[The Shifters Committee 05.0] Sensual Hero

by Rebecca Foxx

  “Oh shit,” Tiffany said. “What do we do now?”

  “Clarke?” she heard Hunter call out. “Are you here, my boy?”

  “Just a second,” Clarke responded.

  “You know how your mother feels about you having girls in the room,” he said. “You two should probably get out of here, pick this up somewhere else.”

  “But dad—“

  “I mean it, Clarke. Take her home.”

  “It’s okay,” Tiffany said. “They were going to find out eventually.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t want them to find out like this,” Clarke pleaded.

  Before she could even put her clothes, Hunter had opened the door and turned on the lights. When he saw it was Tiffany in the bed, he swore and slammed the door shut. She heard her mother asking him what happened, and Hunter told her. Her mother gasped in surprise, and they disappeared into their bedroom.

  The next hour was the worst of Tiffany’s life so far. Her parents were furious with the two of them, explaining that they’d taken each other to be husband and wife not so their children could commit such incest.

  “We’re not even related by blood,” Tiffany spat at her mother. “I have no idea why you’re responding like this.”

  “You have no idea why I’m responding like this? How could it not cross your mind how deranged, and wrong this all is, Tiffany? Look at me. Oh, you’re not going to cry now are you?”

  “I want to cry just looking at the two of you,” Hunter said.

  “Dad,” Clarke said.

  “And you,” he said, turning on his son. “I don’t even want to look at you. You’re disgusting.”

  Clarke and Tiffany were banished to their rooms. Their parents went downstairs to watch a movie, an act Tiffany thought to be very strange, all things considering. Clarke hid in his room, wondering when he’d be able to leave again. He took out his phone and texted Tiffany.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We should leave,” she texted back.

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. I’m getting sick of this town.”

  “Same.”

  They devised a plan to escape when their parents were fast asleep. Over the course of the next hour, Clarke and Tiffany packed their things. They heard their parents brushing their teeth, Hunter gargling, and her mother flushing the toilet. They didn’t even bother saying goodnight to Clarke and Tiffany, that’s how enraged they were. It was disappointing to Tiffany that they had to find out this way, and it didn’t seem logical to her to be so angry over what happened. She and Clarke weren’t even related by blood, only marriage. She knew it put another nail in her mother’s happily-ever-after coffin, but it didn’t matter much to her. Not anymore.

  Chapter 8

  For as long as Tiffany could remember, she was trying to please her mother. It was the reason she’d divorced her father—her mother was unable to be pleased. She was constantly enraged and disappointed, either in Tiffany’s weight gain, or her own vanities. When she’d finally met Hunter, Tiffany thought they could actually be a real family. She’d never had a real brother before, and Hunter seemed pretty cool. But her admiration of Clarke quickly turned into lust and adoration.

  Now that they’d finally been together, physically and mentally, Tiffany knew there was no going back. All she’d ever wanted was Clarke. Even when she was in relationships with other men, he was still who she thought about when she had sex. She even thought about him when she masturbated. It had become so intense that she’d started skipping out on family gatherings just to avoid seeing him. It was too much to bear, watching Clarke parade around the house with his many ex-girlfriends at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

  Last year, during Thanksgiving, Tiffany had actually locked herself in the bathroom to cry because she couldn’t handle the pressure of pretending. She’d been dating a boy named Liam at the time, and Clarke had been with Fiona. Tiffany had been fine all throughout dinner, but when Clarke kissed Fiona in front of her after the toast, she just couldn’t handle it anymore. She blamed it on food poisoning, and refused to eat the turkey, even though it was cooked in caramel and bacon strips.

  That night, she’d snuck out to the diner, desperate to get something to eat. It was the holidays, so the diner was back to its 24-hour schedule. Tiffany recalled consuming three plates of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. It was singlehandedly the best and the worst Thanksgiving of her life. She thought back on all the holidays she would be missing if she ran away. But she and Clarke weren’t little kids anymore. They’d both graduated, and had their futures spread out before them. Clarke had wanted to move out anyway, and Tiffany had just been waiting for grad school. She hadn’t even been sure she could survive in the house the whole summer, let alone the rest of that evening.

  Her mother would be disappointed, for sure, but it didn’t matter. As long as Tiffany gained her independence, it was worth it to run away with Clarke. It would be just the two of them, and the road expanding in all directions into the horizon.

  When they were convinced their parents were asleep, Clarke exited his room and walked downstairs. Tiffany waited a few minutes before following him. There was still the chance they would be caught, by her mother or worse, Hunter. Hunter would probably wring Clarke by his neck for what he’d done, and Tiffany’s mother might slap her. She knew they’d never really lay a hand on their children, but anxiety caused her thought process to become derailed and dirty.

