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Chapter One
Just Another Day
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Nobody deserves misery but sometimes it’s just your turn.
Kalevi had read that quote once. From where he could no longer remember. Maybe it was a fortune cookie. A really shitty, unethically accurate fortune cookie.
Kalevi lived in one of the crappiest suburbs in the city with his younger brother and a pile of bills that seemed to be growing by the day. Despite the three jobs he worked, he barely seemed to be covering the interest anymore. His younger brother, Eli, was still in school. He should be for another two years if Kalevi had any say in it. Rent was paid but the lights might not stay on if he couldn’t pick up another shift by Wednesday.
Kalevi threw the electricity bill down in disgust. His skin prickled and he had to resist the cat-like urge to twist and stretch. As far as luck went, he had some of the worst of anyone he knew. Both he and his brother were shifters. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing under normal circumstances. Shifter rules weren’t like the movies. They weren’t compelled by the full moon or affected by silver. Even so, he had to be careful.
Shifter society functioned with several strict rules. Being such a small minority to the general public, the first and foremost rule was to never reveal your identity as a shifter to a mundane human. Inevitably there had been a few exceptions over the years. Security cameras, go pros and a myriad of other technological advances had made it almost impossible for shifters to go completely unnoticed but the impact they had and how often they were seen on the media had to be kept to the umost minimum.
What popular fiction and corny romance novels didn’t seem to get was that shifters were never restricted to one species such as wolves.
That would be stupid.
No, shifters could be any animal and for every powerful tiger, venomous snake and soaring eagle, there were countless others who could shift into nothing more than a dormouse or a pigeon. Admittedly pigeon shifters probably wouldn’t sell as many movies, but they existed all the same. It was these people that needed protecting the most, these shifters who didn’t have the power to protect themselves if they and their families were ever exposed.
Another interesting quirk of shifter genetics was how they had children.
Well.
How they conceived children wasn’t any different from humans, but which animal traits were passed on was specific. A lion shifter and a fox shifter could become a couple. They could even conceive a child, but that child would only carry one animal trait. That child would grow up to become a lion or a fox, never both. On very rare occasions, if the two-shifter species were close such as a tiger and a lion, the child might express both traits, but this was particularly infrequent. It was this natural bound law that caused Kalevi to be born a cat and his brother to be born a jaguar.
In a cruel twist of fate, Kalevi the oldest, was destined to inherit his mother’s cat form, powerless against his drunk abusive jaguar father. His young, shy, timid little brother was born the powerful jaguar, completely unable to use it.
Eighteen years of fear, repressed rage and pain living under the collapsing roof of an unstable drunk. Fourteen years of hiding Eli away, of taking him down the road to play with the other kids so they didn’t have to listen to his mother sob. Years of packing Eli’s lunch before the sun had even risen so they could be out of the house and gone before the man passed out in the hallway could rouse.
Years of working after school, of squirrelling money at his friend’s house so Kalevi could have something to buy their groceries with. His mother had died before she had even reached her forties. Weak heart apparently. Doubtless made worse by the lack of sleep, constant “accidents,” malnutrition and a lack of sunlight from the threats if she ever left the house. Eli had cried at her funeral. Kalevi hadn’t.
Maybe she had been a person once but by the time her life was extinguished she was already a husk, a dried-out spectre of the woman she must have once been. He’d stared into that coffin and felt nothing but hollowness. However badly their father had treated them, she had done so little to protect them. He probably should feel some compassion for her, should have understood.
Hell, he should get some fucking therapy to deal his parental issues… he just didn’t.
For one, therapy was expensive and for another… he just didn’t have time for that shit. He was tired all the time these days and there was hardly any day he could wake and not feel sore. Some might call him bitter or unfriendly. Whatever. He didn’t have much to be happy about. Kalevi never got a childhood, and he certainly didn’t have time to hang out with friends or go out and meet people his own age. He was a young man in his twenties with the soul of a war veteran his sixties. He might not have even bothered to get out of the bed in the morning if not for the constant drive to make sure Eli was cared for.
