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Jason braced his forepaws against the scales of a pinecone and lifted his head above the blades of grass so he could spy on his quarry. He hissed in glee when he saw them, sitting together on a blanket near the pond.
His throat tightened when the woman put her hand on the blanket, and the man gently folded his hand over hers, brought it to his lips, and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder as they watched a pair of swans swimming with their cygnets.
Jason’s parents had never been soft with each other like that, but his mom used to be soft with him. She used to be safe.
Now she was dead.
Jason ignored the pang in his heart and focused on the pain in his stomach. He couldn’t fall apart right now because there was no one to put him back together.
The park was mostly empty today except for the picnickers. School had just started up, he’d realized with a stab of jealousy. He wasn’t going back to school this year, but it meant that fewer and fewer people were coming to the park, and that meant that fewer and fewer people were leaving birthday cakes or hotdogs or other snacks unattended, and THAT meant that Jason was hungry.
The only other people with food at the park that day was a mom with her toddler, but she was watching too closely for Jason to be able to steal the cup of cheerios from the slobbery fists of the little boy.
The picnickers weren’t watching their backs or their picnic basket at all though. They were about a hundred feet from the treeline, a sea of green grass between his hiding place and their picnic.
Jason leaped over the pinecone and couldn’t help an excited burst of hops as he darted toward the basket. The hunt was on.
Once he got close enough to hear the pair talking, he ducked low into the grass to hide and consider his next move.
The rectangular wicker basket had a lid that buckled with a leather strap, but there was just the tiniest bit of slack. It would be risky, maybe noisy enough to draw attention, but Jason was pretty sure he could slip through that gap. After all, he was a ferret, and a small ferret at that. His dad used to say that ferrets like the two of them were more a liquid than a solid, and Jason had found that to be fairly true.
Jason took a tiny breath, flexed his claws in the soil, then silently climbed up the front of the basket.
Jason glanced at the picnickers really quick—for a second, he thought he might recognize them, but he dismissed the thought as a guilty conscience. No one he knew would be in a park in Bristol.
Confident that they were still focused on the pond and not about to turn around and notice Jason’s presence, he stuck his nose in the under the lid and started wriggling his way into the basket. It took a bit of effort and left his legs dangling indignantly in the air for a second, but without them even noticing, he was inside the picnic basket.
Being so little had its perks. Jason’s fur bristled with excitement as his eyes landed on an apple bigger than him. He helped himself to several bites, sweet juice running down his chin into the chest fur. The apple was loud, though, and too big to run away with, so he forced himself to leave it an find something stealable.
He spotted a sandwich in a little plastic bag, perfect for stealing. He scurried over to it and grabbed the bag in his teeth. The scent of turkey and cheese wafted up from the little gashes his teeth had made, making his mouth water so much he almost gave in and devoured the sandwich right then.
But no, he reminded himself, he couldn’t let himself get caught. Shifters were hot commodity pets on the black market, and he wasn’t about to let that become his life.
Instead, Jason clambered up the side of the basket, dragging the sandwich with him. His ascent wasn’t as stealthy as his entry, given that he was dragging a crinkly-wrapped sandwich about the size of himself.
“What’s that sound?” the man said suddenly.
Clinging to the wall of the basket, Jason froze. Maybe if he held really still—
“I think it’s coming from the basket,” the woman said, clearly confused.
The basket rattled, and Jason was knocked from the wall as the buckle was unfastened. He landed on top of the sandwich, leaving tiny pawprints in the soft bread, and found himself staring into a wide pair of blue eyes.
“Oh.” The man blinked.
Jason blinked back, then snapped from the daze. He seized the bag again, rushed up the basket, and threw himself into the grass. He didn’t look back, racing for the treeline with his ill-gotten sandwich.
Jason hopped happily. He was so close to his burrow and his feast!
A shadow swooped overhead, and Jason’s blood went cold. For a split second, he thought it was a hawk about to swoop down and eat him. Then the shadow landed just in front of him and turned around, standing firmly in his path.
Oh.
One of them was a shifter.
Dammit.
Jason cut a glance behind him and found the man sitting alone on the picnic blanket, meaning the giant panther now standing between him and safety was the lady who’d been with him.
Jason hissed angrily. This was his sandwich! He’d stolen it fair and square!
Jason war danced angrily, hopping at her with his tail up to intimidate her. She didn’t look intimidated, just as amused as a giant cat can look, but ha! She wasn’t expecting it when he dashed around her at the last second and made a wild break for the—
Huge jaws snatched Jason out of the air mid-stride. Jason squeaked in terror, almost dropping the sandwich. Was she going to eat him? It was just a sandwich!
Instead of eating him, at least right away, the woman carried him back toward the picnic blanket. Jason tried to squirm out of her giant teeth to no avail, she had him well and truly caught. Turning back into a boy would be a bad choice—the odds were fifty-fifty on whether his rapidly expanding form would make her drop him before he impaled himself on her giant teeth.
The man laughed as she brought him over. “What did the cat drag in?”
The panther dropped him on the blanket. Jason dropped the sandwich and made a mad dash for freedom, but she squished him into the red and white checked fabric before he could get off the blanket. He hissed angrily, but she didn’t care.
