by Amira Rain
“Look what you’ve made me do, Warren. You’ve turned me into one of those women who go on those trashy talk shows on TV. Today’s episode... ‘Grown woman forced to sit on secret half-brother’s lap in order to stop rampaging boyfriend from kicking his ass.’ Look how trashy you’ve made us, Warren.”
I’d intended to try to insert a bit of humor into the situation in an attempt to get him to just relax a little, but it didn’t seem as if it had worked. The vein in his forehead was still pulsing, and his large hands were still curled into fists. If anything, the sight of me on another man’s lap, even my own half-brother’s lap, was seeming to only make him angrier. He was now breathing heavily, making the faintest of low growls on each exhale.
I knew I had to de-escalate the situation fast, or else I’d soon likely find myself being picked up, carried to the front door, and deposited outside. Then, Warren would unleash on Dalton, maybe even killing him. And I just could not let that happen.
Knowing any further attempt at humor wasn’t going to cut it, I changed tacks and got off Dalton’s lap and took Warren’s fists in my hands, still between him and Dalton. “Listen to me. You have to stop. Kicking Dalton’s ass won’t solve—”
“He put us all in danger. He put you in danger. You could have been hurt or killed, and just the thought of that—“
“But I wasn’t hurt or killed. I’m fine. Got over my fear of swimming in the ocean to boot.”
“But you shouldn’t have had to be put in a position to where you had to risk your own life—”
“I’m fine, though. I’m fine.”
“But—”
“Please just listen to me. I don’t like unnecessarily violent men, Warren. I don’t like men who swing first. And I know you’re really not one of those men. I know you’re the type of man who only fights to defend and protect, the type of man who doesn’t physically harm someone just for revenge. You even told me yourself that you wouldn’t have Dalton tortured to find out if he was a spy, even though some of your men wanted you to, because you’re just not that kind of a leader. Remember? That’s not the mindset of an unnecessarily violent man. That’s the mindset of the man I love and trust. That’s the mindset of the man I trust to take good care of me, and keep me safe, and maintain a civilized community where people don’t go kicking other people’s asses when they’re angry.”
Shifting his gaze from me to Dalton, then back to me, Warren made an almost imperceptible scoffing noise, and his eyes were still narrowed. However, they appeared to be un-narrowing just slightly. Heartened, I kept going, saying something that I couldn’t believe had only just occurred to me.
“And besides... if you kick Dalton’s ass and put him back in the hospital, he probably won’t be able to tell us any ideas about how we might be able to prevent the self-destruction of the island. And I, for one, definitely want to hear those ideas. I, for one, definitely don’t want to die. To be completely honest, I think I’d much rather like to continue living with you here on the island indefinitely. Indefinitely and alive. And if you feel the same way, which I have a hunch that you do, I think we should all sit back down and hear what Dalton has to say.”
That finally did it. And I knew that because Warren’s fists had finally uncurled in my hands. After one last glare at Dalton, he slowly began backing up to the loveseat, taking me with him. “I’d better like what he has to say.”
Once we were both seated again, Dalton surveyed us both with watery eyes, still white as a sheet. It looked like Warren had really scared the living hell out of him, which I was sorry about, though I did understand why Warren had been so angry. I was still a little angry about the golem thing myself, and I hoped Dalton would say something that would make it all make a little more sense. At the very least, I hoped he’d apologize and truly mean it, and in short order, he did.
“I’m so very sorry... to both of you. I’m so very sorry to everyone in this community.”
He still looked like he might actually cry. His eyes were still shiny and pink, and his expression was so clearly one of genuine remorse that it made my heart ache. This feeling intensified when he continued speaking in a voice that sounded unusually thick, as if he had a lump in his throat.
“At first when I arrived on the island, I was just here to do a mission for my father. It was his wish that the island be destroyed since he was never paid what was promised him for his work, and I thought he was in the right about that. For some reason, it made sense to me how he explained it at the time. He made it seem just and fair. So, being that he had me convinced, he made me promise that if he weren’t able to ensure that the island wormhole had closed during his lifetime, so that the government could never use ‘his’ shifters, I would find a way to come over here and see it done.
“Then, after he drowned, I decided that I’d do just that. I’d fulfill his greatest wish to honor him. I thought I’d come, ensure that things would be set in motion by encouraging that all lake creatures be destroyed and maybe even helping that along with science in some way, and then leave the island before the last lake creature was destroyed and the thirty-day countdown began. But then I learned that all the Forms had already been destroyed and you island folk had already begin filling in the lake crater with rocks, so I knew a supernatural rock creature would soon emerge. Then I figured, same plan, just a different creature. I’d just wait to make sure that it looked like the creature would be taken care of, and then I’d head back through one of the island portals, knowing that soon the creature would be destroyed, and then, unbeknownst to you all, the island would self-destruct in thirty days.”
More banging and hammering noises started up from the construction work being done outside, and Dalton waited a few seconds, appearing slightly more relaxed, though still a little pale and tense. He looked down at the bare stone floor, and when he lifted his gaze to Warren and me, his eyes appeared a little shiny with tears once again.
