Project Maigo(3)

“I’ll shoot,” I say loudly, aiming at the fully exposed creature. I won’t miss, no matter how fast she moves. Not at this range. “I know you can understand me.”

The cat-woman turns her yellow eyes from Collins to me, squinting like a miffed teenager. In fact, now that I’m looking at her face again, she looks fairly young in human terms. Maybe twenty. But I have no real way of evaluating her age. “I don’t want to kill you,” I add. “But if you attack her again, I won’t hesitate.”

The cat-woman’s face scrunches with frustration. “Yyyyou attacked us first!”

God, she sounds young, too.

“We didn’t attack anyone.” My defense sounds childish as I say it, but it’s the truth.

“Yes, you did!” she shouts, our conversation devolving toward ‘Uh-uh!’ and ‘Ya-huh!’ But then she clarifies. “You pointed your rifle at my girls.”

Girls?

Her girls.

“Holy shit.” I glance toward the brush where we saw the small black creature. “They’re your children?”

She snarls, bearing white, pointed teeth.

“I didn’t know,” I say.

She looks ready to pounce. “Too late.”

“For what?”

“You’ve seen them,” she says. “I can’t let you leave.”

The threat makes me realize I’ve lowered my aim some. I bring the barrel back up, sighting her chest. I really don’t want to kill this creature. She’s amazing. I just need her to—

The growl building in the cat-woman’s chest focuses me. I slide my index finger over the trigger.

“Wait!” a distant voice shouts from behind me. It’s masculine and very human. I watch Collins’s eyes for signs of surprise or danger, but she just looks confused. Whoever is approaching is human and unarmed. “Don’t shoot!”

I can hear the crunch of running feet on the ground, crushing twigs, leaves and pebbles with each hurried step.

The cat-woman seems to relax as the newcomer gets closer. The growl fades. Her muscles loosen. She’s no longer about to pounce. But I don’t lower my aim. Can’t take the chance. In part because I know the woman is still dangerous, despite her changed body language. And I have no idea who this guy is.

The man rushes past, heading straight for the cat-woman. He carries himself in a comfortable, fearless way, how a father might approach a child. “Lilly,” he says, his tone harsh, but concerned, “What are you doing?”

Lilly? Seriously? The cat-woman’s name is Lilly?

“They were going to shoot the girls.”

The man stiffens. I don’t see a weapon, but he now has an air of danger about him.

“First,” I say, still hoping to avoid a confrontation, “one rifle is a tranq gun. The other fires a tracking dart. Our job is not to kill...people...or whatever. Second, we never really saw your children. We thought they were skunks. And if you must know the truth, you got too close. If you hadn’t been stalking us, we’d have never drawn our weapons.”

The newcomer sighs and gives a shake of his head.

“I was just watching them,” Lilly grumbles.

“You know that’s against the rules,” the man says.

“I just—”

“If something had happened to the girls today, it would have been your fault,” the man says. “Do you understand that? And now you’ve put all of us at risk.”

Lilly’s feline body deflates under the verbal smackdown. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you here?” the man asks, and it takes me a second to realize he’s speaking to me.

I’m about to answer, when I remember that I’m the one in charge. “Actually,” I say, “you can answer that question for me. I am the one with the gun.”

The man hesitates, but then answers. “We live here.”

I look around. “In the woods?”

“A few miles to the north.”

Reservation land. “You don’t look like one of the Ute.”

“Grandfather is Ute,” Lilly says, but she’s quickly shushed by the man.

“Where did she come from?” I ask.

“Can’t tell you that.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” I say, adjusting my aim toward the man, as I now suspect he’s got a gun tucked into the small of his back.

“Not going to happen.” The man’s defiance is infuriating.

“Then I’ll just have to arrest you both,” I say.

The man starts to spin toward me, but stops when I shout, “Move and you die!” When the man complies, I add, “Hands in the air.”

“Who are you?” the man asks again, his hands rising slowly. “Are you from DARPA?”