The note was waiting for her, lying on her bedroom floor under a hole torn in her window screen. It was splattered with blood wrung from the body of some poor defenseless creature. A rat, no doubt--that would be fitting. Leila whined, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

      "I'LL TEACH YOU TO GO FUCKING AROUND ON MY PROPERTY, YOU FREAK-LOVING BITCH," was all it said.

      Maybe it was the late hour, maybe it was the unexpectedly violent reaction from someone she'd written off as an ineffective idiot, but terror descended on her such as she'd never known before. Yeah, she was a good fighter, but Jimmy was too big for her to beat up. And what if he got some friends together and jumped her some night when she let her guard down? She remembered how he had leered at her, how it made her feel dirty and disgusted. Winston had not 'said' it in so many words, but it was plain he'd planned to rape her.

      Then she got the familiar pang in her jaw again, and the fear evaporated in the heat of her old ally anger. So he was after her, huh? Fine. Let him try. Even if she didn't have senses like Alice's or Winston's, she now had Leila back--and she was no slouch herself.

      But first she needed sleep. She slid the window down over the ripped screen, locked it, and covered it with the piece of plyplast she'd cut to block the light. Then she tore off her clothes and fell into bed with Leila next to her.

      She woke up bleary-eyed and head-achy, narrow strips of sunlight leaking around her window-blocker and striping the room. Leila frisked about, wanting to be walked. Oh god, she thought, this was going to be a problem. Where the hell would she put Leila while she was at school so that Jimmy couldn't catch her again--or worse? Well, maybe she wasn't going to school today then. Maybe today was a woods day. She was way late anyway, so the hell with it. She threw on clean jeans and t-shirt, and headed upstairs.

      Mom had already left for her shift. Dad was in the kitchen, listlessly slapping together sandwiches for his own lunch; she could smell the medicinal odor of the synthetic luncheon meat. He looked up when Leila frisked up beside her.

      "Well. Lucky you," he grunted. "Make sure you tie that bitch up properly now, or maybe you won't be so lucky next time."

      She stared at him wordlessly. He looked away.

      She turned, whistling to Leila, and slammed out of the house, wondering why she had bothered coming back.

      Of course, who should she run into on the street but Tate. Hah, she thought, at least he can't report me to the truant officer without answering a lot of questions about his own damn truancy. She made to walk by without acknowledging him.

      "So--you have fun with your little Freak-o friends last night?" he sneered when she was already past, but not out of earshot. "Must have been hot--hear you were out all night. They Freaky in bed, too? Must be, to go for someone like--"

      She had leaped at him before she realized it, her tackle carrying him off the sidewalk and into the yard beyond. Some small part of her mind took alarm at the thud with which his head struck the weedy grass, but the rest of her was on fire, raging hotter with each throb of her jaw, each blow of her fist across his face. She was pretty sure she stopped after three blows; was surprised, though not displeased, to find blood spattered across her knuckles. She looked down on more blood gushing from his nose and mouth, found herself actually elated. She felt her lips pulling back from her teeth into something between a grin and a snarl.

      Tate looked up at her face, caught his breath, and screamed.

      Then she was running, terrified of she knew not what, Leila matching her stride for stride as she put more and more distance between herself and the sound of Tate's screams. He wouldn't shut up, he just kept screaming over and over as if he had seen a demon in her eyes. Even a klick or more away she thought she could still hear him.

      She kept running, not slowing down until she had reached the first vacant lot at the edge of town, and then she only slowed to a nervous trot, fearing to stop until she was hidden in deep woods. Leila kept pace with her the whole time, whimpering and worrying.

      Eventually Deena came to a halt by the banks of a stream, and washed Tate's blood off her hand. She had never done that before, drawn blood. She feared to think what might have happened if she had slammed his head into concrete instead of crabgrass. And the worst part was, while she was hitting him, she hadn't cared.

      In fact, she had enjoyed it.

      Especially the blood.

      Something was going wrong with her. Something . . .

      Oh no.

