by Sarra Cannon
“What can I get for you two?” she asked. “The coffee’s fresh if you want a cup.”
“Yes, please,” Jordan said. “Marayah?”
“Oh, no thank you,” I said. “But can I get a glass of orange juice?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “You guys want something to eat, too?”
“I’d love some pancakes,” I said. “And two eggs, scrambled, with bacon.”
“Wow, you are hungry,” Jordan said, a smile touching his lips. “I’ll have the same thing.”
“I’ll be right out with those drinks,” she said.
When she slipped away, Jordan leaned toward me again.
“I told you about my brother being a Spiritwalker,” he said. “Where I come from, that’s a rare gift, considered by some to be an honor and by others to be a curse.”
I thought about the way Mr. Shaw had looked when I’d shown him the medallion. He’d been both fascinated and terrified before he’d kicked me out of his store and told me never to come back.
“Having one child in the family show signs of a Spiritwalker’s gifts is rare enough, but two children inheriting the gift is practically unheard of,” he said. “My brother showed his first signs at about eight years old, and it nearly tore my family apart. My grandfather had been a Spiritwalker, and I think my father had always been disappointed that he hadn’t inherited the abilities himself. When my brother first manifested some of the early signs, my father considered it a great honor. My mother, on the other hand, was one of those who saw it all as a curse. She and her entire family were very upset when the medicine woman confirmed that Ethan had the gift.”
The more he talked, the more I was drawn toward him. When the waitress came back and set our drinks on the table, I had to lean back. I’d practically leaned across the entire table to be closer to him.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Creamer?” she asked, staring at Jordan.
“No, thanks,” he said.
The waitress shrugged and walked away, leaving us to our conversation.
“My brother’s talents nearly tore our family apart, so you can imagine how my mom felt when I first started showing signs of my own at just five years old,” he said.
A mix of emotions played across his face. Regret. Sadness. Pride.
“She insisted we go to see Maria right away,” he said. “She wanted to prove to my father that her youngest son was not going to be cursed the way her oldest son had been. She said that she would not have her baby pulled into this life.”
“I take it the trip to the medicine woman didn’t exactly work out the way she hoped.”
Jordan shook his head and took a long drink of his black coffee. “Not at all,” he said. “I was just a kid at the time, and I didn’t totally understand everything that was happening to me. But I understood the look on my mother’s face when I finally came out of Maria’s house. She left the next morning, and I’ve never seen her since.”
My lips parted, but I had no words. He’d said it so matter-of-fact, as if it was just something that had happened, but the sadness that darkened his eyes told a different story.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. There was nothing else I could think of to say. I couldn’t imagine a mother abandoning her two young sons and never looking back, but I also didn’t totally understand what it meant to have a son who was a Spiritwalker. Much less two.
I wondered if that was the reason my father had never told me about his mother’s life. Was he hoping that Kimi and I would never find out our true heritage? Would he be angry if he discovered the truth about me?
“Today was the first time I’ve been back there to see the medicine woman since that day when I was five,” Jordan said. “It brought back a lot of tough memories.”
Without thinking, I reached for his hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For taking me even though it must have been really hard for you to be back there,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“I was hoping she was going to tell you that I was wrong about the dark spirit,” he said. He entwined his fingers with mine and looked up to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry that I was right.”
The look in his eyes nearly stole the breath from my lungs.
“Me, too,” I said.
The waitress appeared again, this time balancing four plates in her hands. “Here we are,” she said. She set the plates down in front of us, along with a container of syrup and a few extra packets of butter. “You guys need anything else?”
“I think we’re good for now,” Jordan said. “Thank you.”
She smiled down at him. “You’re very welcome,” she said. “I’ll be over at the counter. If you need anything, just give me a wave.”
“Thanks,” I said as she walked away. I was glad she didn’t seem to be too interested in us. It was quiet here, but the others all seemed wrapped up in each other, not paying much attention to us at all. I wondered if those two men came in here often. It seemed like they had taken up permanent residence on those bar stools.
“I wish that she’d had some answer about why the spirit is trying to kill me,” I said. “She seemed confused about that.”
“It confuses me, too.” He poured syrup all over his pancakes and took a bite. “Once the Sister’s spirit found a human host, it should want to protect that host above all things, but it already killed Hailey, and now it seems to be after you. It doesn’t add up.”
“We have to be missing something,” I said.
I took a bite of my bacon and nearly moaned. It was crisp, salty perfection. “God, that’s good.”
“Told you,” he said, smiling.
“Sorry, I lost my train of thought,” I said. “I’ll try to concentrate, but this is so delicious. I was hungrier than I thought.”
He laughed and took another bite of his pancakes.
“How much time do you have in the morning before you have to be home?” he asked.
“I’ve got to go to Nicole’s to work on this physics project at two,” I said. “But other than that, I have all morning.”
