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shallow and fast. “I can’t think when you’re so
close. It’s burning.” I barely spoke.
    He stepped away quickly,
while I crumbled in pain. I started counting in my head and
breathing as deeply as possible, until the pain
subsided.
    “Leah, it’s OK. You did
it, you held off the change. Are you OK?”
    I slowly moved to the
boulder we once sat on and leaned against it.
    “Yes, I’m
fine.”
    “You’re a shape shifter.”
He leaned down to look at me. “I know you don’t want to believe it,
but you are.”
    “I’ve heard enough. What
you’re saying is impossible. You’re not making any sense! I thought
you were different.”
    Max looked down, not
speaking for what seemed like forever. “I am different, just not
the way you think. Remember that night when you were telling me
about a black wolf that came and scared everyone way?”
    Feeling drained I replied,
“That was you?”
    “Yes.”
     

CHAPTER TEN
    Max drove me home. I’d had
enough talk of shape shifting. Although I supposedly almost shifted
myself, I still didn’t want to believe it was possible.
    As the next week passed,
Max kept reminding me that I couldn’t hide forever. He wanted to
help me understand and not go through this alone, but I didn’t want
to face the truth yet.
    ***
    The connection between Max
and me only made the need to shift more apparent, which only made
it harder to ignore the inevitable. That day when we were up in the
mountains, he told me how he felt. He placed his hands on my face,
and our feelings circled around us. It was then when my heart
wouldn’t slow, and pain enveloped my torso. Not until he let go was
I able to pull myself together again. This fact didn’t keep me from
seeing him, though. I feared to tell him the burning pain he caused
me, and the more we were together the stronger it got. It was time
to do something.
    From my patio, Max’s smell
filled my senses. I needed to talk to him. After grabbing my coat I
headed outside, knowing Max would find me.
    “I know you can hear me.”
I continued walking down the sidewalk. He never lingered far
anymore, because of the repeated attacks. “I’m ready.”
    A black truck rounded the
corner and stopped instantly next to me, its passenger’s door
already swung open.
    “Get in,” Max
said.
    We drove up to our spot in
the mountains: the waterfall. Max opened the door for me when we
arrived, and we climbed hand in hand to the top.
    I couldn’t run away
anymore. The boss and his lackeys were after me, and I needed to
know why. My choices where limited: either I learn what was
happening to me or I get captured by the boss. Max couldn’t protect
me forever.
    “Should I be
scared?”
    “What are you scared of?”
Max stopped to asked.
    I looked down. “Being a
monster, hurting you, and not being human.”
    “You have this all wrong.
Just because your body changes, doesn’t mean your mind does. You
will still be you.” He put both hands on my arms. “If you’re having
second thoughts . . . ”
    “No, I’m fine. Let’s keep
going.” Having second thoughts was putting it mildly. My whole life
had turned upside down in a matter of months.
    Max said he could feel the
pull between us, but he didn’t know his touch made it harder for me
to control. I never wanted to tell him, because he would try to fix
it. No matter how much I feared being a shape shifter and denied
it, it frightened me more than the thought of his
leaving.
    “No matter how many times
I see this place, it’ll always be amazing,” I said.
     
    “It reminded me of you
when I first saw it.” Max put his hands in his pockets and looked
down. “I’ve never met anyone like me before. A shape shifter, I
mean.”
    “Not one? Not even
family?”
    Max shook his head. “I’m
adopted. When I found out, I was seventeen. I never told my parents
or friends. I’ve always kept this secret to myself.”
    “So you had no one to talk
to about it?”
    “No, but I don’t want that
for you, Leah.