by Rachel Jonas
*****
I said nothing as we drove, clutching one of four bags I packed and stashed in Liam’s truck before Baz and the witches showed up. I barely even had time to change out of my uniform before rushing out—a very necessary part of our plan to avoid being seen. That home was no longer mine.
Soft music filled the cab of Liam’s truck and I was grateful for it. Complete silence would’ve only allowed my thoughts to grow louder. I couldn’t believe we were finally at this moment, my departure.
Our departure.
I don’t know that I fully appreciated Liam’s willingness to come along until right now, when it counted. Yeah, the few friends I made would be there, too, but it was different. They all had family here in Seaton Falls waiting for them. No one else was alone like me. Now, after the spell, Liam and I had even more in common. Neither one of us had family.
“I’ll be there when you arrive,” he said, breaking into my thoughts. “I have to hang back from the busses, but if you need anything, you know how to reach me.”
I nodded and took a deep breath.
“Also,” he went on, “I’ll keep my distance while we’re at the facility too.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“You have friends and I get it.” There was a solemnness to his tone that wasn’t lost on me. “It wouldn’t be easy explaining how you know me, so I won’t make things harder for you than they already will be.”
It was thoughtful of him to say, and I guess on some level, he was right. My friends were Nick’s friends. They wouldn’t understand my ties to Liam. It was hard enough for Nick to grasp. At the thought of him, I shot one last text before officially leaving Seaton Falls.
‘I miss you. Please let me know you’re all right out there.”
My eyes scanned the endless miles of trees at either side of the road. I had no idea whether he was safe or not, but I had to hold out hope.
“I won’t pretend we’re strangers,” I countered, shooting down Liam’s assumption as to how things would go while we were away. “You don’t have to be distant and I won’t be either,” I assured him.
Explaining things to Beth, or whoever noticed the friendship between Liam and I, wouldn’t be easy, but I wouldn’t make him pretend he didn’t know me. I was different, in many ways, and my past life was one such example. People would have to accept me as is. And Liam was a big part of that.
He said nothing as my response seemed to resonate with him.
We arrived at the departure point and there were a ton of cars, parents and other young shifters sharing tearful goodbyes. Naturally, my thoughts went back to my own parents, and Liam sensed it right away.
His hand came down on mine. “I’m gonna fix this, Evie. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get them back.”
I nodded, knowing he meant well, but maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism just in case. In the end, if things never went back to normal, it was that skepticism that would keep me from losing my mind completely. I couldn’t afford to be all-in with hope. The potential for disappointment was too great.
I opened the door to Liam’s truck, noting how he didn’t pull up close—his way of still leaving me the option to deny we knew one another.
“Don’t forget; even if you don’t see me, I won’t be far.”
At his words, I nodded. There was a long trip ahead of us—several hours traveling from Michigan to the south.
“Be careful,” I called out, closing the door after Liam reminded me I had access to him if anything went wrong.
With my eyes now set on the chartered busses filling with local shifters, I chose to be brave. That’s what the old me would’ve done. So, I put one foot in front of the other and made strides to leave Seaton Falls behind.
A new beginning was on the horizon. For all of us.
—Chapter Six—
Evie
The screech of the bus’s air brakes ricocheted off the large tree trunks that surrounded us. None of the fifty-plus kids on our bus had a thing to say as we stared at the rundown mansion to the right.
The drive was seventeen hours of hell—with frequent stops for bathroom and food breaks, plus one stop to change drivers. Otherwise, this hunk of yellow steel had been our prison.
Beth rose to her knees from her spot beside me in the seat we shared, draping her fingers over the open window just like I did. Chris and Lucas came from their bench across the aisle and crowded us to do the same.
“Where the heck are we?”
Chris’s question made the rest of us shrug. No one had any clue. We only knew we were in Louisiana because of a sign we passed a couple hours ago, but …
“Best guess? Purgatory.”
My gaze shifted toward Roz when she spoke for the first time since we pulled off from Seaton Falls. She’d been silent for hours, sitting in the seat ahead of Beth and I—reading, listening to music, sulking.
Like I expected, Beth rolled her eyes at her cousin’s response, but I knew it didn’t matter much what Roz said—good, bad, indifferent—because for whatever reason, Beth couldn’t stand her.
“I swear I’m gonna morph out if I have to share a room with that girl.” Beth’s mumbled statement stole my attention from the failing porch and sagging roof.
“Morph out?”
She nodded. “Shift into a wolf and stay that way until the clan, or whoever-the-heck is in charge here, puts me out of my misery.”
I laughed, but she didn’t. “Wait… that’s actually a thing?”
“Morphing out?” she replied. “Yes. And so is the clan’s solution,” she added, using her finger to make a slicing motion across the front of her neck.
My mouth closed with a quiet snap and I turned back toward the window with Chris’s elbow digging into my shoulder.
There were a total of five busses from Seaton Falls alone, all filled to max capacity, but several others were here when we pulled up and more arrived by the minute. I wasn’t sure if anyone else knew the house in the middle of the woods was merely a decoy, but I did, thanks to Liam explaining it before.
