The Stranger Trilogy Box Set

by Isadora Brown

  Sophie opened her mouth to argue, but stopped. He was right. If she really felt for him what he clearly felt for her, there was no way she would have chosen to reject Jason’s offer. She would have been excited and nervous and scrambling to figure out what outfit to wear during Christmas Eve dinner, where she would have officially met them for the first time. Instead, she blew it off, opting to be with the one person she wanted to be with for the holidays: Will. If that didn’t say what she felt about Will and what she felt about Jason, nothing would.

  “So, go on,” he said, hands on hips, giving her an expectant look. “Say what you have to say. Do what you have to do. I’m not going to do this for you. If you want to do this, you have to do this yourself.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked, and immediately realized how it sounded. “What I mean is, why do you still want to be with me, if you think I’ve done all of this to you?”

  “Don’t be dumb, Soph,” he replied, and dropped his hands. “I really like you. People make mistakes, but I know you’d never cheat on me. Maybe you put yourself in an awkward position, but I still want to be with you. I think you’re amazing, beautiful, and smart, and the fact that you’re strong is so freaking cool.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “You know, you don’t have to do this. We can leave now and go to Luna’s and pretend this never happened. We can still be together. I forgive you for going with Will instead of coming with me. It won’t be an issue between us.”

  “Jason …” Sophie’s tone revealed how she felt about that.

  One phrase kept running through her mind: I know you’d never cheat on me. It replayed over and over in her mind to the point where it was making her sick. He had such faith in her that even though she was alone with a sexy shifter in his cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere, Jason didn’t believe Sophie would cheat on him. He had that much faith in her and in their relationship.

  He didn’t deserve this.

  “Jason, we can’t be together,” she forced herself to say. “I … I don’t feel the way you feel about me, and you deserve someone who does. You don’t deserve someone who’s going through their own issues, who can’t give you what you need. I won’t do that to you. I won’t do that to me.”

  Jason let her words sink in. His nostrils flared as his breathing got deeper. He was silent for what felt like a long stretch of time. Sophie hated it. She wanted this to end. She wanted him to yell at her, to throw things or to kick her out of his bedroom. But Jason didn’t do any of that. He continued to stare at her, like he was trying to read her mind, and she thanked God he couldn’t. As much as she wanted to leave and escape the tension, she forced herself to stay. She deserved to feel this; this was her fault. She at least wanted to provide him the last word, if that was what he wanted. And then it would be done. No need for closure or anything else. They would finally be over.

  “Why?” It was one word, but the intensity burning in Jason’s brown eyes when he said it made it sound like it was so much more.

  “I told you, Jason. I just don’t feel the same way about you. You’re a great guy. You’re the guy I should be crazy about. You’re cute, you’re smart, you play soccer, you’re friendly, and you have this ability to make everyone feel special. But I can’t force myself to feel something I don’t feel. It wouldn’t be fair to you and it wouldn’t be fair to me. There are plenty of girls—”

  “Please don’t tell me about all the other girls who want to be with me,” Jason said through gritted teeth. She could tell he was trying to control himself, his temper. “I don’t care about them. I don’t care that I could be with them or that they want to be with me or whatever. I don’t give a shit. I care about you.” He pointed at her, and she could see him cracking, could see the difficulty he was having trying to hold himself together.

  She could see, actually see, the moment his heart broke. And she hated herself for it.

  She had never broken up with anybody before, had never broken anybody’s heart. She didn’t think she had the capability.

  “I—” She cut herself off, then, “I hope maybe we could—”

  “If you say you want to be friends, you’re a lot stupider than I thought you were,” Jason told her. “I think it would be best if you left. Please, don’t … I don’t want to see you unless I have to.”

  Sophie nodded. “Okay,” she murmured. “You’re right.”

  Jason walked her out, holding open the door for her. Still courteous to a T, even though she didn’t deserve it. She wasn’t quite sure what to do now or where to go, so she decided to return to her room. Maybe Elle was there and she could forget what had happened, go out and grab a bite to eat. Maybe they could go over and visit Jane. But maybe not. Jane might be busy with Depogare and she didn’t want to interrupt anything.

  In all honesty, Sophie had no idea why she felt so wretched about the whole breakup. She knew Jason would be upset, hurt even, but she didn’t realize how much it would affect her. As selfish as it sounded, she was upset about it, too. Did she even have a right to be sad that it ended, even though she was the one who ended it, even though she cheated on him?

  Tears accumulated in her eyes, and she realized she just wanted to be alone. She went to her room, now hoping Elle was still away on vacation and she would have the whole room to herself. She needed to have a good cry, mourn the loss, and start new tomorrow.

  16

  Jane’s parents showed up to Depogare’s room individually to check up on her, to tell her that they would stay as long as they needed and talk to Ethan about what was going to happen next. Jane didn’t understand why they couldn’t do it together, like adults were supposed to, but she didn’t think too hard in it. Luckily, no one except her grandfather questioned why Jane was recovering in an instructor’s room, rather than the nursing station or her own room. She wasn’t sure how she would have responded and was grateful she didn’t have to worry about it.