“Chief Knight, you were right about me when I first came here, obviously. I came here as a spy of sorts, but then I had a change of heart. I came in expecting that all you shifters would be sick of living on the island and warring among yourselves, as my father had implied that you might be. I came in expecting that my hastening the self-destruction of the island would be helping in a mass ‘mercy killing,’ as absolutely sick as that sounds to me now. I don’t have any excuse for thinking that, other than ever since my mother passed away, I’ve been terribly depressed, and I just don’t think I’ve been able to think clearly in some areas. I really expected to find you island folks fairly miserable after all this time, and maybe even wishing it would all just be over.
“But then I got to have a good look around the village, and I saw what kind of people you all are. I got to see that there are children here, which I wasn’t quite expecting, because my father hadn’t mentioned that little fact. I started feeling a bit conflicted about my plan, to put it very, very mildly. I started to think that whatever was between my father and the government, with the people who hired him not paying him, that was between him and them. I realized that killing all you shifters and destroying the island won’t fix anything; it won’t make it right that my father was cheated.”
Pausing for a deep breath, Dalton shifted his gaze from Warren to me. “Also, accidentally bringing you with me, Ellie, put some complication into my plans as well, obviously. At first, I thought I might be able to simply bring you back to the ‘real’ world with me through the portal, but then when you and Chief Knight began a relationship, I highly doubted you’d agree to come back with me.
“Ultimately, after a lot of thinking, I decided to come clean about everything, and I was about to, right before I fell and hit my head on the rock. I was going to tell you that by destroying the golem, a thirty-day countdown to the island ‘folding in on itself’ would begin, and I was going to have you tell Chief Knight this immediately. I was going to have you tell him to try only to continue to send the golem back to the lake and contain it, not dest
roy it. But then, when I came out of my amnesia after my coma, to my horror, I realized that it was too late. The golem had already been destroyed, meaning all possible portals and exits had closed for good, as designed by my father, and the countdown to the island’s destruction had already begun.”
With the wheels of my mind turning a mile a minute, I just immediately voiced exactly what I was thinking. “Well, we’ll just put more rocks in the lake. We’ll just allow the lake to create another golem. And then, we’ll just fight it off into perpetuity, and—”
“No.” With his expression one of sadness and resignation, Dalton shook his head. “No, that won’t work. Another golem is not what you need. If you want to go down a route of trying to save the island by allowing the lake to create more supernatural creatures to live in it, thereby ‘plugging’ it from folding in on itself and destroying the whole island in the process, another golem is definitely not the path I would take.
“I mean, think about it realistically, Ellie... a several thousand ton stone monster? I think Chief Knight and his men were at their very limit dealing with the golem at the time he was destroyed, and very understandably so. A thing like that can’t be easily kept at bay indefinitely. See, if it were me, and if I could choose, I’d try to create more of the Gray Form things. From what I’ve heard, it seems that aside from periodic flareups, they were more of a nuisance over the decades they existed than anything else. Those creatures seem like they’d be much easier to keep at bay indefinitely without ever destroying them, much easier than a stone golem.
“But even taking that easier route, you still have one major problem, considering that from what I’ve heard, all the murderous, enemy shifters that were here on the island are dead. One of my guards told me that all those wolves have been killed. And this is why I didn’t bring up the possibility of creating more Forms in the first place. This is why I don’t think there’s any hope to avoid the self-destruction of the island.”
I didn’t get it. Not at first, anyway. But I suddenly realized exactly what Dalton considered the one major problem with creating more Forms, and I realized this the exact moment that Warren spoke, beating me to it.
“Everyone left on the island is either a peaceful shifter, or a woman or a child. There’s no one evil-hearted left to fight off. There’s no one we might send into the lake with the slightest clean conscience.”
I glanced at him, swallowing, then looked at Dalton. Both of them appeared just as deflated, sick, and vaguely panic-stricken as I felt. The three of us sat without speaking for several long moments while the quiet sounds of very distant castle repairs continued to come in through the windows. It was the sound of children shrieking and laughing somewhere semi-nearby, maybe down on the beach that seemed to shake at least one of us out of our collective silent thought.
Warren looked in the direction of the front window that the happy sounds had seemed to come from, and then he turned his gaze to me, inexplicably and alarmingly just about as pale as Dalton had been earlier. “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I truly wish for your sake, you’d never fallen in love with me. Now you’re going to be so deeply hurt, and I can’t help it.”
Feeling as if I’d been socked in the gut, I couldn’t make any sound for a moment or two, and when I finally could, the noise was just a near-whisper. “What?”
Dalton was a little quicker on the uptake, perhaps because he didn’t feel as if he’d been punched. “Chief Knight, no. Please don’t do this to her. It’s noble of you, yes, but she’s my sister, and she doesn’t deserve this. There’s got to be some other way, or some other person that could make the sacrifice instead of you, if this is the route you want to take.”
Despite being so hurt and stunned that I felt as if I could barely breathe or manage any coherent thought, I finally got it. I understood. “Warren, no. Please, no. You can’t do this.”