At the thought of him, my head swiveled frantically, panning our surroundings. My dragon was seeking him, and I felt how it made my chest tight with worry. Our connection felt more like invisible fibers attached to my core. And when we were separated, they extended outward, trying to link to Liam—those invisible feelers, tethers that kept us in synch.
He was supposed to be here by now. I couldn’t ride with him for many reasons. The most pressing one being that the clan wanted to personally see to it that all their young shifters, myself included, made it to The Damascus Facility safely. In many ways, I felt like I belonged to them.
Property.
My breathing was quick and I knew why. Because I still hadn’t laid eyes on Liam. A million and five neurotic questions plagued me. What if he’s not really coming and he just said that so I wouldn’t protest? What if something happened? What if someone stopped him?
I hated not having control of these feelings; my attachment to him was not by choice. It was more like a … need. Something in me needed him and often stopped at nothing just to be closer.
But that proved to be quite the inconvenience, considering what I felt for Nick, which was by choice. With him being on the run for a few days, with all the time I had to think on this long ride, it put things in perspective. There’d been a knot in the pit of my stomach since the moment he took off and I now knew what that knot meant.
It meant the three little words he said to me not too long ago stayed with me.
It meant I kinda regretted not being able to say them back.
I was desperate to know where he was. The clan wouldn’t stand for him not being carted off to this facility with the rest of us, so did that mean he’d be punished for not showing up? I hoped it wouldn’t. Especially seeing as how he wasn’t even in attendance at the meeting where our fate was announced. According to his friends, they hadn’t heard from him. Meaning, he also hadn’t share
d with them why he ran off. They knew nothing of Liam, nothing of the legend that marked Nick as my killer. If his family still hadn’t reached him, he might not even be aware of the recent changes.
I almost went to his door yesterday when I finished packing. All the cars were in the circular drive, but they probably wouldn’t have answered anyway. Because they probably hated me. His mom was already president of the Anti-Evie Club, but I had the sinking feeling his brothers and father were now honorary members as well. After all, it was my fault Nick took off in the first place.
I just … really wanted to know he was okay. That was it.
The sound of a roaring engine caused my breath to hitch, and my dragon was at ease before I even laid eyes on the ragged pickup. Liam came to a stop, and once again, the only sound surrounding us was that of cicadas and the occasional squawk of a bird.
Unashamedly, I watched him.
He stepped out of his truck and my eyes were trained on him from the second the first, dark boot pressed down into the grass, right up until his back rested against the driver-side door. Even with the hundreds of tired, irritated, overheated teens hanging from bus windows, he found me easily. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips when we locked eyes.
However, while Liam was noticing me, the others were noticing Liam.
“Holy hotness, Batgirl, who-the-heck is that?”
When the off-color question left Beth’s mouth, Lucas’ head cut toward her quickly. It was no secret he had it bad for her, but, right now, she was too enraptured by the impressive landscape known as Mount Liam to spare Lucas’ feelings.
I smiled a bit, but managed to hold in my laugh. “Why are you asking me?”
Beth continued to fan herself with an empty Lemon Heads box as she kept her gaze trained on the guy who had a tendency to steal my breath away too. She watched him with about as much discretion as a brightly lit billboard against a night sky.
“Well, since I know I’ve never met him, he has to be staring at you.”
I nodded when I decided to be honest … and a little coy. “I know him.”
Her eyes found me again. “Old friend from your hometown?”
Liam’s gaze finally shifted away, and I nodded to Beth’s question. “Something like that.”
She tilted her head to the side as if to take Liam in from another angle, zoning out as she ignored Lucas stewing beside us.
“Well, Nick better hurry up and get here sooner rather than later, because that’s some crazy-insane competition he’s got over there,” she joked suggestively. However, if she knew the real reason Nick wasn’t here, she wouldn’t have found it so funny.
Most thought he was just in a funk and wasn’t answering his phone because of it. They were initially concerned when he wasn’t at the departure point this morning, but Chris tossed out the idea that maybe his parents made arrangements for him to be brought down later.
Only I knew there was no guarantee.
“Speaking of, have you all checked your phones lately? Any calls or texts from him yet?” All eyes were on Roz when she asked. She looked worried.
The whole crew gave the same answer, but in their own words. The consensus: Nick was still radio silent. Roz sat back in her seat with a sigh before popping her earbuds back in.
“He’ll show. I know my boy.” The reassuring words came from Chris, but it was hard to tell if he was trying to convince us or himself.
We all stood there hanging out the windows for any morsel of a breeze to bring us relief in the Louisiana heat. All were quiet; all likely thinking about Nick. The only thing that eventually stole our attention was the site of bodies filing out of the seemingly abandoned mansion. They wore dark suits despite the heat—the men in pants, the women in skirts—but they were way overdressed for being in the middle of the woods.
We perked up as all eleven stood equal width apart from one another. The woman at the center of their formation smiled as she surveyed us, probably taking in how many of us had arrived. She was beautiful—long, dark hair and features so perfect she was nearly painful to look at. From the corner of my eye, I was also aware of the moment Liam noticed her too. Who could blame him, I guess.