  “How are you feeling?” Depogare asked, walking into the room with a mug. Steam was coming out of it, and the spicy scent indicated a cinnamon tea.

  Jane smiled to herself, remembering when she hated tea. Depogare was the one that got her into it, after her first fainting episode. It was a cure, really, for the pounding headaches she would get after fainting during a training session. Depogare constantly told her she needed to remove emotion from her power, but to her, the two were too tightly wound up in each other to do something like that successfully. She was trying, however. It was difficult, but before the attack, she had been trying.

  “Okay,” she murmured, taking the tea from him and drinking a sip. She didn’t notice when the hot liquid nearly burned her tongue. Cinnamon was her favorite. She liked that extra kick in something so sweet. “Has Ethan heard anything more about what happened?”

  Depogare shook his head. His hair was still unusual—which meant it wasn’t gelled back from his face—but he had shaved, changed, and showered. He looked almost good as new, which was reassuring to see. She didn’t want to even think about what she looked like.

  “As far as I know, he believes they targeted you for some reason,” Depogare answered, taking a seat next to Jane. “It was some kind of animal, a beast.”

  Jane furrowed her brow before taking another sip of the tea. She bought herself some time to sort out her thoughts, collect her emotions.

  “Beasts don’t just come over to AckPec,” she said once she had swallowed the liquid. “It couldn’t have been wild.”

  Depogare pushed his brow together. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  She gave him a look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, Daryl,” she told him, still not used to saying his first name. By the way his body reacted—he almost flinched—she could tell he wasn’t used to hearing her speak his name, either, even if he did like the sound of it. “When have you seen some kind of animal, excluding bugs and birds, within the boundaries of the school, unless to serve some kind of purpose during a class or something?”

  The wrinkle
between Depogare’s brows got deeper. “I have not,” he replied. “In all my time here, I have not.”

  “Exactly. So someone put the animal in AckPec on purpose,” Jane concluded. “For whatever reason, someone wanted to attack me to the point where they put some kind of beast within school grounds to catch me when I was alone.” She paused, letting her words sink in. Her heart clenched when she realized the depths someone had gone to harm her. Despite the emotion coming up, she forced herself to continue to speak. “In order to find out who’s behind that, we need to find out what kind of animal it was and who would have any motive to harm me.”

  Besides Michael and his merry crew of assholes, Jane couldn’t think of anyone who would go out of their way to harm her. The only other person outside of the school who had done so was the guy who she met at the club, the one who had taken her virginity. Her face got red just thinking about him, and she shook her head, not letting her thoughts dwell. That was over and done with, and she never wanted to think on it again.

  “Someone had to know you’d be here for the holidays,” Depogare said. He couldn’t see the conflict she currently experienced; instead, his midnight blue eyes were focused out the window, somewhere far away. “It would be the perfect time to strike because the grounds are practically empty.”

  “Yeah, so the question becomes: how’d they know when to strike,” Jane stated, “and how’d they get this animal on school grounds without anyone knowing about it? It couldn’t have been chance. There’s no way that’s a coincidence.”

  “And someone would have noticed a person with a beast walking the grounds of the school,” Depogare continued. They were bouncing ideas off of each other left and right, and though it might have sounded ridiculous, they continued to do so, trying to gather any sort of data that would help them pinpoint why this happened and who was behind it. “Which means someone had to be watching you.”

  “What if they weren’t watching me?” Jane asked, part of the puzzle falling into place for her. “What if they could feel where I was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, I’m an animus, right?” she said. Her thoughts were moving faster than her words could keep up with. “And animus can’t read each other’s thoughts. We can’t even read physicals’ thoughts. But we can feel each other. We can point our kind out in a crowd, even out from a crowd of peculiars. It’s one of the first things we learned at AckPec. And you don’t necessarily be in the same place as I am to keep tabs on me. All you’d need—”

  “—is the knowledge that you’re here and the conscious effort to reach out for you in a crowd of peculiars,” Depogare finished. His lips pressed into a thin line before standing abruptly. “I must speak to Ethan.”

  “What?” Jane asked. “Why?”

  Depogare turned to look at her and faltered. “I’m sorry, Jane,” he said, his voice a low murmur. “Forgive me. I will not leave you. Let me place a call and I will come back. I will not leave my floor.” He forced his eyes to look into hers. “I will not leave you. Do you understand?”

  Jane swallowed, nodded. She was grateful for his ability to know her. If there was someone who was out to get her, they still might be here, keeping an eye on her, waiting for her to be alone. She didn’t want to admit that she was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her entire life. But she was. The only thing that calmed her down was Depogare’s presence, as it usually did. She needed him.

  It was only a moment before he returned. “I’ve let Ethan know of our theory,” he informed her, taking his seat. “Right now, he’s gathering a list of all students and teachers who stayed at AckPec during the beginning of the holiday. Hopefully, something will turn up.”

  Jane nodded, looking back out the window. The room was quiet again, filled with elephants they would not speak of. Not yet, anyway.

