June easily caught Brendan before he could hit the ground and make a suspicious thump. She hadn’t expected fainting. Was she that frightening? She debated how to let him wake up. If he opened his mouth to scream she could always cover his mouth, but that might have other negative effects; she remembered Michael Lark turning his pants brown and didn’t want Brendan to lose control like that.

In the end she Shifted back to human form and quickly dressed before Brendan regained consciousness. She’d just gotten the hoodie on when she heard him stir. She was above him when his eyes opened.

“June! Am I on the floor? Oh no—go get my parents—I think I ate something real bad, something with fungus—or—or botulism in it. I just hallucinated something fierce! You turned into a monster, but the you-monster knew my name, and now I’m on the floor. I think I need a hospital—”

“Brendan, stop!” she broke in. "Listen to me and don’t scream. I repeat, do not scream. You don’t need to go to the hospital. You aren’t hallucinating. Do you remember I told you I was going to show you something?”

He nodded slowly.

“There is nothing wrong with you. What you saw—it’s me. No hallucination. Just me.”

He looked intently at her but his breathing sounded shallow.

“Keep taking deep breaths, okay? It’s me, June, your best friend. I’m not going to hurt you; I would never hurt you. You’re the only person I can trust.”

June tried to read the emotion on his pale face and worried he was going to vomit. She reached for his trash can. Nothing had changed in the room. The bunk bed was still in the corner. The room still smelled like Brendan: the cologne he wore too much of, the slightly sour odor of teenage boy, and the musty scent of books from the overflowing bookshelf. Nearly every horizontal surface in the room held a stack of books too; only on his desk was there a small clear space so he could sit and actually do homework. The walls were plastered with posters, most of them crooked since Brendan had put them up himself. The only level poster in the room was the one June had helped him with—a movie poster for The Return of the King.

She smiled at the memories they had made in this room. Many gloating victory dances over chess occurred here (usually June’s, but every now and then Brendan could surprise her). Hours of studying and homework had been done here together. Hopes and dreams for the future had been shared here. It was the closest thing June had to a safe place since Cordelia couldn’t just walk in.

But June’s smile sank. Would things still be the same, or would Brendan be afraid of her, treat her differently? She could see it now: walking the hallways at school alone, all of her classes sitting alone. Weekends spent alone, or worse, with Cordelia. She had her studies, and a whole lot to learn about cats. She could do that alone. She could try to make new friends, but no one else had Brendan's intelligence, or his kindness. No one else looked at her the same way he did. Would he think she needed to be “cured” too?

As she watched him, his eyes suddenly filled with an emotion June could read: excitement. He shot to his feet. “June! This is epic! Let’s go! You have powers!” He practically bounced. “I knew you were special—but this—just—I can’t believe it!” He started spinning in circles like a puppy.

June exhaled with relief so deep it felt like she had shrugged off a heavy winter coat. Her cheeks were warm.

Brendan jerked to a halt. “Can you bite me and make me a werewolf too?”

“I’m not a werewolf!” June wrinkled her nose. “Werewolves probably don’t exist—er, not as you think of them, they’re just Shifters too but—

“Shifters?” Brendan interrupted.

“Didn’t you see me? I’m a cat! And I can change—well, we call it Shifting, hence Shifters— anytime I want. No full moon required.”

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“A cat? But your teeth, and your jaw shape—” He stopped and tilted his head. “Yeah, I guess a cat is the closest animal. So can you turn me into a cat-thing too?” He brought his hands together in a pleading, praying gesture. “It’s okay if you need to bite me. You can drink my blood, just don’t drain me.”

“It doesn’t work like that!” June objected. “It’s genetic, sort of.”

“Oh,” Brendan said with obvious disappointment. “You’re born with it then?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Darn. So do you, uh, do you have to eat people to survive?”

June frowned and narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s what you go to? All the questions in the world, and you want to know if I eat people?”

He shrugged as if it were a routine and normal question.

“No, Brendan, I don’t have to eat people to survive. But I do have to eat—” She stopped herself, feeling embarrassment stab at her insides. She didn’t want to tell Brendan that the June he knew would probably swell to twice her size soon.

