Each scrambled to retrieve their devices, appearing confused, no longer paying attention to Bill or Gus.
Bill chuckled as he tugged at the T-shirt he was wearing. “That’s right, folks. Got me an attack Liberty Bell.”
She tensed. Did he know the truth? That she’d caused the event to occur?
A large hand fell upon her shoulder, cutting through the tingling sensation like a knife. Suddenly, her mind filled with broken memories. Flashes of a man with dark, close-cut hair, and green eyes with flecks of orange in them, hit her hard. Her vocal cords seemed paralyzed by fear as the images in her mind continued to assail her, firing rapidly.
She saw the stranger snarling before lifting his hand. Huge claws emerged from the ends of his fingertips. He opened his mouth. His smile changed from lecherous to downright terrifying as his teeth took on the shape of an animal’s—not a human.
In the blink of an eye, he was part-man, part-monster.
He slashed out at her, catching her cheek, ripping it wide open in the process.
Liberty found herself being yanked backward with a hard jerk. The jolt chased away the horrifying memory. She wasn’t sure if she was screaming outwardly or if it was all on the inside. Phantom pain lingered where her scars were, as if the wound were fresh rather than twenty years old.
“Liberty Bell,” said Bill, and she realized he’d been the one to pull her backward. He planted himself in her path, blocking the doorway to the classroom. Reaching up, he eased the stack of graded papers from her and spun around. “Here.”
It was then Liberty saw Dr. Pasternak standing there, in front of Bill, grabbing for the research papers before they could fall.
Had Dr. Pasternak’s touch brought on a memory of how her face had come to be scarred? Surely not. She’d been his teacher’s assistant for weeks now. Why now?
As she thought harder on it, she realized they hadn’t touched at all until today. In fact, he generally kept a few feet between them, which was totally fine with her.
Liberty’s chest tightened as she noticed his eyes were the same as the man from her memory. The more she stared at him, the more she began to see other similarities. Shaving twenty years from Dr. Pasternak would leave him looking a great deal like the monster who had hurt her. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn it was him, but that couldn’t be. The odds of him being a professor at her college, and her being his teaching assistant, were too high. Not to mention, Dr. Pasternak was off-putting—yes—but an all-out monster, no.
He taught Russian literature. He could bore her to death, but sprout claws and suddenly have animal teeth?
More importantly, how did anyone have claws and animal teeth?
Instantly, she thought about Daisy, and the man she’d mentioned who had been near campus and claimed to have seen a man turn into a bear. Daisy said the man had ended up being admitted for inpatient care because of his state of mind.
Had that really happened, or was her imagination getting away from her? She could move things with nothing more than a thought and Isobel was able to start fires with her mind. Was there a chance that men who turned partially into animals were a real thing too?
Liberty collected herself. “Dr. Pasternak, that’s everything you needed graded.”
His gaze slid to Bill and hardened. “Who are you?”
“I’m Liberty Bell’s attack Bill,” he warned as he snapped his jaw at the professor.
Dr. Pasternak’s green gaze took on a somewhat sinister vibe, instantly making Liberty think about the flashes of impression about the man with the clawed hand. The one who had harmed her. It was absurd to lump Dr. Pasternak in with a monster just because they shared the same eye color and similar facial features. She knew that, yet she found herself backing up more.
She bumped into something solid and twisted around to find Gus there, focusing intensely on Dr. Pasternak.
She’d thought Dr. Pasternak looked menacing at the moment. Next to Gus, Dr. Pasternak seemed downright docile.
With a clearing of his throat, Dr. Pasternak squeezed around Bill and would have brushed past Liberty as well had Gus not pulled her back abruptly. Dr. Pasternak headed down the hall in the same direction the reporter had gone, clutching the graded papers, leaving Liberty with Bill and Gus.
“You all right, Liberty Bell?” asked Bill, facing her.
She took a few deep breaths and inclined her head slightly, having difficulty forming a response. A mix of excitement and horror still had a firm grasp on her.
Bill took her hand in his with the greatest of care, compassion showing on his face. “We came to take you to lunch, or early dinner if you ask Gus, but whatever. We’re gonna get milkshakes. They fix everything. Come on. I left the SUV parked in a no-parking zone. Gotta get a move on before the campus-coppers get me or Sput-Rurik realizes where we went.”
That jarred Liberty to the here and now, forcing her to concentrate and clear the fog in her head from the memories she’d had. “Rurik doesn’t know you’re here?”
“He knows we’re gone,” said Bill, smiling widely as he continued to hold her hand as if she was a child. “We left him a note. He was in the shower. He went in the bathroom after me. Bitched about the ring of dirt I left in the tub. There is no pleasing him. He demands I get clean and then complains when I do. Russians.”
“We should probably call him and tell him where you both are and that you’re okay,” she said.
Bill snorted. “Don’t bother. He’s shit at answering his phone. It was ringing nearly nonstop when
