“Stop talking like this,” I replied, taking a step towards her.
“You’re just concerned because you’re worried she’ll die. Jenna. Don’t sit there and pretend you’re worried about my soul or some crap.”
“This isn’t about her.” And I meant it. Right now it was about the broken girl in front of me. The girl I helped break for so many years.
“This has always been about her,” she whispered.
Suddenly, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had betrayed her. And Jenna. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.
Jo took another step towards me, and my body tensed up. Jo frowned and took a step back. “You see? You really can’t stand it. You were just using me to save her. Every nice thing you said and did was to make sure I stayed your partner. But you’ve only ever been my partner when it suited you.”
I’m not sure why but something about these words caused me to snap. There were a billions things floating around my head, begging to be said, but I instead said the things I didn’t want to say. “I’m sorry your life sucks. I’m sorry you’ll never be anything to them. I’m sorry you want to bone that creepy ass delinquent when I have an actual healthy relationship. I’m sorry you’re so jealous of me. But I never signed up to change your life. So, stop riding me all the damn time!”
Jo flinched. I knew I’d hurt her. She shook her head and started walking backwards away from me. “I may be the dark shifter, but you’re a pathetic excuse for a human being, Logan. Do you hear me? You’re a damn terrible person. And you wonder why I sometimes think this whole world could go straight to hell, and we wouldn’t be losing anything.”
And then she turned from me.
And I didn’t stop her.
And I knew there was no going back.
Chapter 28
I needed answers.
I needed them now.
I didn’t bother going back into school after Jo stormed off.
Josephine.
I was pretty sure I didn’t have the right to call her Jo anymore. Whatever relationship we had felt severed. Forever.
After getting my car, I drove to the one place where maybe something would make sense.
To see my uncle.
No longer could I pretend that a single part of my life wasn’t touched by the time traveling. If I was to believe Josephine and I were siblings, then they’d been in my life since the start. They’d been molding us. Controlling us. And my uncle had known all along.
I didn’t wait for permission from my uncle’s secretary to head back into his office. I didn’t knock. I wasn’t going to stand on civility when this man had a hand in destroying everything. When I threw open the door to his office, my uncle only smiled at me from behind his oak desk. His office was spotless. Nowhere could you find any sign of the way he made a living off of manipulating people and distorting the truth.
“What do I owe the pleasure of your company?” my uncle asked, obviously pleased I was there.
“You know why I’m here,” I growled.
My uncle sighed. “Please, do take a seat, Logan. There’s no need to come in all huffing and puffing. I’ll answer any questions that I can. I was the one to offer you help a few days ago. Was I not?”
“Don’t. I’m not in the mood for your—”
“You’ll stop with that tone right now. I will not talk to you if you don’t” he replied, perpetually calm.
I knew my uncle well enough to know he wouldn’t talk to me unless I did what he said. He was always in control. I pulled the chair in front of his desk out with more force than I needed and threw myself into it. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
My uncle’s smile grew. “Right. Now what would you like to know?”
A million things. A zillion questions came to my mind. But only one surfaced. “Why didn’t you tell me Josephine was my sister?”
My uncle’s eyes widened slightly and then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to wipe a tear from his eye. “You think...you think Ms. Lambert is your sister?”
“Isn’t she?”
“Of course she isn’t” he replied like I was an idiot for even suggesting it.
“But we were at the hospital. We were born on the same day. The woman had twins.”
My uncle waved off my suggestion with his hand. “What? You think you two were the only two kids born at Virginia Beach General on that day? That’s absurd. Ms. Lambert does have a twin, but it is most certainly not you.”
“And you’re not lying to me?”
“I’m not allowed to lie, Logan.”
It didn’t matter that at that moment my uncle had pretty much admitted he was one of the Dark Men or at least was involved with them. All that mattered in that moment was the knowledge that I wasn’t related to Jo.
Jo.
For some reason, the news was such a welcomed comfort to me that it left me shaking.
“The shifting,” I continued, “how long does it last? What’s the point? When does it stop?”
“Whoa. Whoa. One question at a time, son. First, it lasts till the end. How long that is is up to you and the other shifters. As for the purpose behind it? That I’m not allowed to tell you. You must figure it out on your own. Besides, what I think is the purpose behind it, and what you discover might be very different. I hope not. But that’s how these things sometimes go.”
“These things? You mean this kind of thing has happened before?” I asked, imagining hundreds of shifters saving our world throughout time.
“Not exactly like this. No. But you are not the first of your kind.”
I cleared my throat. I didn’t want this man to be the only family I had, but I had to know the truth. “Are we really related? What happened to my mother? My father?”
“They died in a car accident like I said,” he replied.
“You. And the men like you. You’ve been watching us. Right? From the day we were born. The dark shifters, people like Jo, you made sure their life was hell. You want them to help end it all. You want them to convince us to end it too?”