  Downstairs, she saw Clarke’s outline by the window. He had three duffel bags and a computer back, but those were the only items he’d brought. Tiffany, on the other hand, was surrounded by stuff. She still had to sneak back upstairs to grab one last thing before they left.

  “I’ll load the car,” Clarke whispered. Tiffany nodded and promised she’d be quick.

  It made her feel like she was in a James Bond film, the way she had to tiptoe across the living room and up the stairs. She’d lived their her whole life, and had memorizes every creak in the floorboards. When she was safely in her room, she reached under her bed for an old shoebox. In it was Clarke’s old sweatshirt from a skating company he used to love. It was grey, and frayed at the sleeves. When she picked it up and smelled it’s familiar scent, she instantly thought of home. Realizing she couldn’t go back downstairs with just the sweatshirt, she grabbed a few empty journals, some CDs, a dress, and shoved them into an extra bag.

  It surprised her that her whole life had been packed up in under an hour. It all fit in a few bags in the back of the trunk. She’d have to buy new paintbrushes if she wanted to continue making art, but she had her computer for her novel. They would explain it to their parents in the morning, but for now, Tiffany didn’t want to think about anything but her future with Clarke.

  She raced back downstairs, conscious that she saw her parent slight go on at the very last second. She thought she heard footsteps on the second floor, but Clarke was already outside. Swinging out the front door, her heart in her throat, Tiffany jumped into the front seat.

  “Drive!” she shouted, just as the front door was opening. As they sped out of the driveway, she turned around and saw Clarke’s father shouting from the doorway. Her mother appeared shortly after, in her terrycloth night robe.

  “They can’t stay mad at us forever,” Clarke said, placing a warm hand on Tiffany’s knee. “Trust me. This will all sort itself out.”

  “Your father seemed pretty pissed off,” she said. “He was shouting something at us from the doorway, but I couldn’t make it out.”

  “Ah, let him be. We’ll make our own path.”

  Tiffany smiled and leaned her head against the window. Clarke drove for the next three hours before finally settling on a cheap Motel called Jeb’s. It was covered in fluorescent pink lights, and the pool was shaped like a dolphin. Once they’d moved all their belongings safety inside the room, Clarke invited Tiffany to the vending machine for something to eat.

  THE END

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  My Savior

  Chapter One

  Jackie practically slapped her phone down in rage at the sudden message that she got. She didn’t like that her ex Cameron was bothering her, a man that she would rather not see. He was annoying, and when they broke up, he seemed to be pretty ticked about the move. But Jackie knew the man was unhealthy for her, and she hated to imagine what would happen if she did say anything to him. She sighed, sitting in the office of her parent’s home.

  “You okay Jackie?” her brother Michael asked.

  She turned. Michael Langston, her stepbrother. He was a muscular man with short, brown hair. She knew that he had tattoos all up and down his arms, but he surreptitiously hid them whenever he was at home. However, she knew of this because he showed her them once. He was a guy that was around most of her life, but it was only recently that he seemed to care about her.

  “I’ve been better. Just trying to work on this outline,” Jackie said. It was a project for school, and it was a detailed one, so she needed an outline for that. However, it was growing annoying.

  “Damn. That’s why I’m so happy I’m not in school,” he told her.

  She looked at him, nodding softly. Michael wasn’t a fan of school, never was. The two of them have been stepsiblings since she was eight, but most of their encounters up until the last two years had been nothing but friendship-type encounters. Of course, as puberty hit and their bodies changed, Jackie started to notice that her stepbrother was pretty hot. She was afraid to admit it, especially since he never seemed to be the type that was interested in women like her.

  It’s not that Jackie was ugly, it’s just that he always dated rail-thin girls, and she had a few extra pounds here and there. She didn’t look bad at all, but most of the guys she dated in the past were sub-par to say the last. She wanted a man who did care about her, who didn’t have some sort of malicious intent when it came to being with her. She wanted someone who had an interest in protecting her as well. Not like her ex, that’s for sure.

  Cameron and she dated for about two years, but when she found out that he cheated on her, she nailed the last nail on that relationship immediately. However, he whined and made her feel bad, which only compounded the felony and made things worse. However, as she looked at Cameron, she blushed.

  “Yeah. Plus I just got a message from Cameron guilt-tripping me,” she told him.

  He frowned. That was one thing Jackie noticed immediately with Michael. He hated Cameron, and he wasn’t afraid to show his hatefulness.

  “Well you’re better off without him. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” he said.