He took my hands in his, but didn’t look into my eyes like he normally did when holding my hands. Instead, he seemed to focus on a spot somewhere just above my eyes, my forehead maybe. “We don’t have much time, and someone on this island has got to become a Form in order to save everyone else.”
My heart was hammering in my ears so loudly I’d heard his words actually a bit muffled. “But not you, though, Warren. You don’t have to become a Form. You can just stay right here in the village with me, while someone else does it. Then we can be happy together, and—”
“Many of the other men on this island are fathers. I’m not yet. So—”
“Dan doesn’t have a child yet. Josh doesn’t have a child yet. I could even list you three dozen other men from the village who don’t have children yet.” I felt a sharp twinge of guilt for even suggesting Melissa and Melody’s husbands, but I was feeling wild and desperate, and the words just seemed to be tumbling from my mouth.
Warren shook his head, still not looking me directly in the eyes. “I’m sure you could, but it doesn’t matter. A good chief doesn’t order one of his own men into a lake to become a murderous Form, a grotesque perversion of his natural self.”
I squeezed his hands, which were icy cold, trying to will him to look into my eyes. “Well, if you wouldn’t order one of your own men to do it, then you shouldn’t require the same of yourself.”
“But I’m the leader of this village. It’s my very job to protect everyone, and I think sparing all the inhabitants of this island from certain death definitely falls under that umbrella.”
With hot tears prickling my eyelids, I squeezed his hands again. “But there are two other island leaders, Eric and Holden.”
“And they both have children. One of them an infant, I believe. And I could never ask a father not to watch his child grow up.”
“Well, then, there’s got to be someone else who—”
“But I’m the one of three men on this island entrusted to protect its citizens with my very life at all times, and in all circumstances, and there’s no clause in my village leadership covenant that says that I’m free to get out of that just because I’d infinitely rather spend the rest of my life with the woman I love. And even if there were....” He cringed, expression positively anguished. “I have a duty, Ellie. I took an oath.” Abruptly pulling his hands from mine, he suddenly stood, still not looking me in the eyes. “My mind’s made up, and right now I just need to be alone. Please don’t follow me. Just know that I’m very, very sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
*
Frantic and sobbing, I wanted to chase after Warren, wanted to beg him to reconsider, but Dalton wouldn’t let me. “I think he really does need some space right now. You’ll be able to talk to him again later. I promise.”
I cried on Dalton’s couch while he awkwardly patted my back a few different times, apologizing that he had no previous experience in comforting sisters. Through my wails and sniffles, I told him that was fine because I had no experience in not freaking out brothers with prolonged and possibly disturbing displays of grief. But after maybe ten minutes or so, my grief began to not feel cathartic anymore; it just felt not right, in a way I couldn’t readily articulate even to myself. I’d been crying on the loveseat with my face buried in a pillow, and with Dalton beside me, and I now sat up, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.
Dalton studied my face with a clear expression of worry. “Do you think you might want to dry out a little before starting up again? Do you think that would make you feel better to kind of cycle it? Or should you just try to go back to hard crying right now and just get the rest of it all out? Or do you think maybe you might want some ice cream? Do they even have ice cream here? If you want, I suppose I could try to make some for you by running a Freon condenser coil over a dish of goat’s milk and sugar.”
I shook my head, wiping my eyes again. “Thanks, but... I don’t think that’s exactly what I want.”
“Well, I could add some flavorings to the concoction if you want. Maybe like … some pureed mango or guava. Those flavors might make a nice ice cream. Or, we could sk
ip the goat’s milk part of the recipe entirely and make you a frosty pineapple sorbet.”
Fighting an urge to giggle, though I wasn’t even entirely sure why, I shook my head again. “Thanks, but... still not what I think I need.”
Dalton frowned, appearing almost comically stumped. “A lime granita, then? I mean... what kinds of flavorings do women usually like when they’re dealing with heartache? I have to admit, I’m just not very knowledgeable in this area.”
A shook my head a third time, suddenly so grateful to have a family member, even a brand-new one, on the island with me. “Thanks, Dalton, but I don’t think any kind of a treat is what I need right now.”
“Well, then, what do you need? I want to do anything to help.”
“Well, thanks, but I think what I need is something I can only do for myself.” I took a deep breath, thinking. “What I need is probably to stop having a boo-hoo party for myself. It’s just not me to sit around and cry when something can be done... or at least, it shouldn’t be me. I single-handedly rescued a little boy from the ocean just a few days ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to be strong and smart about things right now. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to think of some action I can take, or some plan I can develop, to stop Warren from doing what he wants to do... which is basically just committing suicide.”
“Well... trying to think of some kind of a plan to stop him seems reasonable. But what can you do? Chief Knight seems pretty determined to do what he feels he needs to.”
I shook my head, hugging my knees to my chest. “I don’t know what I can do. I just need time to think.”
We both fell silent briefly, and then I suddenly thought of something. Something that Dalton hadn’t explained earlier. “Hey. Before you fell and hit your head... you said that Warren and I couldn’t have ‘relations’ anymore, and that it had to do with the golem. Why did you say that? What did it mean?”