My uncle smiled and began to tap his fingers against his desk. It was a move I’d seen before. He was calculating. Figuring out the best way to deliver his words. My uncle cracked his knuckles and inhaled slightly. “Yes, we’ve been watching. But not all of you. We have orchestrated some things. Like taking Ms. Lambert and her brother from that crazed woman. But in the case of Ms. Lambert, we did nothing else. We gave that girl to her father. What the world did with her afterwards was out of our hands.”
“You gave her to a lunatic!” I snapped.
“Your devotion to that girl is what I expected it to be. And someday, you’ll see why we matched you.”
“Just go on,” I demanded.
“Fine. I’ll tell you, but you won’t like it, Logan. We are not allowed to watch the light shifters. We may not interfere with their lives outside of their creation.”
I felt something drop inside of me.
“What are you saying?” I asked quietly.
“You’re the dark shifter, Logan. You’re the one we want to end it. You’re our boy,” my uncle said, rolling his chair out from behind his desk, moving it so he was sitting next to me.
“That can’t be true. I’m not...I’m not dark. I couldn’t be dark. I’ve had a good life...”
My uncle slapped me on the arm. “Of course you’ve had my boy. You’ve crawled your way to the top. But you understand the importance of listening to others. And when we show you everything, the way these people live, how much better we’ll be when they’re gone, you’ll agree with us that ending it would be best.”
I shoved my uncle away from me and pushed myself out of the chair, knocking it over in the process. I pointed a trembling finger in his direction. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong. You have to be lying.”
His eyes darkened. “I cannot lie, Logan. They made it that way. It was the deal we made with the Light when all this began. They would stay out of it, but we
could never lie. These things, this species, you want to fight for? You’ll learn they’re not worth it. Look at with they did to your Jo. Hmm? Now that you know who I am, we can work together.”
I ran my hand through my hair. My skin felt hot. “You’re crazy. This species? You talk like we’re not human too.”
My uncle put a finger against his lips and smiled. “That’s because you aren’t. Not at least all the way through.”
I stumbled to the door. I couldn’t hear anymore.
This isn’t my life.
They can’t control me.
They won’t define me.
“One more thing, Logan.”
I slowly turned to face my uncle, afraid if I moved too fast I’d pass out. My uncle tossed me a bottle, and me being me, caught it without much effort. “Pills?” I asked.
“The good thing about being a dark shifter is you’ll always have a choice. You start taking those and you won’t shift.”
I clutched the bottle inside my hand. “I thought you needed me to end it?” I asked bitterly.
My uncle chuckled. “There are other ways.”
“So, I just take things and it’s over?”
“You take those and you don’t shift.”
“Why would you give these to me?” I asked, glaring at him. I knew there was a catch. There always was.
“Because the future is in your hands, Logan. You can either help shape it or let others shape it for you.”
I looked up at him.
Did I have a choice?
He took a step towards me. “Before you decide, Logan, there’s something you need to see.”
Chapter 29
I wiped the remaining blood from underneath my nose and looked around. I wasn’t in Shepherd High of Past or Future. I was in a house.
And I was alone.
We had been right. The Dark Men had been controlling when and where we shifted. Jo and I assumed the school was our point of entrance, a place common to both of us, but apparently they could make me shift to wherever they wanted. I could also be forced to shift without Jo.
Not that we had much of a partnership left.
I still had to tell her so many things.
The windows of the house were covered in boards. Dust covered every square inch. Next to me stood a chair where the seat had been punched through. You know. A real fixer-upper. The light from outside shone through the cracks in the boards in yellow streaks, gracing the floor here and there with brightness. I could hear noise from the distance. I could be wrong, but it sounded like gunshots.
“Freeze. Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” a female’s voice commanded from behind me. I knew what I should have felt in that moment. Fear. But I didn’t. I slowly started to turn around.
“I said don’t move!” the girl yelled, driving home her seriousness with the click of her gun.
I recognized that voice. I knew this girl. “Jo?” I asked, turned halfway towards the window and her.
“Logan?” her voice awed.
“Don’t shoot me.”
“I...I won’t.”
How was Jo here? Did they make her shift too? If so, how did she have time to find a gun? Unless, she had one with her at the time of the shift. The thought of her packing certainly didn’t put me at ease.
And why did she look so relieved to see me?
“You’re not my sister!” I blurted out. I wasn’t quite sure why this was the first thing that need to but said but it did. It was important she knew. Maybe, somehow, it would fix things between us. For some reason, I felt like it would be a start.
Jo’s brow wrinkled. “Um. I know that,” she replied, like I was an idiot for even suggesting it.
“Oh. Good.” I replied back lamely.
I couldn’t help but take note of her appearance as we both sat there staring at each other in some abandoned house, in some future we were meant to decide. Her hoodie was nowhere to be seen. She sat there in a pair of jeans and a white tank top. She didn’t seem ashamed to be standing before me without her trusty armor of cloth and drawstring. And her hair. It was...“You cut your hair!” I exclaimed.