“You have to eat what?” he prodded.

“A lot.” She looked down at her toes. “I have to eat a lot to support my body, especially when I’m Shifted.”

“Like pizza, or like animals.”

A hollow pit formed in June’s stomach. “Pizza,” she lied. Brendan was taking things well, but putting the thought in his head of her wolfing down some poor animal might push the boundaries to breaking.

“Yeah, makes sense,” he said while nodding. Then he raised an eyebrow at her. “So how long have you been keeping this from me?”

“Just since my birthday. It happens when you turn fifteen. It runs in my family, so it wasn’t a shock. Well, mine was sort of surprising because most people become whatever their Shifting parent is, and Cordelia is a big Eurasian Eagle Owl, so she’s—”

“Your mom turns into an owl, and you never told me!”

A knock at the door startled them both. June had been so focused on Brendan she’d never heard footsteps approaching. Brendan’s mom poked her head into the room. “Dinner in five minutes.” Buttons slipped into the room.

When Mrs. Todoroki had gone, June flopped onto the bottom bunk. “Shifting is supposed to be a big secret, and there isn’t really a good way to say, ‘Hey, my mom transforms into an owl the size of a bear.’”

“You could have trusted me with it,” Brendan said, sitting down next to her. “I’d die before I broke your trust.”

“I know,” June said. She knew he meant it. “But I did just tell you about me within like a day of it happening.” She put her hand on his hand.

Brendan’s ears went red and he opened his mouth but no words came out. He tried a second time and incoherent noise tumbled out. June tilted her head. I guess he’ll still act weird around me for a while, she thought. It’s a lot to take in.

Brendan took a deep breath, and a smirk twisted up one side of his mouth. “So, your mom is an owl and you’re a werecat?”

June fought back a grin. “You can just call me a cat.”

“Werecat it is,” Brendan said, still smirking. “You said you need my help?”

Buttons jumped up between them and loudly meowed in interruption. June heard him say, “Don’t tell him I understand humans. I’ll never hear the end of it.” Then the cat sat down in her lap and purred.

“He needs to know,” June said to Buttons. “Secrets haven’t worked out well today.” She looked up at Brendan, whose eyes were darting between her and Buttons, his forehead bunched up. “Yeah, I can talk to cats.”

“Really?” He sounded skeptical.

“You just saw me Shift and you think talking to cats is hard to believe?”

“Tell him he was reading Blimey! Detectives when you came to the window,” Buttons interjected.

“Buttons says you were reading Blimey! Detectives when I came to your window,” June said.

“Yeah, okay, but the book is sitting behind me on the bed,” Brendan replied. “And I know you’re observant.”

“Tell him I was slapping him in the face when you got here,” Buttons meowed. Then, as a grin spread across his furry face he said, “Or better yet, tell him that he looks at the picture of you that’s on his desk a lot.”

June laughed. Brendan was in that picture too wearing his Gandalf hoodie, the very hoodie she had on right now, and he was probably looking at it, not at her. She knew how much he loved Gandalf. “Okay, Buttons said he was slapping you in the face when I got here.”

Brendan angled his head at her. “Wait, can he understand me? All this time Buttons knew what I was saying, he just ignored me?”

“Yeah, most house pets understand us since they hear so much speaking,” June said. “They really are as stubborn as you’d think. But they can’t speak back to us in our language, they can only speak theirs.”

“Tell him that I hate the name Buttons too,” chimed in the cat. “It’s embarrassing and hardly suits me. My name should be something more regal.” He stuck his chin in the air, stood, and with his tail sharply pointed up, exposed his backside to Brendan.

June chuckled. “He also doesn’t like the name Buttons.”

Brendan looked at June and the cat with disbelief.

“Brendan, June, time for dinner!” yelled a voice from downstairs.

Brendan led the way, glaring at Buttons with narrow eyes as he passed the cat. Buttons walked beside June and continued to meow to her, and June let out an occasional giggle. Buttons had quite the sense of humor and a very colorful vocabulary.