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Chapter three: Vitiligo
“What do you mean ‘he knew there was going to be an abduction’?” Agent Jones demanded.
“I don’t know. All he told me today was that someone was targeting a boy named Benjamin Reed. The kid you guys were keeping an eye on.” Charlotte explained.
“What’s his source?” Agent Smith demanded next. “We didn’t hear anything.”
“That’s because the chatter hasn’t occurred, and probably never will now.” Charlotte sighed. “Listen. Time travel is pandora’s box. Exactly like Pandora’s Box, containing all the horrors in the universe, and hope. And if you’re not careful, you could run into things are the Archin to Drackkenaor Gladiators to a demonic warlord’s horde of brain dead brutes., plauges from humanity’s far future to giant incests trying to escape the Parmian-Triassic extinction event. I’ve only been going about this for a decade at least and I’ve fairly certain I haven’t seen a tenth of what’s out there. And believe me, almost everything people didn’t think existed, does in some shape or form.”
“What a load of…” Jones began.
“Look out!” Charlotte yelled. Jones swerved to the right in order to avoid the body that appeared from under the truck. The late model Crown Victoria made a protest of screeching tires but made the sharp turn. “Great. Lunch time and he’s already throwing people out of moving vehicles. It’s going to be one of those days.”
“He’s stopping.” Smith announced at the white van slowed to a sudden stop.
“I’ll get the driver.” Jones said as the agents and Charlotte exited the car.
“Just don’t shoot him. If I have to pull another bullet out of him, I’m going to get it back to the person who shot it, via their head.” Charlotte threatened the agent, practically growling.
“Yes ma’am.” Jones nodded, noticing the teenage girl loading a silver handgun.
“Stay behind me Mis Wells.” Smith advised the girl as she and the agent approached the van door. Smith yanked it open. “FBI! Get down on the ground now!”
Charlotte made a quick scan of the van’s interior, finding the boy, hoodie removed, leaving him with only a pair of cargo pants and a singlet top, scales covering his arms and a blue tail poking out of his pants leg. There was a huge brute of a man standing over the boy with an empty syringe, wearing a monkey suit and a pair of latex gloves. And the third man, a thin, pale guy, had a hole though his head.
“And number two for the body count.” Charlotte muttered as Smith walked up and handcuffed the man. Charlotte walked up to the reptilian teenager, saw his eyes open, and responsive. She then checked on the third person, just checking if he really was dead. “We need bus. One for a check-up, one for the morgue.” She called out to Smith.
“Hands off!” She heard Blake yell.
“Jones!” Charlotte called out. “That one’s mine.” She told the man. “Thanks for keeping him alive.” She added.
“HE said he was with the CIA.” Jones called back.
“CIA, MI6, KGB, AISO.” Charlotte continued. “Every intelligence agency will say he’s with them because of their reasons.”
“Reasons?” Jones asked as he let Blake go. He walked up to Ben and kneeled.
“Let’s just say, the cold war wouldn't have gone anywhere, even if they tried.” Blake told him. “I have a little black book sitting at home with the launch codes for every nuclear weapon on the planet. Not the original by the way. Changed them in the early eighties.”
“I don’t…”
“You okay Ben?” Blake asked checking for track marks. “Agent! Check our guest’s arms! Look for resent injection marks!”
“Thoughts?” Charlotte asked.
“The hypodermic. It was empty.” Blake explained. “I have a pretty good idea what was in it, but I want to check to make sure. If he injected it into himself… I can just hear Roxanne playing the world’s smallest violin for him.”
“Blake. He’s not alone.” Charlotte pointed out.