Jenna always said I never noticed when she cut her hair. Like I was too dense or didn’t pay enough attention to her or something. But the length of her hair was about the last thing boys noticed about girls. She’d surely be impressed that I noticed the change in Jo’s. It was cut to her shoulders now, which made the curls bigger, cradling her cheeks and chin.
Jo’s face went bright red. Her neck became blotchy. She cleared her throat. “Um. Duh. You cut it for me. Remember?”
What the what?
And then it dawned on me. Of course it took me a full five minutes and a few awkward exchanges about bloodlines and hairstyles to realize it—I was talking to future Jo. Jo hadn’t shifted with me. My uncle made it so I would shift to see her. This was what was important.
Before I could open my mouth to explain, to ask her what was going on, Jo ran at me and threw herself into my arms. I was so caught off guard that I barely had time to catch her. This wasn’t Jo’s usual behavior. When her arms wrapped around my neck, her body pressing against mine, I about stopped breathing.
“Please stop acting so weird. I know you’re still mad, but we don’t have time to fight anymore,” she said into my shoulder.
I gently pulled Jo off of me, holding her in front of me by the shoulders.
Apparently, we fought all the time in the future too.
Super.
“Wait a second,” Jo whispered, squinting her eyes as she looked at me.
“Jo. Listen I—”
Without waiting for me to finish, Jo’s hands move to my shirt and she began to unbutton it.
Startled, I grabbed her hands. “Whoa! What...what are you doing?” I asked nervously.
“I need to see something,” she replied, moving her hands back to the buttons of my shirt.
I should have said something, but the moment she began to unbutton my clothing I froze. She unbuttoned one button. Then two. Then three. With each button my heart started pounding a little faster until about the fifth button when I was sure I was about to have a heart attack.
Thankfully, she didn’t go any further. Jo pushed the right side of my shirt away. When her hand touched my chest I jumped. I couldn’t bear to even look at her then. Why the hell was I acting like some nervous prude?
Jo ran her fingers from my collarbone down the right side of my chest, and I could feel the trail she left explode into goosebumps. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I cleared my throat.
Whatever she was looking for, she hadn’t seemed to find it.
Suddenly, Jo pulled her hand away from my skin and took a few steps back. It took me a moment or two to convince myself that I had nothing to feel embarrassed about and I could look at her without acting like a schmuck. When I did, a smirk was on her lips.
“You scoundrel,” she said with a small laugh.
“Scoundrel? Who even uses that word?” I asked with a nervous laugh, still not feeling quite right.
Jo took a step towards me, her hands on her hips. “You shifted without me. Didn’t you?”
I nodded, still not trusting that I could speak multiple sentences without my voice coming out a little shaky. Like some middle school boy who’d never seen a pair of tits and found his uncle’s porn stash. I’d done a lot of things, and why some girl touching my chest was making me act like a goon was beyond me.
Besides.
It was only Jo.
“Why wouldn’t you ever tell me?” she asked, shaking her head.
“I...I’m not sure.”
Then Jo fell silent. She got that far off look that alerted me she was working something out in her mind that I’d be too slow to comprehend without her. It was a look I saw often. When she looked back up at me, her smile grew a little sad. “Our first kiss was horrible you know. Have we had our first kiss yet?”
“What?”
First kiss? As in we kissed before
? As in we kissed more than once?
I felt a little dizzy.
“We haven’t. Have we?” she asked, taking another step towards me.
If I wanted to move from her, I couldn’t.
I was frozen right there in that moment.
She placed her hand against my cheek and my heart starting pounding again. Like some damn warning system.
WARNING. WARNING. SOME CRAZY SHIT IS ABOUT TO GO DOWN.
“Though to be fair, the first time you kissed me you really did have the worst timing. And your game wasn’t at its best,” she said, taking one last step so her toes were touching mine. She sighed. “But I did always feel bad about how I reacted.”
She looked up at me, waiting for me to say something.
But there was no way I could even produce a single word at this point.
She shook her head slowly, smiling. “But I guess you’ve never kissed me. At least not yet. So, for you, we haven’t had our first kiss. Have we?”
Um. Um. Um. Um.
And then Jo’s lips were on mine. She was kissing me. I’d kissed girls before Jenna, but we’d been going out for awhile and I’d never cheated on her. So, to feel someone’s lips on mine that weren’t hers felt terribly awkward at first. As if my lips didn’t know what to do with themselves. They didn’t know how to react to these foreign lips that were pressed against them.
If they felt anything, I couldn’t think about it. All I could think about was Jenna. Jo. Jenna. Jo. The strangeness of the entire situation.
But when Jo pulled away from me, I felt something else.
Empty.
It was such an overwhelming, consuming feeling of emptiness that for a moment I felt like my knees would give out from under me. It was the sudden absence of something I could not yet define. Something I didn’t know was there.
Something I felt was slipping away from me.
Because You Exist (Light in the Dark #1) Page 17