“I think we should take a look at those maps you bought and see if we can find the cave that Hailey stumbled upon,” he said. “If we can take the pieces of the broken idol back to the medicine woman, she might be able to give us more answers about how to defeat it.”
It was a good plan. The faster we could get answers, the better. But what if we didn’t find them fast enough?
“Hey,” Jordan said.
I lifted my eyes to his.
“Why don’t we talk about something else for a while?” he asked. “It’s been a long day.”
I let out a long breath. “Good idea,” I said. I needed a break from the truth for a while. “What do you want to talk about?”
“What kind of music do you like to listen to?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow.
“What?” he asked. “It’s a good question. Besides, I want to get to know you better.”
I smiled, feeling my shoulders relax for the first time all night.
We ate and talked for two hours, sharing all our favorite things. Music. Movies. Anime. And the more we talked, the more I started to fall for him.
Jordan made me laugh. He made me feel like everything was going to be okay. He didn’t treat me like I was broken, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I forgot that I was.
42
Something Greater
An hour later, Jordan pulled into a row of parking spaces in front of a rundown apartment building that looked like it had seen better days. Fifty years ago.
“I know it’s not fancy,” he said.
“It’s fine.” I didn’t need fancy, I was just happy to be with him a little longer.
I grabbed my backpack from the back seat, and Jordan took my hand as he led me through the courtyard toward a set of stairs.
Even though it was nearly four in the morning, there was a lot of activ
ity in the courtyard. Groups of people hung out together, talking and smoking. No one seemed to pay much attention to us, but I still hoped no one around here knew me or my parents. I’d really dodged a major bullet tonight, and the last thing I needed was someone here mentioning that they saw me coming home with the new guy in the middle of the night.
I kept my head ducked until we made it up the stairs to the quiet second-floor landing. Jordan unlocked the door to Apartment 2B and motioned for me to step inside.
The apartment was small and mostly bare. The walls looked as though they might have been white at some point, but had faded into a dull off-white color with a tinge of yellow to it. An old couch covered in blankets took up half of the living room, along with a simple wooden coffee table and a single floor lamp.
There was no TV. No dining table. The small kitchen to the left of the entry looked just as bare as the living room.
“Sorry, I know it’s not much,” he said, closing the door behind him.
I honestly couldn’t care less about the way the apartment looked. All I could think about was the fact that I had never spent the night with a guy before, and I was nervous as hell.
“If you want to rest, you’re welcome to lay down in my bedroom,” he said. “I can take the couch.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to be separated from him, but I also didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.
The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be near him, but I had no idea if he was feeling the same way. He wanted to keep me safe, but was he only doing that out of loyalty to his brother?
“Do you mind if we stay together?” I said over the pounding of my heart. “I really don’t want to be alone tonight. Is that too weird? I totally understand if you want your own space. I can sleep on the couch.”
The words spilled out of me in a rush of nerves, but he didn’t laugh or avoid my eyes. Instead, he nodded.
“Of course I’ll stay with you,” he said. “Just let me change real quick. I’ll be right back and we can look over those maps before we fall asleep.”
I nodded, my stomach in nervous knots.
He stepped into his bedroom and partially closed the door. I didn’t mean to watch him, but he hadn’t fully closed the door, and before I could turn away, I caught a glimpse of his t-shirt coming over his head, revealing the bare skin on his back.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to see it clearly on the day he’d shown me his wolf, because he had been moving too fast and had been too far away. But now, I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the side of his torso.
A tattoo I knew I had seen before.
Unable to help myself, I stepped into the room.
Jordan turned in surprise, but as soon as he saw where my eyes were fixed on his side, he moved his arm and let me take a closer look.
My hand trembled as I reached up to touch his skin. I traced the outer circle of the tattoo with my fingertips, wanting more than anything to lean into the warmth of him.
The tattoo was the same as the medallion I now wore around my neck, but in the center was the image of a wolf rather than a bear.
Jordan shivered as I touched his skin, but he didn’t move away.
Instead, he turned toward me slowly, letting my hand skate across the smoothness of his side and across his stomach. His hand encircled my wrist, and he moved my palm up toward his heart.
I looked into his dark eyes and felt the rapid thrum of his heartbeat, and I knew that he was seeing the real me. The person no one else knew.
His lips parted and his head tilted toward mine. He traced the softness of my lips with his thumb, and then his hand moved to the back of my head, inviting me closer.
I closed my eyes and met him there in the space between, his lips finding mine for the first time.
My knees weakened as his other hand slid around my waist and pulled me fully against the solid warmth of his body. I craved him and I surrendered to him at the same time.
My heart opened, and I knew in that moment what the medicine woman had meant when she said I should reach for the light. I had always heard of people wanting to lose themselves in a kiss, but I had found myself in his.