He leaned away from his car as the sight of her seemed to awaken him from mental slumber. The once cool, calm, collected expression that had so many girls on this bus—and probably all the other busses—swooning over him, was gone. He stared at the woman long and hard and I was caught off guard by what felt like a punch to the gut as I watched him watch her.
Why do you even care, Evie? He’s just a friend, a non-factor.
I swallowed what I knew to be the first hints of jealousy and forced my eyes away from him. The striking woman raised a megaphone she held at her side and all eyes were on her.
“Young shifters, let me be the first to welcome you to The Damascus Facility.”
“Thanks for the intro. Can we get some grub now?” Beth asked under her breath.
I smiled as my stomach growled at the mention of food and turned to listen again.
“We are so excited to have you all here and we hope that, during your time with us, you learn more about who you are, our mission, and forge unbreakable bonds with your peers that time nor circumstance will ever break.”
After the woman spoke, Roz let out another of her irritated sighs, prompting a low growl to rumble from Beth’s chest. I was sure only the five of us heard it—us girls, Chris, Lucas.
“In just a moment, you’ll be released from your busses, shown to your sleeping quarters, and then, once you’ve had time to get settled, dinner will be served. After you’ve had the chance to mingle with friends and, who knows, maybe meet a few new ones, you’ll have the opportunity to tour our lovely facility if you’d like.”
I wasn’t sure if I was most excited about getting off this bus or getting a meal.
Our driver stood with lanyards draped through his fingers, and in a painfully slow manner, he checked us off his list and handed over an ID badge as we exited. Each had our name, age, hometown, and species printed on the back with the photos we took when school first started. I eyed mine for a while, noting it specified neither species, but instead read ‘hybrid’.
Beth looped her arm through mine as we meandered toward the old house with our back packs on our shoulders. We were assured that the rest of our things would be brought to our rooms later.
There were so many of us—hundreds if not more than a thousand. We moved in the same direction like a large wave. At the front entrance, the foyer of the dilapidated home was jam-packed with most of us lined up outside, but only for a short time. In two, single-file lines, we were ushered down a staircase hidden behind a heavy, steel double-door. It was beneath the grand staircase I imagined was once the focal point of the house. The fixtures and remnants of expensive fabric suggested that, in times past, this place was beautiful. However, what was left looked like something straight out of a horror movie—tattered drapery hanging from the windows, cracks in the marble tile, webs that looked like spiders the size of cars had spun them.
Liam, of course, wasn’t far. I shifted from one foot to the next, able to feel him although I couldn’t see him. There couldn’t have been more than a few feet between us. That’s how strong our link had become. Seemed like it strengthened every day.
Evolved every day.
With Beth suddenly aware of his existence—and his awareness of me—I decided not to search for him. While, no, I wouldn’t hide that we were friends, I didn’t want Beth to read more into it than necessary.
She and I were still side by side, following Lucas, Chris, and Roz. We descended about three flights of steps before coming to a long, narrow hallway with cinderblock walls and dim lighting. Turning a corner, we realized we were being led to elevators large enough to move cargo. Ten, to be exact—five on either side. We piled into one with about forty or fifty others. Liam was among that number. Whenever possible, he stayed close, ever mindful of his previous role as my warrior.
&
nbsp; Even with all the bodies sharing the now cramped space, there were no words spoken. If it weren’t for the occasional cough or shuffling of feet, we would have been in complete silence.
During the lengthy ride here, I gathered that I wasn’t the only one afraid of what awaited us. Liam was right about so many being clueless concerning the state of things. In some way, it was comforting to know I wasn’t the only one petrified about what was to come. Unlike being dropped in a new school all by myself, the Damascus Facility was new to all of us.
We couldn’t all be fearless and all-knowing like Beth. At the sight of her cool demeanor when the large, metal cube we piled into began to move, I was grateful she was here with me.
My eyes wandered up above the closed doors, expecting to see numbers displayed there, letting us know how many levels we’d been lowered already. But there were none. The attendant who stood near the front of the elevator held a tablet in his hand, and from the looks of it, everything was keyed in remotely. Only he knew where we were headed, and judging by the look on Liam’s face, he didn’t like the secrecy any more than I did.
Being such a large piece of equipment, I expected the elevator to be loud and shake violently when we reached our destination. Instead, the transition from moving to motionlessness was so smooth I barely noticed we stopped. It wasn’t until the doors parted to reveal a burst of bright, sterile light that I realized it was time to exit.
We stepped out, Beth and I still linked at the arm, observing our new surroundings. Everything was so … perfect. It reminded me more of a science facility than a school.
Stainless steel sconces mounted at evenly spaced intervals beamed fluorescent light toward the ceiling. The walls were stark-white, high-gloss. Several sets of double-doors had signs posted beside them—identifiers for rooms that, for now, meant nothing to me and the others. Every so often, there were benches—more glossy white surfaces with stainless steel legs. Beside them, lush, potted plants that reminded me of the ones my Gram used to make me water for her every time I visited.