3. Flint

3

FLINT

A t noon, I leave Dominic with his thirty-seven murdered dolls to do a Zoom meeting in my music studio. A producer showed interest in Fated, but he wanted to talk to me before signing anything. The music room was a birthday gift from Dominic when we moved into the house. He had the walls outfitted with soundproofing foam and bought me a beautiful grand piano. This room used to be a second living room, so there's enough space for all my instruments. It makes me feel spoiled.

I hope I can sell more songs to justify the cost.

I get onto the Zoom call five minutes before noon and wait. I'm not too worried when he's five minutes late or even ten minutes late. Sometimes that can happen. But at fifteen minutes, I wonder if he changed his mind. Twenty minutes go by, and nothing. I wait until he's thirty minutes late, and then I give up.

Dominic said he had enough money for us to live on for another five years. Then his savings will be completely gone. Maybe I should start teaching music lessons in this room or something.

I wander upstairs to check on him. The murdered dolls are in an artistic heap on the right side of the bed—my side, of course. Dominic is standing on top of the bed, hanging a broken shard of a vinyl record from the ceiling. There are seven other shards already dangling over the bed like one of those mobiles people put over a crib. It actually looks kind of cool.

"I like it," I say. Mom told me to praise him from time to time.

Dominic smiles wide. "Thank you."

I leave him to it, checking in several more times. He does origami with the torn-up pieces of the posters and shreds the tote bags into streamers that he hangs next to the record pieces. The stuffies are not murdered like the dolls. At least not yet. They're thrown into a pile on top of our pillows.

I think that means they'll suffer the same fate as the pillows when he's about to lay his egg.

When I check in on him at four o'clock he isn't there. I assume he's in the bathroom or something. The merch has all been destroyed and repurposed in some way, so he's likely taking a break.

I head downstairs and start working on dinner. Kade and Otis arrive around five with their little ones. They're all in their bear forms. One of them has all blue fur, while one has patches of both blue and white, and the last one has blue and white swirls. It makes me wonder what our child will look like when they shift into their bear form.

Kade is all dolled up in his bright makeup and dressed up in a nice suit. "Hey, how's it going?"

"Good. Dominic started nesting today."

He claps his hands. "How exciting! What is he collecting?"

"Well, it's kind of complicated. You see, there's this musician?—"

Mom rushes into the living room. "Have you seen Dominic?"

"Last I checked he was in our bedroom," I say.

"He's not there, and the car is gone. Did he tell you he was going somewhere today?"

I think about our conversation this morning. Did he mention going somewhere on his own? He could barely handle leaving the house with me this morning.

"No. Maybe he went to the grocery store?" I suggest.

But that doesn't make sense. Mom just went.

Mom wrings her hands. "I wouldn't be worried, but he may have asked to borrow my taser."

My stomach drops. "What?"

"Yeah. I thought he was going to electrocute one of those dolls. You know, the ones he murdered in all those different ways? But I never heard it go off, and when I went into his room, he was gone."

Why would Dominic need a taser?

"Maybe he was just scared to go outside by himself, and he wanted extra protection," I suggest.

"Probably. It's just that he was dragging a suitcase when he asked to borrow my taser." She winces. "I thought he put the merch in there or something."

"I'm sure it's fine. He hasn't left the house on his own since we moved to Anchorage. He wouldn't travel anywhere by himself. Especially not while he's nesting."

Otis and Kade share a worried look.

"We have this friend named Revv, and he sort of… left the country when he was nesting," Kade says.

"What do you mean? Where did he go?" I ask.

"New Zealand."

That's a long way for a penguin shifter to go right before he lays an egg. Would Dominic travel somewhere without me? That doesn't seem like him.

"Let's just call him," I say, pulling out my phone. There's no need for this to be more stressful than it has to be. I pull up his contact info and press call. It goes straight to voicemail.

"I'm sure it's fine," I insist. "He just wanted some time out of the house on his own, and he decided to turn off his phone."

"With a suitcase," Otis reminds us.

"Did the suitcase seem heavy, like it had rocks in it?" Kade asks.

I try calling Dominic again. This time when I get his voicemail, I leave a message telling him to call me back. I also send him a text, which doesn't deliver.

Fuck . Dominic wouldn't leave the house for months, and now he's taken off somewhere without telling me. I'm not sure if I should be relieved that he has a taser or not.