      So all the hoodies were right after all, you could catch it from hanging with Freaks . . . and none of the Freaks had warned her . . . but Winston, and Alice, they was her friends, and Winston honestly believed it was the experiments . . . but what if he was mistaken? or what if he were only saying that? . . . what if her body started changing right now, here in the woods, with nobody to help her if she got like, like Sally maybe, unable to walk? . . . what if she went home and started changing, and someone saw and hauled her off to--where? . . . where could she run for safety? Who could she turn to for help? Who could she dare to trust . . . ?

      For some time she sat there--heart pounding, breath rasping, mind racing out of control; unable to stir, unable to do anything except shake and weep.

      She looked up with a start to see the sun within an hour of setting. Her stomach growled. Her legs tingled from long sitting. Leila whined at her, hoping at last to get her attention.

      She felt her arms, legs, face, body. She leaned over the stream, found a relatively unruffled bit, studied her reflection. Her own face peered up at her, just the same as always. Just all pale and puffy from hours of stupid panic.

      She thought of all the suspicions that had raced through her head concerning the Freaks, and her stomach churned with shame. Suddenly she wanted to go to the Settlement again. To apologize, or something. And maybe Alice or Winston, or even that other Fat-Head, George, could take a look inside her head and tell her just what the hell had happened to her.

      Fortunately, she was not too far from the backside of the Settlement. She and Leila cut through the woods until she spotted the perimeter fence, then made their way round to the front gate.

      And then she hesitated, stymied. How to get the attention of the gatekeepers? Think as "noisily" as she could?

      As if on cue, the gate motors growled to life and lifted the gate out of the way.

      Twilight was falling as she approached the canteen. She heard the reassuring sound of Sally's guitar. But as she got closer, angry voices began to leak through the music.

      Just as she was pushing through the door, the music stopped, and George's voice rang out clear: "Well, if you want to go and get yourself in trouble for some little Normal bitch, then be my guest, but don't you be dragging all the rest of us into it without our say-so--"

      She was through the door, and could not back out.

      Alice and George glared at each other across the table, silent now, apparently continuing their argument mentally. Sally leaned back from her guitar, favoring the two Fat-Heads with a look of disgust. Neither Winston nor Jason were anywhere to be seen. Deena looked from one to the other, then at the empty quart malt liquor bottle, straw sticking up from its mouth, by Alice's elbow. She shifted from one foot to the other, wondering if she should just turn around and leave.

      Finally, George flushed, looked down, and dropped eyelids so translucent the green of his eyes showed through. Alice stood up, gathered up her cane, and hobbled towards Deena, her face like a thunderhead.

      "Sorry to leave just as you're arriving, darling," said Alice, breathing a brewery into Deena's face, "but I don't find the rest of the company congenial just now."

      Deena and Leila made way for the older woman, and she let herself out into the gathering darkness.

      "Well, I hope you're proud of yourself," Sally said to George.

      "The hell with you too," said George, nerve returning with Alice's absence. "And you listen to me, little girl," he turned on Deena. "That normal boy Jimmy may be a conceited sociopathic sumbitch, but he's also our main connection for the food and shit we need--you don't think the goddam gummint gives a rat's ass about what kind of aid they send to Bio-Freaks, do you?--and I for one won't stand for you fucking that connection up. So you just better watch yourself. You got that, girl?"

      She stared at him, struck speechless. The huge green eyes bored into her, right through to the back of her skull, drowning her consciousness in the deep black pools of their pupils. All the fear and revulsion she had felt during her earlier panic was hauled out of the recesses of her mind, to stand nakedly revealed before those accusing eyes--you're right, I'm nothing but guilty, sure I love the Freaks when they do nice things for me, find my dog and dry my tears and call me a good kid, and I can go around feeling all superior to those bad old red-neck bigots, but let me just get one momentary fear in my head that I might possibly turn into a Freak, really be one of them, and the same tired old bigotries come pouring out of me as the worst red-neck vigilante, and I'm ready to sell them out quicker than Judas--

      "George! For Chrissake. Leave the kid alone."