  “Ethan also told me that Kessler will be here in a few moments to discuss your recovery,” Depogare said, his eyes going over her face, the slope of her neck. It was as though he could read her mind, even though he could not, and Jane wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for that or if she wanted him to know what she was thinking.

  Another nod, another silence, until, “Thanks.”

  It sounded formal, even for them.

  “Of course,” was his response.

  Just as Ethan promised, the good doctor and Brielle appeared at Depogare’s door a few minutes later. Jane made an effort to sit up for the two of them, but Brielle waved her off and Kessler didn’t seem to even notice. Without asking, he took a seat in Depogare’s chair. Jane had to bite the inside of her cheek to contain her laughter at the face Depogare had, standing behind Kessler; no one had just sat in Depogare’s chair without at least asking except for her grandfather. That was when Depogare had excused himself from the room.

  “Miss Cabot, nice to see you again so soon,” Kessler said.

  Jane smiled.

  From the corner of her eye, she noticed Depogare roll his eyes and lean against the doorway to his room, crossing his arms over his chest. He, of course, did not realize that she noticed this. Brielle stood just behind Kessler, her hands resting on the back of the chair.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, though his question sounded more along the lines of how she was feeling in relation to her physical injury while Depogare’s had been about how she was feeling in general.

  “Better,” she murmured, and took another drink of tea. “I can sleep on my back now. I can use the restroom by myself. It still hurts when I reach up for anything, though.”

  Kessler nodded while Brielle took notes on her phone.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Brielle finally said, her warm brown eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. “You’re recovering quickly, more quickly than we expected.”

  “Let’s talk about what happened to you, and what I did.” Kessler shifted, keeping his piercing blue eyes on Jane. “You were attacked. To me, I don’t care how or why it happened. The who might help with the healing process—if we know what attacked you, we could figure out the most effective way to heal it—but it isn’t necessary for me to do my job.

  “It’s important for you to know that if Depogare hadn’t found you when he had and brought you straight to me, you’d be dead. There was no way in Hell you would have been able to survive an attack like that. You’re a very lucky woman, Jane Cabot.”

  Jane swallowed, the weight of the doctor’s words sinking in. Depogare had saved her life. She didn’t know how he knew she was in trouble, but somehow, he did, and he was there.

  “Even so,” Kessler continued, “if he had brought you to any other person, any other doctor even, you would have died as well. He could have brought you to the best doctor on the planet and you still would have died.”

  He stopped, and for some reason, glanced over at Brielle. Jane followed his gaze, curious and a bit confused at why he needed to look at her friend, and saw her smile softly. Like she was encouraging him. There was something going on between those two. Something more than doctor and student assistant. It was clear in the way they looked at each other. Jane smiled to herself. Good. Brielle deserved to be happy, even if it was with a prickly doctor who lacked bedside manner, among other things.

  “I’m a sanator,” he continued, shifting those penetrating blue eyes back to Jane. “Technically speaking, I’m a shifter. But I was also born with the ability to heal. It’s a rare power among peculiars, one I don’t want to discuss and one no one can know about.”

  “Wait,” Jane said, pushing her brow together. There was something more, something he wasn’t telling her. “You … healed me?”

  “If he hadn’t done what he did, you’d be dead,” Brielle explained. “He saved your life, Jane.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked in a low whisper, more to herself than to anyone else.

  But if anyone knew, she did. She was quis. Besides herself, the only other two known quis were Depogare and Calvin. And no one knew of her abilities, except
Michael. She shuddered at the thought.

  So there were more hidden powers—genetic abnormalities—plaguing peculiars besides the known four. She wondered if there was anything else no one knew about.

  “Thank you,” Jane said, after a moment. “Thank you for trusting me. For saving me.”

  Kessler shifted, almost as if he were uncomfortable being thanked for something he was born with. “You’re going to be in discomfort for the next couple of months,” he continued. “New Year’s Day, you need to start walking again. You’ll have to take the first week of school off until you can walk without it hurting. Brielle has balm for your wound. You need to apply it every morning and every night before bed. Sleep on your stomach until the balm runs out. I heard you want to make it back in time for soccer.” At Jane’s nod, Kessler continued, “Then you need to push yourself. No excuses. You’re alive and you shouldn’t be. It’s going to be hard, but at least you’re still breathing.”

  Jane smiled. “You’re right,” she agreed.

  “Good.” He stood abruptly. “Well, that’s all I came to say. I’ll be popping in and out to check on your progress. If you need anything, bother Brielle with it.”

  Jane pushed her lips together to hide a smile. “Will do,” she replied.

  “Okay.” With that, Kessler left.

  Brielle paused at the doorway, and gave her friend a smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, Jane,” she said, before following Kessler out.

  17

  When Sophie met up with Will later that day, the letter was in her hands. Will’s hazel eyes homed in on it, and he quirked a brow, silently asking her what that was and why she had it. Sophie said nothing, and instead, handed it to him, giving him permission to read it. As he did so, Sophie stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets, looking at the grass on the field, the white clouds in the blue sky, anything but at Will. She didn’t know why she was so nervous, but she was.