His brother was smart and kind. He had the chance to be everything Kalevi couldn’t. He could graduate, maybe go to college. He was smart enough to get a scholarship. He could get one of those cushy office jobs, have a normal life. Kalevi could give him that. He had to give him that or everything would have been for nothing.
The crappy two-bedroom apartment his father owned was the only thing his good-for-nothing parents ever left them. His first instinct had been to sell the place as soon as possible and move but in today’s market, there was absolutely nothing he could afford, even if the place sold for more than it was worth.
Eli was friendly with everyone. Somehow the crappiness of his upbringing had not marred the gentle spirit that always shone through in a golden smile that emphasised adorable dimples. Eli could do so much with his life. He was a good kid.
They hadn’t gone completely without help. In high school, there had been a few teachers smart enough to clue into why Eli’s parents never showed up to parent/teacher meetings. Ms. Gabels was a fifty-something woman three houses down who would often leave the boys sandwiches or muffins when she saw them coming down the street. Everyone in their street had to know what was going on. Hard not to with the daily screaming. No one called the cops or maybe they did and the police just didn’t bother to come.
Just like Kalevi was sure his teachers probably reported the bruises he came to school with, with the naïve thought that something would come of it. Odd things happened when shifters were involved. In theory, shifters were supposed to look after their, govern their own, control their own. But people fell through the cracks and Kalevi’s family was just one that did. By the time his father finally caught the attention of the shifter council, he had nearly ripped out the throat of a human in a drunken rage.
Kalevi and Eli were just expected to suck it up and get on with their lives. Needless to say, Kalevi wasn’t a fan of the shifter council. They claimed to be for the betterment of shifter kind, but they couldn’t even get off their fat asses to make sure Kalevi’s father wasn’t destroying his family on a daily basis. Where was the justice in that?
He could still clearly remember Eli as a young kid, just starting primary school and barely able to understand that most kids didn’t have to hide under their beds every night to stay safe.
’Santa brought Liam a PlayStation for Christmas. How come Santa won’t bring us anything like that? Are we bad people?’ Eli’s lower lip had trembled. Internally Kalevi was cursing that snot nosed little brat, Liam. The kid had rich parents and he made sure everyone at school knew about it, including Eli. Jackson’s heart had ached with regret. He always hated going past the toy store with Eli. He had barely covered the bills as it was. Eli deserved to have toys. Kalevi had sighed weakly and knelt in front of his little brother.
‘I’ll tell you a secret. Santa didn’t buy that really expensive thing. We aren’t bad people. We just live different.’ Even before he had finished, he could already see his younger brother didn’t understand. He had looked Kalevi in the eyes and said: ‘I don’t want to be different.’
Yeah.
Kalevi hated the world for all of those conversations he was forced to have. Maybe he was bitter but if so, it was because the world fucking made him that way.
His one secret pleasure were the few hours in the dead of night when he could shed his human form and slink across the roof tops as a jet-black cat with his two white socks. There was irony in his cat form and not just because of his lineage. Cats were always depicted as so carefree, lazy even. In the darkest moments when his bones ached, he wondered what it might be like to shift into a cat and never shift back. Maybe find somewhere warm and safe with some family to love on him. These feelings always left him feeling sick with guilt, self-loathing, and disgust.
Yeah, he had issues. But so did everyone else in the universe. He didn’t have to time to play the victim. He had work to fucking do.
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‘Kal?’ His brother’s hesitant voice made him look up from the vegetables he was cutting. They had a lot of vegetable stir-fries. Mainly because they were cheap to make but also because Kalevi wasn’t a good cook. He hadn’t even graduated high school, for crying out loud. His meals generally consisted of ready-made tomato sauce, hot dogs and home brand pasta.
If they had a bit of extra money, he’d try to buy more meat. As feline shifters, they needed meat in their diet and the idea that he wasn’t feeding Eli enough and might make him sick was something that had always weighed on his mind.
