The Shift

By Genevieve Scholl

Nothing about me is normal...

...but what exactly is ‘normal’? Just because I have two dads and no mom, my name is Elliot Marcus Smith even though I’m a girl, and I was born from a test tube...
Does that mean I’m ‘abnormal’?

I say no.

But the sudden abilities that have been appearing since I turned eighteen sure do. Wounds are healing quickly, my vision has changed, as has my strength, and my sensitivities to other people’s emotions have become severely heightened. Add all that to the fact that I have been forgetting moments of my day as if they never happened, and it’s obvious that something strange is happening to me.

But what? What am I becoming?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Genevieve Scholl
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310798498

Book preview

Part One

CHAPTER ONE

I leave in two weeks, and I’m terrified. Terrified of this major change in my life, of meeting new people, of moving on into adulthood. I’m so used to nights alone (except the occasional late night pizza party with the neighbor). I’m not exactly an introvert. I can go out and be among people, but I avoid it at all costs. My hands shake, I sweat, and being in crowds makes me sick to my stomach. I try to blend in to the background, but when a person is as well-known as I am, that’s not always possible. My full name is Elliot Marcus Smith, but, being a girl, I go by Elli. I wouldn’t change my name for anything, because it has meaning. Very few know my true, given name. But that is okay, because it makes it more special. Elliot and Marcus were my grandfathers—one set of two—and, although I never had the privilege to meet them, I feel honored to share their names. I hope they would have been proud of me, were they still alive. Even though I often feel like a freak, I’d like to think the men whose names I was graced with would have loved me and supported me in everything I set out to accomplish.

Why am I a freak?

I am the first successful test tube baby, born with a man-made egg and both of my fathers’ DNA. I won’t bore you with the details, but my fathers told me everything about my creation. It’s all very scientific, and, to me, it is extremely fascinating. But I know others aren’t as interested in science as I am, so I try not to talk about it too often. Of course, if anyone is really interested, the details are all over the internet, because it was hugely publicized when I had been successfully born; and each time a big milestone birthday comes, there’s usually an article in the newspaper about how I’ve cheated death. I guess, statistically, I should have died before I ever turned one year of age. Showed them!

Anyway, regardless of how I was made, I’m my fathers’ daughter and I don’t love them any less. I may have been born out of a test tube, but I was raised out of love. To me, that is most important for any child. I don’t know how I will cope without them coming into my room to see me off to school each morning. Instead of waking up to a house filled with the smell of bacon and coffee, and my father’s light singing as he prepares breakfast, I will be waking up in a dorm room … a dark, lonely bedroom with only the sunshine to greet me.

College is not only education on a whole new level—which I’ve never been good at—but life as well. I’m not one to engage strangers in conversation, attend parties, or be social in any way. My two dads had paid extra to get me a single dorm room. I’ll still have roommates, two of which I have already met via Facebook, but we are each going to have our own bedroom—our own sanctuary.

That is important to me. I need a safe place; a place to escape when the world gets to be too much. And it needs to be secure and private, so I can do whatever I need to do to calm myself down when I am overwhelmed. Not having that would have been a deal-breaker for the case for college, and my dads understood that.

Because they understand me.

They’re the best parents in the world, and although I envy other girls sometimes for their mother-daughter bond, I wouldn’t trade my dads for anything.

A knock sounds on my door as I am packing a suitcase full with cold weather clothing. Come in, I say as I move back to my walk-in closet to ponder over which shoes I plan to bring with me to campus. Dad number one, Jarod, walks in and raises his dust-blond eyebrows at the packed boxes stacked inside my room, but says nothing. Hi, Dad, I greet as I re-enter the room and shut off the light inside the closet.

He smiles, teeth shining against the backdrop of his sun-kissed face. Hi, pumpkin. We embrace. I just wanted to let you know that your dad and I are headed to work.

Okay. Have a good day.

He nods. Are you sure you’re going to be alright here by yourself?

I sigh; this is the third time he’s asked that question since breakfast. Yes, Dad. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to be in my room, packing and reading. All the doors and windows will be shut and locked, I won’t answer the doorbell to anyone I don’t know, there’s plenty of food in the house, and if there are any problems, I’ll call Mrs. Handle next door.

Dad holds up his hands. Alright, alright. I’m sorry. I know you can take care of yourself, sweetie; I just worry about you.

Placing the powder blue sweater I just folded down on the mauve bedspread, I move to embrace my father once more. I know, Daddy, but nothing’s going to happen and we’ll probably text each other all day, like always.

He pulls back from the hug. Of course we will, he confirms, pushing a strand of my black hair behind my ear. Smiling, I look into his eyes and see more sadness than I ever have. My baby girl is becoming independent… He pauses. I don’t like it.

I laugh, trying to lighten the mood, even though I feel horrible for causing such sadness in my father’s heart. I’ll always be your little girl, Daddy, I say, trying to reassure him.

What am I; chopped liver? Dad number two, Chris, quips as he walks into the room to join us.

With another smile, I hug him just like I had my other dad. He kisses the top of my head as he tightens his hold on me, and I stay silent for a moment as I listen to his heart beat in his chest. When I was a baby, it had been a soothing sound for me, and that had never changed. Being engulfed in his embrace, long arms wrapped around my back, always calmed me after an anxiety attack or nightmare.

I’ll always be your little girl, too, I tell him before pulling back my cheek from where it rests against his blue and white striped button-down shirt. Both of you mean the world to me, and that will never change. I love you both, so much.

They both hug me again. We love you, too, baby girl, Chris says for the both of them.

