1. Freedom
Sam edged closer to the door. Her chest ached from holding her breath quiet, but she was scared enough that it was only registered as a tiny part of the mix of her current emotions. Fear mostly. Anger. Confusion. Hate. More fear. She edged another step, freezing as the floorboard beneath her creaked softly. Every sense was on end. Sam let out a steady breath as she heard no other sound, continuing to the door. Once she was out and on the darkened landing she felt a little more confident. Down the stairs she crept, terrified of waking him. Waking him and being caught. Again. Her left hand found her right shoulder, held it and winced. She knew it was purple, black and swollen, having been dislocated twice in the last week by his cruel hands.
Somehow, somehow, she made it to the front door and opened it. Scared sick at the sound the click made, her fear amplifying the small sound into a deafening racket. She froze again, waiting for the shifting in the bed upstairs, to hear the sound of his feet shuffling, then his muffled roar of rage as he found her empty bindings. But it never came. She reached down and fumbled gently in the dark, groping for some shoes - any shoes - and grabbed them without looking. She pulled a dark coat off the peg and wasting no more time, she fled quietly out the door. She paused in the yard to look up at the darkened house, expecting to see a light click on, but it remained black. Sam roughly pulled on the coat over the ragged t-shirt and panties she was kept in, and shoved her feet into the too big shoes. Then she ran and she did not look back.
She ran down the dark road lined with big trees and frost, no moon tonight, so no shadows, no glint of light that could give her away. And as she ran, she shifted. God it was painful, especially her shoulder, especially while moving, but now was the time to do it, and she was not going to stop. Her appearance gradually took that of her captor's. Her feet swelled until they fit the shoes she had been stumbling in, her shoulder screamed as it filled in the jacket so it no longer hung off her. Big, brawny hands replaced hers, with a sprinkling of dark, wiry hair on the backs. She tried not to look, but she was grateful when she realized her stride had lengthened as she had taken on his huge ones, which got her further away with every second.
Her breath came in hoarse gasps as the final shift changed her face to have a large hook of a nose, dark beady eyes and a turned in mouth with two front teeth missing and a scar down the left cheek that ran into the corner of the mouth. She loathed taking on his form, but as she gasped for breath and kept running, she knew it was a necessity, that the big shoes would have slowed her, that she was too small to take the big strides needed to get away faster.
STOP! A light appeared in front of her, a car coming toward her. She quickly ducked into the dark trees on the side, stepping into the protection it could provide her. The car rumbled past without slowing and Sam gulped deep breaths of gratitude, waves of relief pouring off her. After taking deep, trembling breaths, she resumed her running until she could run no more.
Sam had turned off the road miles ago now, turning deep into the forest, and had spent the last half hour laying three false trails. Now, hunched over and breathing hard, gasping breaths under the cover of a large spruce tree, Sam shifted back into the shape she had been born into. Her own pale, straw-coloured hair appeared, lengthening to just past her shoulders, tangled and matted, lank and dirty. Her own small nose appeared, the harsh beady eyes lightened to almond shaped green orbs and her heart shaped face replaced the man's square one. Suddenly she was swamped in the big jacket again and her feet loose in the big boots. Now that the adrenalin was fading, Sam started shivering in shock. She had made it!
So far
, she amended in her head, trying not to get her hopes up too much. To get her mind off the cold and the situation, she resumed her escape, this time at a fast walk, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as she tried to catch her breath.
With her breath fogging in front of her face and lungs burning, Sam inhaled what she thought of as freedom. Too long had she been held against her will in the dark old house. Too long had she been made to pretend she was something other than herself. Shifting after all this time had felt liberating, and it felt especially rebellious that she'd shifted into her tormentor's shape. She stifled a dark chuckle as she remembered that his penis had felt very small inside her pants when the change had been complete. It was so tiny that her cotton underpants hadn't even stretched too much. Sam let the chuckle bubble out into a giggle, and then into stifled laughter. God it felt good to be rid of him. It felt good to want to laugh, no matter how serious her situation was.
