by Lexi Aurora
“But why would I need to do that? Control it, I mean?”
“Because. She wants you to go into the survivors’ town. She wants you to go in and pretend to be one of them. You’re on an intel mission, my dear.”
Chapter Three - Jared
“Come on, people, please! If you guys really want to have a meeting, we’ve got to have some order!”
Jared looked out over the crowd of people sitting in folding chairs in front of the podium he’d been put behind. When he’d agreed to attend this town meeting, an agreement that had been tentative at best, he hadn’t realized that the plan was for him to lead the damned meeting. If he’d known that, he would never have agreed to come, which was probably why Alex hadn’t told him the plan in the first place. Now here he was, standing up in front of a crowd of people who were all afraid, mostly angry, and all looking to him for some kind of guidance. That was the last thing he wanted. He wanted nothing to do with a position of leadership for these men, women, and children. Maddie and Moira had looked to him as the leader of the family, and look where that had gotten them. Dead, that’s where. And yet here he was, all of these faces looking up at him as if he had some answers.
“Come on, guys!” he shouted again, rapidly losing patience for the chattering, which was doing nothing but keeping any decisions from getting made. “If we can’t stop talking for long enough to get things done, we might as well just forget this whole thing.”
He looked around the room and saw that this comment, at least, had been taken seriously. The room shut up quickly, which was good. It was true that he was operating blind, but his audience didn’t know that.
“Good,” he said gruffly, clearing his throat and gazing around the room. “That’s good. Now I’m not going to pretend that I understand what this meeting is about. As far as I know, everything’s been going as well as we could hope for in a situation like the one we’ve got now. The best thing I know to do is open the floor. Maybe one of you can give me a better idea of what’s going on here. It’s no secret that I haven’t been much a part of the goings-on of the town since it happened.” A woman in the front raised her hand, and Jared acknowledged her gratefully. If he could keep these people talking, they might just be able to get through the meeting quickly so that he could go back home where he belonged.
“I’m Cindy,” the woman said loudly—a woman Jared vaguely remembered from managing one of the town’s banks. “And I’m sorry you weren’t brought more up to speed. What we’re doing here tonight is trying to establish a solution for the shifter problem.”
“What solution?” a man from somewhere in the back shouted angrily. “We just take ’em out! We’ve got plenty of guns, right? We take ’em out, that’s what I say!”
“No,” Cindy said quickly, with a voice of finality, “that’s not what we’re going to do.”
“All right,” Jared said slowly, trying very hard to keep his own feelings on the monsters to himself. “What would you suggest? It seems like you’ve already got a plan of sorts.”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Me and a couple of others have been talking. We’ve been talking about Dr. Barry Strong’s machine.”
This comment was met with another rush of whispers from the crowd. Jared knew he should do something to silence them again, but he was a little too shocked for that. He hadn’t heard anyone utter that name in a long, long time. The fact that anyone still called the man a doctor made Jared want to put his fist through a wall. Doctors were supposed to help people. What that man had done was destroy normal life for not only a few, but the world at large. He had been an honest-to-God mad scientist, building his terrible machine. All it’d taken was one flip of a switch and the world had changed, the wave of destructive chemical and energy sweeping the nation and then infecting the rest of the world. Jared had no idea what the man’s intention had been, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that it had destroyed his life, and that was enough.
“All right,” he said, dimly aware that it was still he who was responsible for keeping this meeting under control. “Would you care to elaborate for those of us who weren’t privy to the conversations you’ve already had?”
“Of course. We want to locate him. We want to locate him, and then we want to send a party to go and see him.”
“I’m sorry, but why?”
“Because. If he was able to create the terror and destruction he did, it stands to reason that he has already come up with a cure or would be able to do so. He’s the one who destroyed everything. He’s the one who should have to put it back.”
“I’m sorry, but there is no putting it back. The world has been broken down. It can’t be built up back to what it was before.”
“We’re not asking for it to be the way it was before. But there are steps that can be taken. All of those people who got turned into shifters? They didn’t ask for that. They didn’t ask for it any more than the rest of us asked for what happened to us. If we can get a cure, we can start to do some good. That’s something, at least. It’s a start.”
“And how exactly do you suggest we find him? It’s not like computers are still up and running. You know anybody who can take care of that?”
This question was met by another bout of murmuring, this one louder than the last. He was losing control of the crowd. He knew he should do something to get things back in order, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do anything at all. The idea this woman was suggesting, that there could be some kind of redemption for those who had been altered by the good doctor’s machine, had never crossed his mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted it there at all. One of the things that had kept him going was his hatred for those monsters. He saw them as the living embodiment of the cataclysmic event that had taken his family. He’d never considered doing anything but taking them out one by one. He’d certainly never considered trying to save them. And even if that were possible, Jared saw no way of finding the man responsible for the Reckoning. The ease of information that had come from the internet was long gone. The idea that they could just find him was about as practical as saying they could all just pick up and move to the moon.
“I can do it.”