      Deena shook the fog out of her head and refocused her eyes. George was turned halfway around in his chair. One of Sally's hands had snaked over to grab a fistful of his shirt-collar.

      "The hell with all of you," George muttered, knocking Sally's hand aside. But the heat had gone out of his belligerence. He pushed himself out of his chair, grabbed his own cane, and hobbled out as well.

      Sally sighed and shifted the guitar in her lap. "Well, I'm sorry, young lady," she said stiffly, "but perhaps you'd better leave."

      "I want to see Winston." She folded her arms.

      "Winston's been gone for hours now, and I'm afraid I'm not equipped to summon him. Oh, he'll be back eventually," she said, spying Deena's crestfallen look, "he just needs his space now and then. Especially when people start getting vexatious."

      "But--"

      "I'm sorry, young lady," Sally repeated, "but that's the way it is. Now run along. There's nothing for you here right now."

      Sally pointedly returned her attention to her guitar. Deena stood there awhile longer, at a loss for what to do next. Finally the lump in her throat came so near to breaking loose that she turned and led Leila away, the guitar chords mocking her out the door. As she crunched over the cinder path into the darkness, she could hear Sally begin to sing:


If I had wings like Noah's dove, I'd fly on down the river to the one I love . . .


      The gate raised as she approached it. George must be glad to see my back, she thought bitterly. She and Leila were no sooner through the gate, though, than a flash of light meteored at her out of the early night and zoomed circles around her head.

      "DeenaDeenaDeenaDeena!" Jason cried.

      Leila barked, and Deena laughed in spite of herself. "Jason! Hell, at least somebody doesn't hate my guts."

      "SorryDeenaSorry. YoumustntmindGeorge. Hegetspissy whenAlicedrinks."

      "Alice. If I can't find Winston, I can at least catch up with Alice. Where did she go, Jason?"

      "Alice? DowntotheShadyside, whereelse?"

      They set off down the deep-shadowed road together, the girl, the dog, and the little being of light. Jason kept darting around and singsonging--he seemed incapable of holding still more than five seconds at a time. But rather than annoying her, his antics, and his obvious friendliness, cheered her up no end.

      "So how come you like me so much, Jason?"

      "Hey, AliceandWinston sayyou'regood, that'sgoodenoughforme. Andbesides mykinddon't livetoolong, Idon'thavetime towasteon hatingpeople."

      Deena felt a new pang of grief at the thought of that bright light burning out from sheer exhaustion. But Jason just kept flashing along, seemingly untroubled.

      Then they rounded a bend just a half-klick before the Shadyside, to see Jimmy's luminous hot-rod parked in the middle of the road, electric motor idling, headlights blaring, driver's-side door yawning wide.

      Silhouetted in the headlights, a drunken, rage-pumped Jimmy faced an equally drunken Alice. He clutched a tire iron in his fist. She held her arm up before her face. Deena gasped. Could Alice concentrate to read when her big eyes were blinded by that kind of light?

      "JIMMY!" she shrieked.

      He turned, startled; spotted and recognized her; and then gave her the most malevolent grin she had ever seen on a human face. Before she could move or cry out again, he swung the iron back, then struck--

      Things got all nightmarish and confused then, like a slow-motion horror movie watched while you were hallucinating under a 104-degree fever.

      She heard the awful clang of iron connecting with flesh and bone; sensed Alice cry out, once, mentally, as her neck gave way under the blow; felt the ground shake as Alice's body crashed to its breast; felt her friend's life-spark flicker, and then go out.

      She sensed Leila's hackles raise, her ears flatten, her throat vibrate into a snarl, her lips pull back from her teeth--but wait, was it the dog's lips, or her own?

      She felt herself--or was it the dog?--leaping through the air, punching into the Enemy's chest with her forelimbs, knocking him to the ground so that the weapon fell from his senseless fingers.

      She--was she now Leila? Was Leila now Deena?--felt her head and neck lunge forward, jaws yawning wide.

