by Celeste Raye
“I see.”
Fran did not know much about her parents’ business, just that it was highly illegal and dangerous. She did not know the specifics and they could easily have been dealing with that much money but she would never know about it. It kept her safe if the cops ever came to call and wanted to start a case on her parents. But at the same time, it left her in the dark when something went wrong.
She looked away and tried to shake the fear that had coursed over her body. What Fran had learned from her parents was that something always went wrong.
“You look like you have a lot on your mind, Fran. You know, you don't have to hold it in all the time. I might be able to help you if you just give me a chance.”
“Trust me; you have helped me more than I will ever be able to repay you for.”
Chris did not agree. “No, I don't think you understand how hard it was for me to find somebody to watch the kids. Not to mention how much they have changed in the last week. I don't know what you're doing, but you're like some kind of new-age Mary Poppins. It has been rather nice to watch. I didn't think Jasmine was ever going to come back out of her shell. I thought I was going to be a hermit crab forever.”
“Kids are resilient. You would be surprised what they can normalize if they have to.”
Fran was thinking about herself and what she had gotten used to as a way of life. If she hadn't had other friends that had normal parents, Fran would have never realized how different hers were. Or how different the lifestyle that they were living was, because of them and what they did.
“I don't want to talk about the kids, Fran.”
Considering she was the babysitter; Fran wasn't sure what else they would talk about. She certainly did not want to talk more about her past. Even if he were interested in it, she was trying to forget about it.
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to ask you if you would be able to watch the kids Monday night?”
“Oh, do you have a hot date?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. I just have a business thing that I need to take care of.”
“On the full moon?”
“Yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with that.”
Fran smiled and waved him off.
“Of course, it doesn't. We were just talking about it, that's all.”
“So, do you mind?”
“Not at all. I'll be here, so that won't be any different.”
“Thank you, Fran. You don’t know how much you’ve helped us. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“It’s no big deal, Chris. What else am I going to do?”
“You’re young, beautiful, and smart. I can think of a lot of things a woman your age would like to do. I don’t know that many would want to stay in with kids more than they had to.”
“The kids are sweet, and they go to bed early, so it’s not that much longer. Go out, have enough fun for both of us.”
“I don’t know about that, but thank you, Fran.”
They stayed out on the porch and talked for a while, but it was getting late, and Fran finally went to bed. It was another week done, and she was thankful for where she had ended up. She would work every day if she had to. It wasn’t like she could ever go back to her old life anyway. This was her life now, and Fran was just going to have to get used to that.
Chapter Twelve
Monday was rolling around quickly, and there was a lot that Chris needed to get done before the evening came. He had told Fran that he had something to do for work, but that wasn't exactly true. She didn't need to know the truth, just like he didn't need to know what she was hiding. The truth was that he wasn’t going to leave the house, but it was big enough that she would never realize it either.
Chris got home from work just like he usually did and had dinner with the family. Fran was quickly becoming part of it, and it just seemed like a perfect night. He tucked his children into bed and then went to change. He still had to put on a façade like he was leaving. Fran would want to know why he lied to her if not.
“What time do you think you'll be back?”
“I probably won't be back until the morning.”
“You know, if you're just going out on a date, you can totally say something. I don't want you to feel like you have to lie about it.”
“There is no one in my life like that; I promise you.”
Chris really wanted Fran to know that. He did not want her to think that he was with another woman.
“Okay, Chris, I was just trying to figure out where you are going overnight. You should just ignore me.”
“I know you are the curious type; you ended up breaking into the basement. If there's anything you want to ask me, just to go ahead and ask me. I'm an open book.”
Fran paused like she was going to say something more, but then she stopped.
“It doesn't matter. I hope you have a good time. Your kids will be safe with me.”
“Thank you, Fran. I know that they will be, and you will never know how much that means to me.”
“I get it. They are great, and we will be just fine. I hope whatever you're doing, it goes well.”
Before Chris could wrap his mind around it, he was pulling her in for a quick kiss. It wasn't meant to happen, and he stopped when he realized the error of his ways.
“Sorry. I don't know what came over me.”
“No, it's okay. That's the way most people say goodbye.”
Chris left, and he was far more bothered than he should have been. He wanted to think that he was above it all and he couldn't be affected by women anymore, but that obviously wasn't the case.
He went outside like he was leaving and then went inside the other garage door. It was strange to have to hide in his own home, but Chris had to conceal this part of his life.
It was getting late, and Chris was already locked in the room downstairs. It was getting dark from the looks of the light coming in through the window on the other side of the door. There was a very small window that he could look out of and a key was now under a rock, which he would use later to set himself free.
He could feel the changes taking place all over, and he knew that the time had come. He knew what was next., but it was something that after twenty-three years, he was still not able to ignore. It was coming. His heart raced, and every hair on his body started to stand on end.