“Give him here,” the man said, gently wrapping a hand around Jason’s whole torso.
The panther lifted her paw and shifted back into a beautiful woman. “He’s a shifter.”
Jason stuck his tongue out at the pair of them. It wasn’t a ferret behavior, but it was human enough that they would understand.
“Feisty,” the man commented.
His lady friend laughed, poking Jason’s cheek with a long, pointed nail. Even in her human form, the lady had claws.
“Go on, shift back,” she teased.
He would never! She couldn’t control Jason, even with the threats of death and violence posed by her massive panther form!
“I’ll give you a cookie if you shift back.”
Cookie?
Jason hesitated, but when the man set him down on the blanket, he shifted back into his boy form. It would probably be easier to make a break for it like this. People might call the police if a panther was seen eating a small child.
He looked warily at the cat woman, holding out his hand.
She grinned and pulled a small baggie of cookies out of the picnic basket. Technically, she had said a cookie, but also technically she had given them all to him, so they were his and she couldn’t take them.
Jason ripped open the bag and started stuff the cookies in his mouth, filling the gnawing pit in his stomach. They were good cookies, but he cared more about how many he could eat before they were taken away.
Neither of his captors tried to take their cookies back from them, which worked out for everyone since that so wasn’t happening.
“Where are your parents?” the man asked at last.
Jason was about to turn and snap at the guy for being nosy, but the man had unwrapped Jason’s stolen sandwich and was already passing it to Jason. Fair’s fair. Jason knew how trades worked, and if he wanted to keep getting bribes, he needed to pay up.
Jason shoved the rest of the cookies into his hoodie pocket and started scoffing down the sandwich instead.
“They’re dead,” he mumbled around a huge bite.
The woman inclined her head curiously. “What have you been doing?”
Jason gestured vaguely around the park and took another bite of the sandwich. He had to chew a few times before swallowing, and even then he nearly choked. Reluctantly, he started taking smaller bites.
“This works better normally. Most people aren’t panthers.” Jason felt like that was a too many questions for just one sandwich, so he held out his hand. “Can I have the apple? I already bit it.”
The woman put the apple in his outstretched hands, and Jason quickly polished it off. She chuckled at him, which was rude. Jason didn’t call her on it because he was still eating and because he was hoping she would give him some more.
The man already had the second sandwich held out by the time he finished the apple. Jason wasn’t sure he could finish it now that he’d eaten so much other stuff, so he stuffed it in his hoodie pocket with his leftover cookies.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
Jason squinted at the two of them. He really felt like he recognized them, but he just couldn’t put his finger on where he’d seen them before.
“You first,” Jason demanded.
The woman leaned dramatically onto the man’s shoulder, practically purring. “I’m Selina, and this is Bruce.”
Jason’s eyes widened. Oh. That was where he’d seen them before. Everywhere. The news channels, the papers, the front covers of gossip magazines in gas stations.
Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne, the newlywed power couple of Gotham.
Jason swallowed hard. They had power and pull in this city. If they decided they wanted to do something to him, they’d get away with it. The right bribe in the right place could buy anything in this city.
“I—I should go.” Jason scrambled to his feet, almost falling over. He wasn’t used to being this big anymore.
Selina stood too, but Bruce stayed sitting. There was something deliberate about it, something that just screamed that Bruce Wayne knew he was intimidating and was doing his best to not be seen that way. All that proved was that Bruce was super big, strong, and smart enough to try to manipulate how Jason felt.
“You didn’t tell us your name,” Selina said.
They had given him the second sandwich and their own names. Fair enough.
“I’m Jason,” he said. “Can I go now?”
Selina pursed her lips in a sad smile. “You got a home to go to, kid?”
Jason shrugged. “I’m fine here.”
“Come with us,” Selina said.
Jason shook his head.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Bruce Wayne, the noted body building billionaire piped up. That was probably code for we’re going to hurt you a lot.
“Besides,” Selina added. “Wriggly kid like you, I bet you could escape at any time.”
“I’m not getting into some stranger’s car! Have you heard about stranger danger and—”
“You can pick dinner,” Bruce offered.
“Deal.” Jason blinked in surprise at his own answer; he hadn’t meant to say it, but he wasn’t about to take it back when food was on the line.
They seemed just as surprised by his about face on the matter, but their surprise quickly turned to pleasant amusement. Bruce quickly packed up the picnic as Selina led the way back to their car.
Selina’s hand touched his shoulder, and her jerked, staring up at her with wide, suspicious eyes.
She smiled, but it was a weak thing. “It’s okay kid. We’re not going to hurt you. You’ll be safe.”
Jason considered her words. He shrugged. “Just wait till after dinner. I’m hungry.”
Jason would find a way to escape quickly enough. Worse came to worse, he could always shrink down and hide in their house for a few days. They would never find him if he put his mind to it.
He could probably live the rest of his life like that, hiding in the vents and sneaking out for food and nesting material. Jason had to laugh at the idea. That would be really funny, actually.
Selina might be able to sniff him out, but she was a very big cat, and he was a very little ferret. He liked his odds.