“I’m so glad you asked!” Flora shouted back.
He was standing next to a red maple tree. She and Krystle stared at it, and it burst into flames as if it had been soaked in gasoline and set ablaze. He was caught in the fireball, and the fur on the left side of his body lit up. He ran screaming and flaming, then fell down on the street, rolling frantically on the road to put the fire out.
“If we ever hear of a woman being abused again in Darwin, by a bear or a lion or anyone else, we will hunt the abuser down and burn them like torches!” Krystle shouted.
She grabbed Flora’s hand, looked down the street and glared at a parked car. The car exploded into an enormous fireball.
“Any more questions?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at the crowd. She was answered by dead silence.
Krystle sat down on the car roof, slid off, and landed on the ground. Finn jumped off in one graceful motion and gestured to Flora, who slid off into his arms. He held her cradled there like a groom about to carry a bride across the threshold.
“Am I too heavy?” she asked him. “You can put me down if you want.”
“What did I say about calling yourself heavy?” he purred in her ear. “You’ve earned yourself a spanking tonight.”
“But how will you punish me?” She smiled at him as he gently set her down.
“Oh, Flora, you are becoming a very naughty, naughty girl. I like it.”
* * * * *
Flora, Finn, Liam and Krystle sat in folding chairs in the office of the new Darwin Town Hall, located right in the middle of bear and lion territories.
Three Council for Shifter Affairs representatives sat facing them. They were accompanied by a squad of twenty Enforcers, all armed to the teeth and still looking very uneasy. Their kind was not particularly popular in the Badlands.
Ameera Radwell, the representative who used to check in with Flora once a month when she lived with the Wilkinsons, was there, with an eager smile pasted on her face.
“I want you to know that we began investigating your report of TerraDyne as soon as you called it in,” she said to Flora. “And, of course, their infiltration of our own organization.”
One of the other representatives, a man who’d introduced himself as Kelmar Drake, cleared his throat. “Well, infiltrated is perhaps overstating it. We found that three of our employees were passing along certain classified information to them, in exchange for certain financial considerations, and—”
“You mean they leaked information about Flora and other shifters who might have extra-sensory powers, putting them in danger of their lives, and accepted bribes for it?” Krystle snapped.
“Well, yes, but they’ve all been arrested now,” Ameera said quickly in her peppy, rah-rah cheerleader voice. “And TerraDyne has been shut down completely, and the CEO and employees are facing trial.”
“You didn’t come all this way to tell me that,” Flora said to her. “You could have called me on the phone.”
Ameera glanced uneasily at the other representatives. “I hope you understand that the council itself knew nothing of what these people were planning,” she said. “If you had come to me and told me what you’d heard, we would have launched an investigation immediately.”
“That’s probably true.” Flora shrugged. “Not that it makes me feel much better. A member of your organization told TerraDyne that I had entered the Badlands. And then TerraDyne contacted Ruben, a corrupt criminal tyrant, and offered him money to find me. And he kidnapped a friend of mine, and me, and we nearly died because of it.”
“And that was unforgiveable,” Ameera said, nodding vigorously. “They’ll be in prison for the rest of their lives. Oh, and by the way, the Wilkinsons and Loren Haig are also facing criminal charges, and all the money they received from TerraDyne has been confiscated.”
“Yay?” Flora raised an eyebrow.
“You know, I’m just going to jump in here,” Krystle said. “Are you trying to sell yourselves on what a great, benevolent entity you are? You people do the bare minimum of checking in on juvenile shifters. You make sure that we’re not dead or visibly injured, and that’s it. I was in and out of foster care organizations for years, staying with abusive families, and when I told you people about it, you never did a thing for me. Why do you think I left it all behind and came to the Badlands?”
Ameera cleared her throat, looked at Mr. Drake again, then smiled brightly at Krystle. Her smile was starting to fray around the edges, however.
“Of course, it wasn’t me you reported to,” she said. “But I think it’s quite likely that one of my colleagues felt you were perhaps a teenager rebelling against following the rules. You weren’t in any actual danger. We at the council are always concerned with the welfare of shifters, as well as maintaining peaceful human-shifter relations.”