It was time.
Chapter Thirteen
The house was quiet, and Fran focused on a book that she’d brought with her. In her childish thoughts, Fran had imagined that she would have all of this time when she went on the run. It wasn’t the case at all. This was the first night that she’d had enough energy to stay up and read. She wanted to finish the book, knowing that she had very little to do that night. The kids were asleep, and it was getting late.
Her mind went to the moon, and she could see its brightness when she looked towards the large bay window that was close to her bed. She went to the window, setting her book down like the moon was calling to her. She remembered how Chris had seemed interested in it.
It was full, huge and there was a tint of orange to it as well. It felt like the air was charged with something. Crazy things happened on a full moon, right?
Something pulled her outside. It was cold, and she didn’t even put on any shoes before she was out the door and onto the cold grass. Her eyes were drawn to the sky above her, and she smiled at the orb of light. It felt different tonight.
Then she heard a growling sound that caught her off guard. It was so loud, and then that eerie quiet again. The silence enveloped her as she strained, trying to hear that sound again.
Her body had paused mid-step, and she put her foot down, fully aware that if someone could see her, they would probably think her crazy. Fran waited around for what felt like ages for the sound to come back. When it didn’t, she started to wonder what it could be. A part of her wanted to investigate. As much as she wanted to believe that everything was goin
g to be okay, she knew that it might not be.
She had run for a reason and the idea that someone was out there, in the woods beyond the manicured yard, was more than she could handle on her own. Fran turned to move towards the sanctity of the house. She wanted the safety that she usually felt there.
The growling, howling sound that she heard next did not make her stop. It made her move faster, but then she heard it again, realizing that she was moving towards it. It didn’t make sense to her, but nothing did really.
Her mind went to the kids, and she knew that she had to continue to the house. Fran had to move towards the sound, no matter how much she wanted to run in the other direction.
When she got close to the building, she was quick to notice that it was coming from not the main part of the house, but the basement. It took her a minute to find the extra entrance way, and she found it locked. When she was close to the door, the beastly sounds were getting louder, so she knew that it was coming from inside of the garage.
It seemed logical to find out what was going on. The noises raised all of the hairs on the back of her neck. Fran had never been so stressed in all of her life. She wanted to check on the kids, but the problem was in front of her.
She pulled a couple of bobby pins out of her hair and started to work on the lock. It was no different than before. It didn’t take her long at all to get the lock handled. Fran readjusted her hair before she opened the door slowly. She had picked up a long metal stick of some sort. She had no idea what it was for, but it looked like a fire poker in a way, though not like one she had ever seen before.
The noises were immediately louder. It wasn’t every day that she heard something like that. Her mind went to what it could be, but then her eyes were adjusting to everything around her, and she was taking in the room far more than before. It was the sort of dungeon area that Fran had been sure she would find down there.
Now she couldn’t help but think about how cool and calm Chris had been with her in the basement. What would have happened if she would have gone around another corner and found more than just a bunch of cars? Fran wondered for the first time if she should even be there.
The growling pulled her forward, and she gasped as she saw some kind of creature in a room. Fran was glad for the door because it was terrifying. It looked like some kind of wolf, but on steroids. While Fran had not seen many wolves, she was pretty sure that none of them were as big as the one that she was looking at now. It didn’t seem real, the features so large.
Then it turned towards her, and it had dark eyes that she had seen before. It took her time to put two and two together. The eyes wouldn’t have been enough for her to realize that the wolf was actually her employer.
That didn’t sit well with her, though neither did the way that the beast, or Chris, whatever, was looking at her. She stepped back and saw the clothing he’d left the house in. He didn’t leave for business. Then Fran remembered his comments about the full moon. Did they have something in common with the state he was in now?
She had watched the movies, read the books, and her mind was convinced that he was a shifter. It also made her realize that whatever he was, he was far more dangerous than the people that she was running from. It would seem that Fran had jumped from frying pan and into the fire. She was uncertain what to do, but she didn’t stay in the basement much longer.
Fran left the way she came, but this time she was moving faster. There was no more curiosity in her. All she wanted to do was leave before Chris turned back into a human, or whatever he was. Fran woke Maria up, letting her know that she had to leave. Fran said it was an emergency and didn’t say much else about it. She just couldn’t.
Only when she was moving around was she able to breathe again. She had never been so scared in her whole life. Fran never imagined that she would be afraid of Chris. She also wasn’t prepared for how much she was going to miss the kids or how disappointed she was that it had all worked out the way it did.
Fran knew that she had to move on, though. She didn’t know what was going on with Chris, but she did know that she didn’t want anything to do with it. Fran had been in danger too often not see the signs. Whatever Chris was, he was dangerous to her, and that meant she had to keep her distance, even if she really didn’t want to.
