More sniffling, and then the person whimpered. Madison could tell it was a girl, and she was naked and curled up in a fetal position inside the cage. There was something odd about her mouth. Madison's echolocation could actually pick up find detail at this close of range, and she thought it looked like tape over her mouth. Her hands were behind her where Madison couldn't detect them, but there were manacles of some kind on her feet.

"Oh my God!" Madison shouted. She reached out with her sonar but didn't find anyone else near by.

"I'LL get you out of there," she said, almost terrified out of her mind. The cage was suspended too high for her to reach in easily, but she was able to get a foot up on part of the frame and get a hand inside. She just barely reached the tape over the girls mouth.

“I'm going to take this off quickly and it's probably going to hurt, okay?" She felt like an idiot for asking a question. The girl couldn't answer. But the girl did answer, nodding feverishly. Madison pulled the tape away, raking her arm across the flat bars of the cage and cutting it open.

"Please," the girl whispered, her voice filled with a dread that Madison could barely comprehend.

"Please get me out of here before it comes back. Please?!"

"I'm going to call the cops, but don't worry," Madison said.

"I won't leave you." She wouldn't be much good to the girl, kickboxing and self-defense lessons aside. But the girl was scared, so Madison would do whatever she could. She pulled out her phone and felt the numbers, quickly dialing 911. She let out a stream of panicked babble to the dispatcher who, bless her soul, helped calm Madison down. It took a minute, but soon there were campus cops converging on her location. The Four Corners Police Department actually had more rigorous standards than other police agencies because of the university's unique needs, so these cops were the epitome of professionalism.

"What the hell?!" a cop said, the first to arrive on the scene.

Madison had her hand in the cage, providing some comforting physical contact with the girl to let her know someone was still with her.

She'd kept talking too as she waited for help to arrive.

"She was here," Madison practically sobbed, "and I couldn't get her out and --" She started babbling, but had enough presence of mind to not blow her secret. She said she'd bumped into the cage where it was supposed to be, heard the girl's muffled cries and then worked on feel after calling the cops. Everyone was so freaked out that the notion that a blind girl could have done what she had done didn't seem far fetched. She was genuinely scared and babbling, so their protective instincts took over.

"Shh," the man said, helping her down. He noticed her bloodied arm and sent her over to the arriving ambulance while he and the other officers tried to figure out how to get the girl down. They took a bunch of pictures while waiting to get some cutting tools and a crane to lower the cage. When they finally got her out, they found that her hands were manacled behind her back. The poor girl was traumatized, but she asked if the girl who had found her would go with her in the ambulance. She was afraid, and didn't want to be alone again.

"Please," the girl said as they put her on a gurney, “don't let it find me. So cold," she whispered.

“It was so cold." Then, finally safe, she allowed herself to pass out. Madison didn't know what to do except hold her hand and wonder what the hell this all meant.

Heda really wasn't sure how she felt about making a trip into the woods after the weeks events. Word of what had happened . . . a girl being found in a hanging cage . . . had spread like wildfire the next day, and it was making play in the local media. The shifters generally liked to keep weird things under wraps, but there was no helping it this time. The girl, a horse shifter, was still traumatized and hadn't been able to tell the cops anything yet, or at least nothing that had not been officially released. The only thing that people knew was that she had been apparently held for several days before getting left in that hanging cage. It was the kind of thing that they had stuck thieves and other criminals in way back in the day. No one was sure why the perp had let the girl live, or how he or she had managed to put the cage there without anyone noticing.

It had finally been decided that it would probably be just as safe for the shifters go out in large groups as it would be to hole up in their rooms in smaller groups or alone, so Joanna had finally convinced a bunch of students to actually have a shifting party.

Volleyball practice had been canceled that week due to the incident, meaning that Heda really needed a physical outlet. She wasn't the kind of girl who liked just sitting around like a couch potato, unless she was into a really good book. Even then, she'd rather hike somewhere in the mountains for an hour and then sit on a log next to some running water and read until she was almost out of light. So she had allowed Joanna to talk her into this outing, even though Anthony was going to be there. She should probably just admit to him that she was gay and put him out of his misery, though she suspected he might try the "But maybe you just haven't met the right guy yet" crap. Still, it was fun to play with him, and being focused on her gave the other freshmen girls a bit of a breather. Most of them didn't want a break from the gorgeousness that was Anthony Valentine, but they were getting it anyway.

They had taken about four cars to get everyone out there, with Joanna and Anthony calling in every friend they had as well as some people who just wanted to be friends. Everyone was a little creeped out, but tensions were eased as the changelings got deeper into the woods. They reached a clearing that was off limits to most people, but every shifter on campus had a special sticker on their student ID that acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card if one of the rangers came by.

Heda climbed out of her jeep and looked around, shivering in delight as a cool evening breeze stroked the mountainside like a familiar lover, sliding past the people into every crevasse. She could almost hear the mountain sigh beneath that touch. The sun was still up in the low in the sky, bathing everything in a pleasant glow.

"I'd like to get touched like that,' she thought briefly. She hadn't gotten laid since that hot blond in Amsterdam. She grinned at the weirdness of it. In high school, she'd never thought that she would be as amorous as she had become, starting shortly before her year in Europe. Hell, she'd been shy bordering on comatose until her body filled out in some places and trimmed down in others, making all the boys sit up and take notice. Now, she thought about sex more often than the guys did, and that was saying something.

Joanna jumped out of the passenger side, as did two guys in the backseat whose names Heda couldn't remember.

“I am SO needing this!" she said. She smiled sweetly at the driver.

"So, would you Like to come over here and kiss my royal feet now while I still have feet?

You'll be needing the practice."

“Laugh it up," Heda replied with a laugh.

“Ain't no WAY you're going to out-hunt me." On the drive up, the four shifters had gotten into a spirited discussion about hunting prowess, and Joanna had made the bold claim that snakes were the best mousers on the planet. Heda had laughed in her pretty face. She could spot a rodent a mile away and get there before any snake could finish telling itself how pretty it looked and even started to hunt. The guys in the back seat had egged them on, seeing as both of their animals (a giant panda and a bullfrog) weren't exactly the type to chase mice or rats to ground.

Finally, a wager had been made. First one to catch a rodent and bring it back to the car was the winner, and the loser was their slave for a day. Joanna had made jokes about having someone rub her feet and do her laundry. Heda had dropped many sexual innuendos that she knew she would never enforce. Joanna was a flirt and not above a little teasing play, but she was straight. Still, teasing her was part of the fun.

Joanna looked around at the people who'd come with them.

“Okay all, if you're a shifter that needs or wants the water, there's a lake just a hundred yards down Bear Paw trail. It should be warm enough for everyone, but make sure to remind me to tell everyone where the heated pools are so you'll have a place to go once winter rolls around. Stay in groups," she told them.