn into?”
“No idea. Never met him before today. Though I’ll eat my boots without ketchup if he’s a sea dragon. Most of that lot seem to have had large sticks inserted up their butts at birth.” Buck’s eyebrows lowered. “Don’t ask him, by the way. About his animal, I mean. Shifters consider that rude.”
“You mean everyone here turns into animals and I’m not even allowed to ask them about it?” Honey flung up her hands, nearly sloshing energy drink across Buck’s mattress. “Can you at least tell me what people are? Is that allowed?”
“I’m pretty sure that technically none of this is allowed.” Buck rubbed his forehead with his thumb. “Look, I don’t know most people here. Just Moira, Leonie, Conleth, and Zeph, really. Moira, you already know. Conleth’s a pegasus.”
“A what ?”
“Big horse with wings.”
“I know what a pegasus is, thank you.” Honey struggled to imagine suave, sophisticated Conleth sprouting a tail and wings. “It’s just… he wears a suit.”
“He’s a business pegasus. Carrying on down the list, Leonie’s a lion. Well, mostly.”
“How can someone be mostly a lion?”
“It’s complicated.” Buck held up a hand as she opened her mouth. “Look, I don’t like folks gossiping about my private business. I’m sure as hell not going to start sharing other people’s secrets. If Leonie wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”
That was fair enough, she had to admit. “What about Zephyr, then? You said he was your nephew. Is he like you? A, uh…”
“Freakish perversion of nature?” Buck supplied, while she was still trying to think of a description other than giant glowing wolf . “No, I’m something of a one off, as far as anyone knows. You should be able to guess what he is, though. It’s in the damn name, after all.”
It took her a second to figure out what he meant. Then realization kicked in. She looked down at the logo on her own t-shirt: Camp Thunderbird .
“You’re kidding,” she said, because surely he had to be. “He’s a thunderbird?”
“The, actually. He’s also one of a kind.” Buck grimaced. “But that’s a very long story, and one for another day. We’re running out of time. The others will expect us back at training soon.”
“Oh my God!” With everything that had happened, the reason why she was here at all had fallen clean out of her head. Now realization crashed down on her like a tidal wave. “Buck, I don’t think anyone here knows that I’m not a shifter!”
“Yeah, I’d figured that much,” Buck said grimly. “How the hell did you even hear about the camp? Regular folk aren’t supposed to know about this place.”
“Sheer chance. I’m a teacher. Art, mostly, but sometimes I help out my colleagues in other subjects.
I was working late one night, marking term papers for the senior class, and I came across one talking about working as a counselor-in-training at summer camp.
This summer camp. Oh God, there must be shifters at my school . ”
Buck, understandably, stared at her as if she were insane. “You applied to spend all summer at a place you’d never been, all because of some kid’s homework assignment?”
“I know it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even know why I read and re-read that essay so much.
I mean, it didn’t talk about magic or animals or anything like that.
Just normal summer camp stuff. But for some reason, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I guess it just…” She hesitated. “This is going to sound crazy.”