The voice was soft, so soft Jared almost believed he’d been hearing things. It had come from a smallish woman who now looked highly uncomfortable to be the center of attention. Nevertheless, she did not break eye contact with the room as a whole. Instead, she repeated herself, this time speaking loudly enough for all to hear.
“What you’re asking for—to be able to find the doctor—I can do it. All I need is a generator and a laptop that worked before everything started.”
Chapter Four - Jade
“So, you’re the one who’s going to save us all, huh?”
Jade, who had been on edge from the moment she’d entered the settlement, gave a little yelp of fright before realizing who it was talking to her. It was Jared, the one who had led the town meeting in the first place. Jade had gotten up and left the meeting as soon as Jared had announced it adjourned, bursting out of the dimly lit room that had once been a high school gymnasium, and taking in deep gulps of the cold night air. Sitting inside of that room, full of people who either pitied or hated her for what she was, had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. For one thing, it made the shame she felt over what she had become about fifty times worse. For another, the fear that they would somehow discover what she really was became a stark reality. What Tommy had said about her being good at controlling her shifts was true. She knew for a fact that many of her friends and fellow shifters wouldn’t have been able to sit through the tension of that town meeting without an involuntary shift. Self-control was a talent of hers—either that or cowardice over what she had become. Perhaps it was cowardice that had driven her to escape the group of surviving humans as quickly as possible and had her planning on melting back into the woods and keeping as separate from them as she could possibly manage. That was the plan, anyway. What wasn’t a part of the plan was the voice that c
alled out from behind her, stopping her in her tracks completely.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just sort of surprised.”
“Surprised?” Jade asked wearily, turning toward Jared. “Why surprised?”
“Well, for a couple of reasons. First of all, this whole find-the-doctor plan was as new to me as I’m guessing it was to you. Secondly, I didn’t know there was any way to get a computer doing anything useful anymore. And thirdly, I didn’t know you were still around.”
“Around?”
It was an awfully strange way to say a thing like that, and Jade couldn’t help but notice it. It sounded detached somehow, almost cold as if all of the people who had died and those who had been turned into something human had just gone on an extended vacation. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, just like she wasn’t sure what to make of him. She didn’t know him, but she knew of him. In a small town like theirs, people had a pretty good idea of who else was around. She had always had a massive crush on him despite the fact that he was a handful of years older than her, and when she’d found out he had gotten married, she had cried.
Remembering that now made her feel like the shittiest kind of person, though. His family was dead. His wife and little girl both, and here she was, a living, breathing abomination. She couldn’t tell if he knew what she was or not, and the instinct to bolt was strong. It wasn’t as strong as the desire to be around him, however. That desire, the desire to just be a girl talking to a boy she liked, was stronger than she would have ever believed possible.
“Sorry,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I have a way of saying things sometimes that strike people as a little odd. I don’t spend a lot of time in the company of others these days.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Neither do I.”
“That’s probably why I haven’t seen you. But you know what?”
“What?”
“I could use a drink. Wanna join? My mamma always told me to drink with company when at all possible. I haven’t been paying much attention to that lately, but I think tonight I’d like to. You game?”
Jade smiled, then laughed, and followed Jared to the settlement’s makeshift bar. Sitting there with him, it was almost like getting into a time machine. She’d had no idea how much she needed to just feel like a person again, and sitting there with Jared gave her that. She felt like more than just a person. She felt like the best version of herself, and the more the two of them drank, the more pronounced that feeling became. They talked about everything but the catastrophic event that had led them to the predicament they were now in. They talked about times gone by without either of them ever bringing up the people they had lost. By the time Jared suggested they leave the bar and return to his ranch for a nightcap, Jade was as giddy as a high school girl finally getting to go on a date with her crush. It was only once she was in his lamp-lit kitchen that she started to wonder if this had been a good idea. It must have shown on her face, too, because when Jared handed her a glass of some dark-looking liquor, his head cocked to the side and he began to frown slightly.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Something changed. What’s wrong? What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid, really. I was just thinking about how I always had a crush on you. You probably knew that. Everyone else in town seemed to.”
“No,” he answered with what appeared to be genuine surprise, “I didn’t.”
“Well, I did. I used to fantasize about being alone with you just like this.”
“Really? You could’ve fooled me. You don’t exactly look happy to be here.”
“It’s just that in those fantasies, I wasn’t alone with you because you had nobody else to hang out with. It wasn’t because I was the one who was supposed to find the information you needed, you know? It was because you really wanted to be around me. Because you wanted me.”
“And who said I don’t?”
It was the last response in the world that Jade had expected, and what happened next seemed to occur very quickly. It was like her life became a series of Polaroid pictures instead of a fluid sequence of events. One minute Jared was standing in his homey, worn-in kitchen across from her, and the next he was directly in front of her, taking her newly poured drink out of her hands. She couldn’t look at him, could hardly even breathe, except that he wouldn’t let her pretend he wasn’t there. He took her chin in his hands and pulled her face up, forcing her to make eye contact.