It was all a blur after the doors opened and those agents came in. I was disorientated and unfocused, I heard voices talking but I couldn’t understand the words. I saw shapes but I couldn’t make out the faces. Eventually…
“…if I have…to say ab…would be so heartless to experiment on children!” It sounded like… Charlotte. “If Clair was here, she’d… ugh!”
“Charlotte.” The new kid… Nightingale?
“That brute better hope he gets everything that’s coming to him.” Charlotte pushed on with her rant. “Forget devolving into some primal beast, I’ll force him to rip out his own throat. Five minutes Blake. Just give me five minutes.”
“To do what Charlotte? Murder a man in cold blood? Prove that you too can sink to his level?”
“Since when did you start making sense?”
“When I slaughtered an entire building full of mercenaries and genetic experiments and escaped a dying timeline with a Archin Droid on my tail. Stars above only knows how long until it manages to emerge into this time and place… just what the world needs. A homicidal techno-organic organism. What could go wrong?”
“Love the coping mechanism.” Charlotte muttered. “So good, you missed the fact that the victim has now joined us.”
“Someone mixed an anaesthetic with a paralytic. Not well either. Might have caused some nasty side effects.” Blake huffed turing to me. “Welcome back to the waking world Benny-boy. Memory loss and migraines will pass.” He offered a bottle of water he was holding. I took it and took a long drink before handing it back.
“Paramedics have looked you over already.” Charlotte told me. I froze. “Relax. They’re not concerned about your mutation. Shocked, but nothing to be worried about. If anything, it metabolised the compounds quicker. Your scutes are starting to grow in.”
“Huh?”
“Look under your shirt.” Blake informed me. I pulled it up. There was a void where the blue scales just stopped and where my skin started to lose colour and turned white.
“Great.” I hissed. “Just what I need. More weirdness.” Hissed? Charlotte produced a pocket mirror and handed it to me. I looked into it and poked out my tongue. What I saw made me drop it. A flat, thin forked tongue appeared from behind my lips.
“Breath.” Blake said. “Deep breaths. Don’t Panic.”
“I’m turning into a monster.” I whimpered. “And I’m suppose not to panic.”
“You’re not turning into a monster.” Blake returned. “You just need to be reminded of who you are. I need a car.” From his bag, Blake pulled out two metal spheres. “Subeau Impreza or the Trans Am?” He posed to Charlotte.
“Well, we are in California. Gotta go with the american muscle car with after market iPod interface.” She said as she walked up to me, taking my hand and pulling me out of the van. “What about wolf boy?” She then asked.
“Hospital. Something about needing treatment for ringworm.” Blake answered as we got outside, much to my protest.
“Don’t be such a baby.” Charlotte scolded me as Blake threw the sphere into the air. Somehow, a cobalt blue Impreza appeared where the sphere was suppose to land.
“Collin Harmon. Know the name?” Blake asked me as various agents, uniformed officers and CSUs wandered around with some purpose. I rubbed my arms nervously, watching eyes turn and glance in my direction. Some stared. Some only looked for a moment and went back to what ever they were doing after they processed.
“He… He disappeared a few weeks ago.” I answered. “There was a struggle in his room. Police said he was abducted. Parents said he ran away. Joice said some sicko let a wild animal into his room.”
“Gotta love gossip.” Charlotte sighed as she opened the door. “I hate it when he doesn’t listen to me.” I looked inside. I found the seats a strange shape and size, almost like they were designed to support extra appendages, like tails. I climbed in and took a seat. Blake and Charlotte took seats, Blake driving…
“Wait. You’re driving?” I questioned.
“Okay. I’ll take that under advisement.” Blake said. “Jones said they took Harmon to Flint Memorial Hospital. I think it’s time for him to have some visitors.”
“You always did take me to the most romantic places dear.” Charlotte cooed.
“Yeah. Nothing says romantic like werewolves in intensive care.” Blake chuckled. Admittedly, I joined in. First time I laughed since I woke up with claws.

“Agents Blake Steorra and Charlotte Wells.” Blake introduced himself and Charlotte to the desk nurse, showing him a tarot card. “Collin Harmon please.” The nurse typed at his terminal.
“Mr. Harmon is awake. Bullet wound was a though and though. Should wake up any minute now. Room 18B.” Blake nodded and continued down the corridor.
In the corridor, I saw the Harmons, standing outside the door and talking to the agents from earlier. Both parents had expressions of relief but they were trembling with anxiety. In Miss Harmon’s hands was a silver ring. One that Collin always wore.
Blake lead me inside, where a humanoid werewolf lied on the hospital bed, with an IV line in his arm. He began to stir as we watched. He shielded his amber eyes with an arm as he opened them.
“Afternoon sleepyhead.” Blake said. “You look a lot better then when we found you in that van. Wouldn’t be hard when you spent six weeks in the Serra Nevada like a wild animal.”
“What’s it to ya?” Collin growled..
“Just acting like I care I suppose.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know. It’s a habit of mine. Interfering when I’m not suppose to. I was told there was a pill for that, but my head’s screwed up enough already. I howl at the moon. I yell out loud to the voices in everyone else's head. My girlfriend tried to kill me and I still love her. You think you’ve got problems?”
For a moment, Collin was silent before he growled. “My parents threw me out. They couldn’t stand the sight of me.” He said. “I couldn’t tell them who I was. My dad nearly beat me senseless with a baseball bat if I hadn’t made it out the window. To them, I was just some wild animal who somehow made it into their house. Why would they… I mean…” I watched as tears welled in his eyes as he asked a question that I’ve been asking myself for some time now.
“Why would they take me in now that I’m… a… a… freak!?”
“Maybe you should ask them yourself.” Blake said, seemingly unaffected by the pain and sadness in Collin’s voice. “They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t have a reason. But why should the reason matter? Question is, are you willing to accept them after what they did to you?”
Blake then lead me outside the room, leaving the former human to debate in his head the question he’s faced with.
“Have you decided to tell them yet?” Blake asked me.
“My family?” I asked. He nodded. “And if they…” My heart twisted in my chest every time I thought about it. But then again, if I don’t tell them soon, how would they know the creature standing in front of them is their son, their brother, and not a mindless reptile?
“Hard to think that the people who we love unconditionally would suddenly hate us for any reason. It happens, I know, and that’s why we sometimes keep secrets from them. Something that we think is so terrible that they’ll never look at us the same way again.”

Behind me, I watched as Collin endured a tearful reunion. Sure, that night will stay with him, right now, it looked like nothing mattered anymore. Not the fur. Not the bruises. Not the scars. Just that he was there. Home. On my way back to mine, I had to ask, “What kind of a name is Collin for a werewolf?”