Chapter Fourteen
Chris knew that his godsend babysitter was gone. She had seen him in his wolf form, and it was unmistakable how she had looked. Fran feared him.
He tried to push the thoughts to the side, but at some point, he realized that there was no use. He wanted to think that everything would be okay. She would be in the kitchen when he came in, eating breakfast with the kids, just like she had every other day.
Chris had to keep telling himself that as he got dressed and rubbed his neck. It always hurt from the chains, but it was something that had to be done. If not, there was a genuine chance that he would find and kill several people. Chris wouldn’t be able to stop himself, not on the full moon. The worst part about it all was that he would remember all of it. He would have to watch from the background as his inner wolf killed.
He had done it for years, letting the wolf go out to play, sure that he had to do things that way, but then he had learned that it wasn’t the case at all. He didn’t have to let the wolf take him over. It was the magic’s price for his shifter gifts, but that didn’t mean that he had to let it win. He could lock himself in a metal box that he couldn’t get out of, and he was able to change and return to his human form without anyone having to get hurt. It was the best that he could do.
But now he had lost Fran. It wasn’t that he had just lost his babysitter. The kids would miss her, but Chris would miss her more. He was convinced they had met for a reason. He wanted to know where she had gone. She couldn’t have gone far, not on foot.
All of this played in his head long before he was walking up the stairs to go into the house. He was going to pretend that he’d just gotten home, and the kids were in the kitchen when he got inside. But Fran wasn’t. When Jasmine asked about Fran and where she was, all Chris could do was shrug. He didn’t know what to say to her.
“Is she going to leave like Mommy did?”
That broke his heart, and though he had every intention of letting her go before, Chris knew that it wasn’t an option. His kids loved her, and he was feeling something akin to that as well. He wasn’t going to lose her. Chris just had to explain things, and then maybe she wouldn’t be so scared.
He finished breakfast and then took the kids to school. He found out from Maria that she had been told Fran was leaving.
“What did she say?”
Chris was worried about what was said to Maria. His secret could be out. She could have gone to the news. All sorts of bad scenarios started playing in his head, and he wasn’t able to get rid of them. She could have made a mess for him. A mess that Dalton would have to pick up.
“She just said that she had an emergency that she had to go to.”
“Did she say when she was coming back?”
Maria shook her head that she didn’t, and Chris was confused. Why didn’t Fran tell the truth? He wasn’t sure what her motives were. He didn’t even know if she knew it was him. He had too many questions and not nearly enough answers for his liking.
He got dressed and went to check the cars. It took him only a moment to realize that she hadn’t taken one. He knew that Fran wasn’t a thief, but then he had to make sure. He also didn’t think that she would find out and take off, so Chris obviously was not above missing something.
Chris hopped in one of the cars and started off. It had been several hours since he’d seen her, though his concept of time was off in that state. He had known that it was dark because he turned back in the light. It felt like no time had passed after he saw her, and the morning had come. Chris hoped that it meant that she was somewhere close.
He drove around for a while, but he didn’t see any sign of her. Chris wasn’t happy about it, but he went back to the
house and found something that she had left behind, though there wasn’t much there. She had taken her things in a rush, but she still had a shirt in the dirty clothes hamper. He sniffed it, and his eyes darkened. Chris was going to have to go back to his wolf form to figure out where she was. There was no sign of her with all of the people in the neighborhoods around him, so now he was going to make sure that she wasn’t in the woods to the back of the house.
As soon as he got outside and started to walk towards the woods, he picked up her scent. It was strange to smell her that way, but Chris now knew her more intimately than he ever would as a human. She was now scents that were so full of color.
She was moving faster than he would have imagined, and before long, Chris was stopped short. He couldn’t go any further, because she had run the eight miles towards the next town. Her scent was starting to mix with all of the other scents that were present.
Chris couldn’t go in that state, not in the daytime, and he cursed inwardly before he went back home. He was going to have to wait until nightfall and figure out where she was. Chris was now worried that he was going to have to go into the town and pull her out. What if she was speaking to the police?
Chris worried about it all day, but he still had to get to work. His father made a comment as soon as he came in, but he had to hide everything. Dalton could never know about Fran. Anything that Chris loved or even cared about, he’d learned that the best thing to do was keep it from his father. He would find it a distraction and then Chris would lose it. The same scenario had played out time and time again, and he wasn’t going to let it happen. Not with Fran, even if she could potentially be a big problem.
“What is wrong with you, son?”
“Didn’t sleep well.”
Dalton pressed his lips together. “You need to let it out. It’s the only way to honor the sacrifice.”
“It’s my sacrifice, Dad, not that of everyone I come in contact with. It’s fine; I just feel rough the next day. I always do, but it’s worth it if it means that I don’t hurt anyone. I know that you don’t get it, but you don’t have to.”