      She felt a soft resistance between her teeth that she easily crushed, tore to shreds. She smelled the coppery tang of fresh blood, and tasted its hot salty sweetness as it gushed into her mouth. She exulted as the Enemy's lifeblood spattered her fur and soaked into the ground.

      She felt, at long last, her jaw stop aching.

      Then she became dimly aware of a thin reedy voice piping into her suddenly more-sensitive ears: "DeenaDeenaDeena OlordOlordOlord Youhavetostop youhavetogetaway youhavetogetawayrightnow youcantletanyoneseeyou notrightnow notlikethis comeoncomeoncomeon movemovemove Leilahelpmeplease pleasegetDeenatoletgo ..."

      In a daze, she let go her prey and let the flashing light direct her with its piping voice, following it away from there with Leila trailing behind. (Or was she trailing Leila?) Almost without thinking, she headed back to the stream where she had spent the day. A great weariness overtook her before she was halfway there, and by the time they arrived it was all she could do to drag herself to the shelter of a thicket. She curled up there, nestled against the dog and last year's brown leaves, and slept like one of the dead.

      Deena, the quiet little voice spoke into her awakening mind.

      She opened her eyes to morning sunlight, falling in dapples through the forest canopy. Winston sat beside her among the leaves, Leila's head cradled in his lap, his non-face knotted into a grimace of concern.

      She tasted the dried blood in her mouth, and knew all. But curiously, she felt no horror. Maybe she was in shock, or maybe her psyche had changed as well as her body, but she found herself filled, not with revulsion, but with a strange and awful peace.

      In her mind, the telepathic equivalent of a sigh. It is some relief, isn't it, knowing you've passed the point of no return. You probably want to rinse your mouth out.

      Deena knelt to drink from the stream. Her teeth were now huge, and sharply pointed, and the cavern of her mouth had grown to accommodate them. The hands she cupped to bring water to her mouth had a light down of fur on their backs, and claws instead of fingernails. She carefully avoided any parts of the stream quiet enough to reflect. Relief or no, she wasn't ready quite yet to confront her new face.

      "Well, I've sure gone and fucked shit up beyond all recognition, haven't I?" Her voice was a bit lower, and the big new teeth made her speech come out all slurred.

      You avenged Alice's death. And as for the rest, things were, well, fairly fucked up already--and not by your doing, either. He stirred restively, and from deep in his throat came a stifled moan--the first audible sound she had yet heard from him. I was not there when you and Alice needed me. For that, I am deeply ashamed.

      His distress yanked her out of her numbness. She took his hand in hers, noticing even in her distracted state her heightened sense of touch.

      "You weirded out when George got pissed," she said.

      And even before that, over how far I had let you in.

      She smiled grimly. "Like I'm in any position at this point to blame anyone else for weirding out. And besides, I don't see as how any of this would have turned out much different anyway."

      She stroked his hand, and after a moment's hesitation felt an answering squeeze.

      "I suppose I need to get the hell out of town now."

      I'm afraid so, and quickly. I will come with you, to protect you. And before you protest, it's just as well; it was getting to be high time for me to move on anyway, even before this whole fiasco.

      She shook her head in wonderment. Her parents, her house, her whole life up to this moment--she had wanted to ditch the whole thing so badly, for so long. And now in just a day's time everything had turned topsy-turvy, and now here went her past and everything in it, all sloughing away like so much dead skin, so fast she wasn't sure if she was scared or glad. Some of both, she reckoned.

      "Metoometoo letmecomewithyou." Jason came flying down from the treetops to alight on her head. She thought of herself in this moment, blood-spattered dog-girl Freak crowned with a halo of light, and began to laugh and cry together. Once again Winston held her in his arms until she was done, and Jason and Leila nestled close after their fashions.

      An hour later found them on the main highway: the dog-girl, the dog, the faceless man, and the little being of light, headed for the freight depot, intent on jumping a train going anywhere, as long as it was away.