“Jade, I have to tell you something.”
“Um. Okay?”
“I used to have a crush on you, too. After the Reckoning, I figured you were one of the people lost. I’m glad to see that’s not true.”
He leaned forward and kissed her deeply, the kind of kiss most girls could only dream of. For a split second, she thought about stopping it, pulling back and telling him what she really was, but she had already seen what he thought about the shifters. He had called them monsters. If he found out what she really was, he wouldn’t want her, and she couldn’t stand that thought. She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted him right now, something good in the middle of a world that had turned into so much bad.
“Is this okay?” he asked her, pulling back from her just long enough to get a good read on her face.
“It’s more than okay,” she panted, making her decision on the matter right then and there. “It’s the only thing I want in the world right now. Now kiss me again.”
He grinned at her and did what she said, kissing her more fiercely this time, his tongue slipping forcefully between her lips so that her entire mouth was filled with his flavor. His hands found their way to her shoulders, then slipped down her waist, gripping her tightly and lifting her up so he could set her on the kitchen counter. She opened her legs wide so that he could move easily between them, her skirt riding all of the way up to her hips as she did so. He let out a low growl in the back of his throat, and if she didn’t know better, she would have sworn he was a shifter just like herself. Just that sound was enough to make her wet, and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer to her.
“I want you,” she gasped. “God, I’ve never wanted a man more!”
“This?” he asked softly as he quickly unbuttoned her blouse and cupped her breasts firmly. “You want this?”
“More!”
He bent, putting his mouth where his fingers had been and running his tongue roughly over her painfully hard nipples. She let out a cry of pleasure, her hips rocking helplessly against him, wanting more of him, wanting to feel him inside of her. Her hands moved to his belt buckle, undoing it so quickly that it actually made him laugh.
“You aren’t playing around, are you?”
“No, sir. Definitely not. Now stop talking, Lowe, and take me.”
He tipped his head in a mock salute and pulled himself free of his boxers, the length and girth of him enough to make her gasp all over again. There was very little time to marvel over it, though, because Jared was pulling her panties aside and plunging himself into her, so fast that it made her head spin.
“Is this okay?”
“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to!” she said in a shaky voice, her legs wrapping around his hips as her hands clutched at his shirt, pulling him in closer to her. Her back arched, the length of her body fully pressed against him now, as he began to thrust into her slowly at first, then rapidly picking up speed. She was so wet now that she knew she was close. Her entire body buzzed and tingled with the pleasure building deep within her until it exploded into the most intense, blinding orgasm of her life. She cried out, screamed, then bit his shoulder to try and regain control of herself. Her nails raked up the length of his back, and dimly she reminded herself to be careful not to dig in too hard, or else he might realize she wasn’t exactly human anymore. She was worried that she would hurt him, but instead, the pain only seemed to turn him on more. She felt him quiver inside of her, and then he
let out his own yell before collapsing his weight on top of her. They stayed there that way until they could catch their breath. When Jared finally pulled out of her and put his jeans on again, they looked at each other and laughed.
“I swear to God, Jade, that’s not why I invited you here.”
“Do you wish it hadn’t happened?”
“Honestly?”
“Ugh. Yeah, I guess. Honestly.”
“No, I don’t. This is the best I’ve felt since… since it all happened.”
“Good,” she said as nonchalantly as she could manage, trying to hide the fact that internally she was doing her version of a happy dance. “Me, too. Now, how about we give that whole nightcap thing another try?”
Chapter Five-Jared
When Jared woke up the next morning, the first thing he noticed was that he hadn’t had his usual bad dream.. There was no pounding head and sour-tasting mouth, no acrid stomach that threatened to overcome him at any unsuspecting moment. He hadn’t drunk enough to black the nightmare out; he simply hadn’t had it. For the first time since the Great Reckoning, he had gotten a truly restful night’s sleep.
The second thing Jared noticed upon waking was that he was alone. Waking up by himself and to an empty house was something he had only just begun to get used to, which was perhaps why he was so keenly aware of the fact that he was on his own now. That and Jade hadn’t struck him as the kind of girl to just grab her things and leave in the middle of the night. And it must have been in the middle of the night that she had left, too, because when he touched the pillow and sheets on her side of the bed, they were cool. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but her not being there made him feel uneasy. It brought him right back to the kind of disorientation he had felt at the beginning when all of the devastation and change brought on by the Reckoning had been brand-new. That was something he had sworn to himself he would never feel again, and yet here he was, feeling precisely that. He pulled himself out of bed, showered, and dressed, all the while with his mind stuck on what might have happened to Jade to make her leave that way. He had several theories, ranging from ideas that maybe he’d just seriously misjudged her character (something he very rarely did) to conspiracy theories about people who weren’t happy with the results of last night’s town meeting coming and kidnapping her while he lay there useless in his peaceful sleep. He was so caught up in trying to decide which of these theories was most likely that he didn’t even notice he wasn’t alone on the vast piece of land he called his front yard.