Read Online Shift by Kim Curran - Free Book Online

suspicion. “Did the SLF send you?”
    SLF. The name resonated. “No. I’m Scott. We met last night.”
    “We really didn’t.”
    “We did,” I snapped. “We met at the Rec. And you told me something about me being special. And then I woke up this morning on a park bench and my whole life is falling apart. My sister is dead. My little sister.” I slammed the wall in frustration.
    Aubrey flinched. Then tilted her head and considered me. “I told you, you were special?”
    I nodded. “Yes, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything. I can only remember you.”
    “Did I tell you…” she paused and looked down the stairway behind me. “Did I tell you that you were a Shifter?”
    It was like an alarm going off in my head. The buzzing bells and flashing alarm of a pinball machine. “Shifter! Yes,” I said.
    “You’d better come in. Sounds as if you’re having a reality attack.”
    I followed her into the hallway. Nothing had changed since the last time I had been there. The tangle of fairy lights still twinkled in the living room. The same monster movie posters snarled down at me. After what I’d been through, it felt like a kind of sanctuary.
    The only difference was in Aubrey. She was being distant, as if she really didn’t know who I was. She stood, her arms folded across her chest, considering me through narrow eyes.
    “You stink,” she said finally. “Shower’s in there. But be quick. The longer you leave it, the more you’ll lose your grip on the old reality.”
    I didn’t fully understand her. Parts of it made some vague sense. But the idea of a shower sounded like the best idea I’d ever heard.
    Her bathroom was small and painted purple, with a surprisingly large roll-top bath in the centre of the room and a Psycho-style shower over the tub. I peeled off my clothes, turned on the large taps and stepped in. It took a while for the water to heat up and the icy rain made me yelp. After a minute, it was steaming. I rubbed at my face, my chest and aching ribs. I looked down at my body and almost slipped over in shock. I didn’t recognise myself. My skin was covered in greenish bruises, but that wasn’t what was making my head spin. It was what I saw under my skin that was so unfamiliar. Muscles. Real defined muscles, rippling down my stomach. The last time I’d checked I had a small, pale pot belly. I had been almost proud of it. But now, I had a six-pack.
    “Hurry up!” Aubrey shouted from the other side of the door. “I’ve left some clothes in the hallway. They were here when I moved in, but I think they’ll fit.”
    I quickly scrubbed myself with a bar of soap I found, switched off the taps, then pulled a white towel off a rail and wrapped it around my waist, before carefully opening the door an inch. I pressed an eye to the gap and peered out. I wasn’t happy with the idea of Aubrey seeing me half naked. Although, a new feeling flickered across my mind. Pride. Aubrey seeing this new, ripped body, wouldn’t be so awful. The idea passed quickly and I opened the door and gathered up the pile of clothes.
    When I emerged, wearing a slightly too-tight T-shirt and cut off tracksuit bottoms, I was still steaming from the shower.
    I found Aubrey in the living room. She pointed to a mug of coffee on a side table: the same mug she’d given me last night. As I wrapped my hands around it, I wanted to cry.
    “So…” Aubrey said. “Tell me what happened.”
    I tried as best as I could to explain. Even as the words came out I knew how insane I sounded. I only had fragments of memories and they were being pushed out of my head by images of a new life I didn’t recognise. The two memories were fighting to take hold of me and there was only one I was willing to accept. The one where I hadn’t killed my little sister.
    “What was the last thing you remember before waking up on the common?” Aubrey asked.
    “I was thinking about the choices I made in my life. The ones I’d regretted. And