She was a shifter. It meant that she could change her appearance to be anyone she touched, right down to the last freckle. There were quite a few shifters in the world since the Reveal, but she was one of the rarest kinds. She could also shift into animals. No one else knew that, not even her captor, and it was a secret she knew she needed to keep. She also needed to find shelter before daybreak came. The thought subdued her once more and clutching her shoulder, she hurried forward in the direction she knew a highway to be, farther enough away that he wouldn't think to look there. Sam knew her path would be quicker if she shifted into a wolf, but she wanted to keep her clothes.
She paused a moment in the dark woods and had a think. The wolf she'd touched had been a big black fellow, surely big enough to carry a jacket with shoes and shirt in his mouth. Quickly now, she stripped off until she was naked and shivering, her nipples puckered and standing painfully erect in the cold, the swell of her ample breasts quivering, her shoulder throbbing. Her waist narrowed in delicately and curved into soft hips and rear. Large purple and yellow patches littered her skin - new and old bruises, healing scabs and several cigarette butt burns. She knew she was painfully thin. Shivering and feeling much too exposed, Sam quickly packed all the clothes into the jacket and tied them off with the sleeves. Task complete, she fell onto all fours, exposing her nether lips to the cold for the first time. It sent a tingle through her as her legs spread a little to aid her transformation. Her shoulder stabbed at her, but she pushed it out of her consciousness.
Closing her eyes, she focused on the big, black wolf and felt the change begin. First her shoulders prickled with hair sprouting, and she fell onto her elbows clenching her teeth, a sharp gasp as her hard nipples delved into the snow, her arms shortening into legs. Sam took her last breath from a human mouth as it elongated into a snout and her sense of smell suddenly heightened exponentially. She felt her pussy close over and a large male organ take its place where her belly had been. A tail sprouted, her hackles grew and she was changed. Taking a moment to revel in the wolf's shape, Sam howled joyfully and ran about in a small circle, the change as natural to her as flying was to an eagle. Recovering her senses, she sniffed carefully, her lip curling back at the jacket's scent - the stench of her torturer strong in the wolf's sensitive nose - and distastefully took it in her strong jaws. Then she started running.
Ignoring the jacket's taste, the speed started to exhilarate her as she tore through the woods, dark as the night around her. She tested her paws as she leaped over a fallen tree effortlessly. A suppressed giggle burst from her, but came out as a wolfy growl. Sam pricked her ears at the sound in surprise. Her tongue lolled out in a grin as she gamboled to and fro effortlessly. After a while, she settled into a good pace and knew she was making exceptional time, faster than any human form she could have taken. He would never guess that she could reach this far - not as a human - and he did not know she could take animal form. He never would.
Her wolf lips curled back again, this time in a snarl, her teeth gnashing on the bundle of clothes as she thought of
him
. Earl Rutherford. The reason her shoulder ached, now greatly lessened in this wolf shape. Just a twinge as she raced forward, only letting her pace dwindle as her sharp wolf ears let her know the highway was close. Her keen nose lowered to the ground as her pace dropped from a lope to a swinging walk, hackles raised. Reassured all was well, Sam relaxed and allowed herself to shift straight into another shape, not her own, but not Rutherford's either. All of a sudden she was a middle-aged woman with soft brown hair, dark eyes and a rose bud mouth. Her rounded shape suggested that she had borne children, and her worry lines about her eyes suggested strained living.
It was Sam's mother's shape. She took it when she felt most lonely, most desperate for the gentle woman who was no longer on this earth. It was the only way she could feel close to her. It would also be the most non-threatening, non-memorable shape to take when hitching for a ride this time of the night. Quickly now, Sam pulled on the only clothes she had, pulling the long coat around her and belting it. She bent to tie the too-large boots onto her feet, her heart skipping as she saw her mother's birth mark - the sun shaped mark - on her left inner calf. She took a second to touch it and spared a thought for her gentle mother. Tears blurred her eyes for a moment as she remembered her swift passing, but she grew resolute, swiped them away and stood. The wolf ears had told her that a truck would be approaching soon. They did not let her down.
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