His kiss banished the darkness from my soul for those brief moments, and all I knew was the healing light of true connection.
Of something greater than myself.
Death may have been standing at my back, but in that moment, I had never felt more alive.
43
The Cave
I woke up to the sound of coffee brewing in the small kitchen of Jordan’s apartment. I immediately missed the warmth of his body next to mine and regretted the fact that the sun coming through the windows also meant that our night together was over.
After our kiss, we had climbed into bed and held each other. He told me about the Great Creator, the source of all life. He told me what it was like to be a Spiritwalker and how someday, I would find my own spirit animal and shift the way he could shift into a wolf.
We’d barely slept at all, but just to be near him was enough. I hadn’t wanted it to end.
“Good morning,” he said when I stepped into the small kitchen. “Did you at least manage to get a little bit of rest?”
“A little bit,” I said. “You?”
“I never sleep much.” He looked at me and smiled. “But it was a damn nice night.”
I tried to hide the huge smile that spread across my lips, but I couldn’t hold it in. “Yes, it was,” I said.
He leaned down and kissed me again, and I wished with all my heart that we could stay here for the rest of our lives. I really didn’t want to face reality right now.
“So, I’ve been looking over the maps and thinking about our strategy,” he said. “Since we’ll only have about four hours to look around, I think we should take some time before we leave to choose the three trails Hailey most likely would have been running.”
The maps I’d bought were spread across the coffee table in the living room, and I kneeled on the carpet to get a better look. There were just so many of them. How were we going to narrow this down?
If I’d been able to find her red journal, this would have been so much easier. She used to track all her runs in her journal.
I gasped, quickly jumping up to find my phone. I’d plugged it in near the bed last night, and I crawled across the top of the sheets to reach it.
“What?” Jordan asked, looking concerned.
“I just remembered something huge,” I said, opening my Instagram app and searching for Hailey’s username. I prayed no one had taken it down after she died.
Haileybug501’s account was still active, her pictures all still there.
I held back tears as I scrolled through our last photos together. Us sticking out our tongues and holding ice cream cones. The two of us at the pool last summer, jumping off the high board.
But about six photos down, there it was. The GPS route of Hailey’s last run in the mountains.
“What is that?” Jordan asked.
“Hailey had this app on her phone that tracked her runs,” I said. “She always posted them to Instagram afterward. I had totally forgotten about it until now, but look. There are seven different runs posted from the two weeks before she died. If we start at the last one and go backward from there, we should be able to find the cave.”
“Genius,” Jordan said. “That’s a hell of a lot easier than poring over paper maps. How soon can you get ready to go?”
“I’d really love to jump in the shower real quick, if you don’t mind,” I said. It was awkward to think about being naked with him in the next room, but yesterday had been a very long day. I needed a shower.
“Of course not,” he said. “Give me your phone, and I’ll mark Hailey’s routes on our maps to make it easier. See you in a few.”
He left the room and shut the door. I had packed a few essentials in my backpack the day before, so I took my bag into the bathroom, quickly showered, changed, and brushed my teeth. I arranged my hair
in one long, wet braid down my back. I was ready to go in ten minutes.
“Wow, that was fast,” he said, looking up from the maps as I stepped out of the bedroom.
“I’m anxious to get going,” I said. “We have a long day of hiking ahead of us.”
I called my mom on the way toward the mountains to let her know things were going okay. I told her the project was taking more time than we thought, so I might be out pretty late, but that I’d call if it was going to be after midnight. I wanted more time with Jordan tonight after I got done at Nicole’s, just in case we didn’t find the idol this morning.
Mom took the news better than I thought and agreed to let me stay out. Her conversation with Dr. Millner yesterday must have helped, because it was the first time since I’d gotten released that she agreed to let me stay out so late.
It only took us about fifteen minutes to get to the trailhead of Hailey’s last hike, but we followed her route exactly and didn’t stumble upon any caves. It was the same with the second run location.
The sun was growing hotter as the hour pressed closer to noon. We were running out of time, and I had really hoped to find this today. Jordan said that if we found the pieces of the idol this afternoon, he would drive them up to the Maria’s village while I was at Nicole’s house.
“Even if we don’t find it by the time you have to leave, I can keep searching,” Jordan said. “If I shift and run, I can cover a lot more ground, anyway. We’re going to find it, Marayah. I promise.”
It was close to one by the time we finally got to the location of Hailey’s next run, and I knew something was different about this one from the moment we stepped onto the trail. The woods were darker here, and the trail itself was hard to find. It looked as though no one had been here in years, and I stopped to double-check that we were in the right place before we moved on.
“This is it,” Jordan said. “I feel it. Don’t you?”
He was right. The forest was so thick and dark that the sun’s warmth never reached the ground. It was at least ten degrees cooler here than anywhere else we’d been today. I grabbed his hand and hurried up the mountain trail, anxious to find the cave.