Fox Life

For a little while, Iris bantered with Kyro over what he had done, but it didn't last long. Their conversation died down, and the reality of the situation reasserted itself.     

Iris looked out the window at the passing city and the unfamiliar streets. She didn't know where they were going, but she knew where she wanted to go. Well, it was a bit of a stretch to say that she wanted it. More like needed.     

"Sophie, I want to see my aunt."     

It was better to get through with everything before there was enough time to process all of it. Iris was afraid that it would turn her into something less than a human. Even the stray thoughts about what Tyler had mentioned threatened to break the wall she had built around her mind and flood it with all the thousand meanings his words lead to that she didn't want to know.     

"There's a problem with that. We don't know where she is," Sophie replied, turning back from the passenger seat with a frown. "She actually managed to lose our tracker."     

Kyro instantly raised his head, his cold eyes boring into her. "When?"     

"Yesterday mid-afternoon. We had eyes on her as instructed, but there was nothing strange for days. Yesterday, she went shopping and got rid of any tails before disappearing. Her apartment has been empty ever since."     

Her words were another nail in the coffin that was Iris' family. Whatever faint hope she had that Tyler had simply tried to shift blame, it evaporate at that moment. If her aunt had been a normal person, she wouldn't have been able to tell that she was being followed, let alone gotten rid of the person.     

"Why are you only telling it now?" Kyro asked.     

"She could've returned, and we reported it to Mr. Mosley. You didn't ask." There was a challenge in Sophie's voice, and a bit of derision that Iris didn't like, but she had bigger problems than a helper with an attitude.     

Who was her aunt really? Why had she spent so many years bringing her up if she was just an experiment? A fissure slowly cracked open in Iris' heart, and it was growing wider with every unanswered question. There was no pain, just an abyss of apathy and darkness.     

'Is it because I'm a monster? Was Tyler right, does the world itself want me to lose?' Iris tried to push away such defeatist thoughts, but they had more strength than ever before. Facing them was like fighting against giants with bare hands.     

Iris blinked to avoid breaking down right there and then and picked up her phone. While Kyro spoke with Sophie, she slid the screen left and right a few times, not wanting to open any of the apps. Why had she even thought a phone would distract her from the fact that her whole word was falling apart?     

Out of habit, she went to check her email. There was plenty of junk sent her way, but one mail caught her eye. It was title 'Goodbye'.     

It was sent from an unknown email address, but Iris could think of only one person who might do that. With a trembling heart, she clicked on the mail and opened it.     

Inside, there were only a few lines, and they were only the more hurtful for that.     

[If you had listened to me and lived a quiet life, everything could've stayed as it was, but it is too late for that now. You're the last fox and they won't let you go. I wish we could never meet again, but we will, and I will be on the opposite side then. Goodbye, my little niece.     

[P.S. The attachment is my last gift to you. Your mother was a magnificent woman, much better than I could ever be.]     

Barely seeing the screen through her blurry vision, Iris clicked on the attachment. There was someone speaking next to her, but she just shook her head, not ready to parse their words into sentences that would make sense.     

After a few moments of downloading, Iris was presented with a .docx file. The first page had a couple photos of what she thought was her mother. She was younger than Iris had ever seen her before.     

The first photo was of her playing with dolls while another of her first day in primary school, where she was dressed in a pretty pink dress and smiling like it was the best day of her life. The next couple photos were of her with friends and a golden retriever.     

In all of them, she was looking back at Iris with a sunny expression. Her black hair was usually put in a loose braid, and she dressed in bright, colorful dresses or skirts. She looked like a young princess that had no shadow marring her life.     

It was perfect opposite to what was on the second page. A young child with sandy-colored hair was cowering in a corner of a cell in one photo. In the next, he was older and standing before a group of sickly misfits in a defensive position. They looked like him, but one had dark splotches on his skin, another was as thin as a twig, with bones showing, while the last couldn't even stand up.     

The other photos were just as dark—empty walls, cell bars, and a bruised child. There was even one in which he was twisting about on a bed near a middle-aged man in a lab coat who held an empty syringe.     

Iris' heart throbbed at the contrast. These were her parents? She didn't know what to think. She'd known a few things, but to see her father like that was still a blow. How could he have even lasted long enough to grow up?     

When she scrolled to the next page, she saw another line of text. [This is from your mother's personal belongings that were collected after the incident.]     

In the next photo, her mother grinned at her with a fennec fox in her arms. The little creature seemed like it was annoyed, but was being docile and looking straight at the camera as requested.     

Its black beady eyes were such a familiar sight Iris couldn't stop herself. She enlarged the image and brushed her fingers over the two dark orbs and the small, frowning face.     

How many times had she seen that sight when she looked into her water bowl or a mirror? At that time, she thought she was the only freak like that, but here was her father, posing with her mother in his animal form.     

If he was alive, how many things could he have taught her? He would have certainly explained to her how to change when she was a child so she would never have to be stuck in her animal form for months. And maybe some other tricks too.     

It struck Iris then just how much she had lost. She returned the photo to its original size so she could see all of it once more. Her mother seemed to be a person with no tolerance for sadness while her father was a man of iron will. If they had lived, wouldn't she have had the best family there could be?     

But they didn't. Because of an accident or human interference, they had been gone for years. The only true family Iris had was her aunt, and now even she had abandoned her.