  He then walked away, and that’s when Jackie saw it. There was something in his pocket, something that she never expected to find. It looked like a gun, and it wasn’t one of those fake toy guns either, but a real one.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked herself. She wanted to find out more about this, to see what Cameron was really up to, and that’s when she started her journey.

  For Jackie, finding out the truth about her stepbrother was harder than she thought. She knew that Michael wasn’t the type to really open up to most people, but he always was giving her looks. She blushed when he did that, thinking about confronting him on that, but then, she gave up. There is no way that he would tell her what’s really going on, no way in hell. That’s why she would have to do her own investigation.

  When Michael left to go work on a “project,” Jackie slipped in. The good thing about her mom and his dad was that they were the type of couple who never spent more than a few minutes at home every so often. In a sense, it was like Michael and she were living together more than anything, which always seemed to arouse suspicion out of some of his girlfriends. They never had the intention to do anything besides be friends, but deep down, there was a part of Jackie that seemed curious about where it would take them if they did have feelings.

  However, her biggest concern was what she would find.

  Michael had a normal type of room, but that’s when she saw it. In the corner was pot, and although she didn’t really think that pot was the worst drug out there, it was illegal still, and frowned upon by most of society. However, it wasn’t a tiny stash either, but instead it was a bag of marijuana that was probably about as much as her school tuition. There was a ton there, and immediately, Jackie grew curious.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  Then, she heard the door open downstairs. She wanted to speak to Michael about this, to find out why he was dealing drugs and getting into illicit activities. It explained why he never told her where he was going, but she was worried about him. However, as she thought about it, a warm rush came over her. She had never been this concerned before, and in a sense, it was different from anything she had felt. What did this mean? Well, the only thing she could do was to wait and see.

  Chapter Two

  It had been about a week since she discovered the marijuana in his room, but Michael didn’t seem to notice it. However, Jackie was still confused, and one day, she was at the table working on her project when Michael showed up.

  “Hey there,” he said.

  “Hey Michael. This is the first time I’ve seen you in a while. Everything okay?” she asked.

  The two of them rarely saw one another, and now that she knew of his secret, she could see why. She was happy that he was making money, but there was something about him dealing drugs that didn’t sit well with her.

  “Yeah, I’ve been better. I just need to talk to someone. I’ve had a really rough week,” he told her.

  She looked at him, putting her books to the side and glancing. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I mean, I think I should tell you about this, but can you promise you won’t tell mom and dad about it?” he asked.

  She paused, thinking about it. In reality, she would’ve probably told them right away, but deep down, she knew that Michael was a good man, and he did this for a reason.

  “I promise. What happened?” she asked.

  He sat down across from her, blushing and putting his head in his hands.

  “I’ve been doing some illegal activities. Mostly selling drugs,” he said.

  He was probably waiting for her to freak out, but in essence, she didn’t feel like it. In a sense, he was an adult, and although this was risky business, she didn’t feel like being his mother.

  “Okay. Are you okay with that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I just need to talk to someone about it. It’s been hard bottling up everything that I’ve been feeling, and I hate that it’s like this, but I know you will understand,” he said.

  She nodded. “Why did you do it though?” she asked.

  “Because, I wanted to make money, and it’s really the only thing I’m good at. I hope you’re not mad,” he told her.

  She shook her head. “I understand. I mean, I hope you’re okay though,” she replied.

  “I am, just been hard holding it in. I’ve felt bad since I’ve been ignoring you and not coming home, but I’ve been out doing trades and shit,” he told her.

  That’s when everything opened up. The two of them started to talk, and for the first time ever, Jackie felt a connection with her stepbrother that was different from before. He felt happy to be talking with her about this, especially with the way everything’s been going.

  “I’m sorry for keeping this a secret for so long. I feel bad, but I understand that it’s what I needed to do. I was afraid you would hate me in all honesty,” he told her.

  She shook her head. “Not at all,” she replied.

  “Good. I’m guessing you saw my gun too. I carry that for protection, for both myself and for you,” he told her.

  She looked at him with a curious glance. “For me?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I think it’s time that I taught you how to shoot a gun. You’re still getting messages from that Ca
meron kid, right?” he asked.

  She nodded. She told him to fuck off, but he didn’t get the message, and instead he continued the onslaught of texts even more.

  “Yeah. It’s worrying me recently, but I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted.

  He moved towards her, standing over her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you. I swear, if he tries anything, I will stop him, because you’re important and you need to be protected,” he told her.

  She nodded, noticing that there was a different tone in his voice. He definitely had something else planned. However, she did appreciate the offer.