Good. Now, get to work so you can spoil me.

They both chuckle and kiss me on the cheek.

Jarod stops as he is walking out my bedroom door. Oh. I’m taking your car in on the way to the office for an inspection, and your father will pick it up on his way home. He tosses me a set of keys. In case you have to go anywhere, use the truck.

I nod and they both leave, shutting the door behind them. Once I hear them leave through the front door, I move back to my closet and continue packing everything I think I’m going to need or want while I am attending my first semester. Grabbing two pairs of heeled sandals and one dress, in case I have to attend any professional meetings, I walk back to my bed and add some more clothes to the pile. My cell phone chimes with a text message, and I lift it off the nightstand, sitting down comfortably to read it. It’s from The National Weather Service, alerting me to a storm that is heading into Pennsylvania from the west. Knowing that even with the windows locked, storms tended to blow them open when they got violent enough, I desert my packing and begin the grueling task of closing up the shutters around the house. It won’t be enough defense against the winds we get, but it will have to do. I’m not about to go around and nail boards to each window by myself. I know I could call Noah next door and have him help, but I know he’s not home. He left first thing this morning for work, and wouldn’t be home until early evening, like always.

Once they are all closed, the house is plunged in darkness. Turning on lamps as I go, I move to the kitchen and grab the flashlight from the emergency drawer in case the electricity goes out during the storm. After checking the batteries, and grabbing extras incase these die, I snag a bag of potato chips to bring back to my bedroom. I really hope the electricity stays on, because I’ve always hated the dark, even though I can see better than most without the help of lights. Thankfully, my e-reader is always charged, so at least I’ll have something to do in the event of a black-out.

Back in my room, I set the chips down on my dresser and decide I better get my shower in before the storm hits. After getting undressed, I walk into the bathroom attached to my room and immediately shy away from the full length mirror. I’ve always hated that thing, because I don’t like being reminded of the way I look. I’m not exactly ugly, in my opinion, though my pear shaped figure isn’t entirely flattering. But I am more … handsome than most women. Since I had no female influence during my creation, I had been pumped full of artificial estrogen to make up for the level of testosterone I received from both of my fathers. And while that helped, my looks still verge on being called masculine. My long, smooth, black hair and long lashes help, but a defined jawline, high cheekbones, and muscular limbs are hard to ignore. If not for the small breasts protruding from my chest and the uninvited visitor every month, even I would have a hard time believing I was truly female. At the young age of nineteen, I look as if I could pass for thirty, and that only adds to my hardened looks.

Disgusted with myself, I toss a towel over the mirror’s surface. I shake my head to rid it of those daily thoughts, wishing, like always, that I were more attractive, and then climb into the shower. Forgoing any shaving for the time being, I quickly wash up and get out. As I wrap myself in a towel, I begin to hear the rumble of the thunder in the distance.

After getting dressed and grabbing a bottle of water to go with my potato chips from the mini-fridge in my bedroom, I sit down on my lounge chair and look through the list of books I have to read on my e-reader. Most of them are romances, but, for some reason, today, I feel as if I’m being drawn to the paranormal I grabbed a few weeks ago when it was free. I’m not usually into the whole man into animal craze, but something about the cover is calling out to me, so I settle in and wait for the storm to pass as I read.

***

I have no idea how I got here. The rain is pouring down in sheets, drenching my body in coldness. It’s hard to move, but I know I have to find shelter or I’ll get hypothermia. Slowly, I lift myself off the ground and will my legs to move. I can feel the panic rising in my chest; my heart thumping as fast as hummingbird wings. But I have to focus on the task at hand, so I push that feeling down deep until I can allow my mind to comprehend that I have woken up in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the afternoon, with no recollection of ever leaving the house. The last thing I remember is reading the shape shifter story on my device and…

I had fallen asleep at some point. Is this all a dream?

A chill runs through me, and I realize that it must be real; the weather feels all too real.

But how had I gone from sleeping in my chair to waking up in a forest? And where exactly am I? Could I even find my way home if I tried?

Wrapping my arms around my chest, trying to keep my internal body heat from seeping out, I continue to trudge through the weeds covering the ground. No other civilization can be seen among the trees, but I push myself to move forward past the doubts swarming inside my head. I’m sure I’ll find some kind of building soon.

As I step over a fallen tree, pain shoots through my leg and I double over with a scream. After a few deep breaths, I look down at my leg and realize I’m bleeding. My thigh is ripped open wide—so wide that I wonder why I hadn’t felt it sooner. Muscles are exposed. Tendons are ripped. Blood is pooled within the gap, creating a gruesome river of body fluids down my leg. What the hell happened to me?

A scream erupts from my throat as excruciating pain rips through the wound. With clenched teeth, I force myself to move so I can press my hands against the cut and hopefully stop the bleeding. But before I can even touch my skin, my eyes watch in amazement and terror as the wound begins to heal; and before long, the entire gash is sealed and the pain stops.

CHAPTER TWO

Two Weeks Later…

I never did find out what happened to me, so I decided it was a weird, psychotic episode … a hallucination. I had never left my house, I was never in that forest, and my leg had never been cut. It was all in my head. A dream from reading the paranormal book on my e-reader. A side effect of too much junk food. And it is all behind me now.

Because it is time for me to focus on college and my future. And I am going to need all the strength I can muster for when I have to drive away from my fathers. I know we’ll talk every single day, but the thought of being away from them for longer than the six hours a day I had in High School kills me. I don’t know who I am without those two men at the breakfast table. But I guess college is the time to find out. Doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

Car’s all packed, Dad, Jarod, announces as he walks back into the