In the past, Kalevi had bought whatever meat he could, cooked it up and fed it Eli and if his brother asked, he would lie and said he got to eat at work. In the safety of his room, he would shift into his cat form and sneak out. He was a pretty good hunter and could often catch himself a rat or pigeon. Then there was that time the rat bit him and it got infected…
‘Kal?’ His brother was staring at him with a frown.
Kalevi shook his head. ‘Sorry, what’s up Eli? Dinner will probably be another twenty minutes.’
‘It’s not that. We have our big soccer game on Saturday morning. It’s the semi-finals. I was just thinking…’ Kalevi knew what the boy was going to say even before the words left his mouth. ‘It would be cool if you could come and watch?’
Kalevi couldn’t help but glance towards the stack of reminder letters on the cigarette burned table. Weekends paid extra at the local grocer. He needed that shift. He also knew what it would mean to turn his brother down. Again. It didn’t matter too much. Eli had better people to be around than Kalevi. He needed better people in his life than Kalevi.
‘I can’t lil bro. I have to work.’ He didn’t need to see his brother’s face to know the disappointment and annoyance he would find there.
‘It’s just for a few hours,’ Eli argued.
‘I can’t find someone to cover me this late notice buddy.’
‘You don’t even want to try! You’re always working!’ Eli exploded. His eyes flashed from brown to a deep orange, the pupils constricted.
‘You’re shifting,’ Kalevi cautioned. Eli struggled for a few minutes. His hands clenched into fists and then relaxed. When he turned those eyes on his older brother’s again, they were just as fiery but the orange had faded back to chocolate brown.
‘So that’s it then?’ Eli snapped.
Kalevi sighed. ‘I’m sorry Eli. You can tell me all about it when you get home.’ He wasn’t trying to be a dick. Really. It was just easier this way. He didn’t want Eli to constantly worry about money. He needed to go to school, make friends, eat terrible food, and get overly invested in stupid things. He was still a kid and shouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. Kalevi was sick of always making excuses. Keeping the conversation around work was just simpler.
‘Like you even care,’ Eli whispered as he turned away. Kalevi’s cat enhanced ears caught the comment.
‘I do care Eli,’ Kalevi sighed.
‘Yeah, whatever.’ His little brother stalked away. Kalevi frowned in concern at the sight of black patterned spots on the back of the young teen’s neck.
‘You’re shifting spots,’ Kalevi called after him. Eli slapped a hand over the back of his neck and walked a little faster, his anger radiating in every stiff step.
Kalevi bit back a growl of frustration. He turned back to his limp carrots and started chopping again. Shifters often lost a little control around puberty. That was normal but it did seem to be happening a lot more recently. If they weren’t careful, they would get the attention of the shifter elders.
Extreme emotions often factored in their ability to shift forms. As a kid, he had the habit of leaving his window open just a crack behind the ratty curtain no matter how cold it was. He could always become a cat and slink through the gap when he heard his father coming home. One time when he was about nine, he had shifted and snuck out. That night his mother had screamed so loud that a neighbour put in a noise complaint. Kalevi hadn’t been able to shift back. He had been stuck as a useless cat for two days.
If not for his terror of leaving Eli behind, he might not have cared if he could ever be a human again. Eli, only a little kid at the time, had left cat food out for him in the side alley. He wished things had been different. He wished he’d been the jaguar, the one strong enough to sink his claws into that bastard and make him pay for everything he put his family through. Instead, he was a black cat. There was some irony in that.
Unlucky through and through.
He started tipping the vegetables into the old frying pan with a little oil. The sound of sizzling was almost enough to numb his mind from the bad memories that always chased him from room to room in this damn house. Just a couple more years. Eli would graduate. He wouldn’t want to stay here with Kalevi. He’d want to leave this shit hole.
And he should.
Until then, Kalevi would just have to keep trying.
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END
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