I kept tilting forward until my forehead tapped against the glass and closed my eyes. I thought about just staying like that for the rest of ever, but despite the desire to collapse on the linoleum and take a little nap, I went in search of Liam. Again I got a hint of emotion, one that somehow felt like Liam instead of me, telling me he wanted to be left alone. It made me hesitate, but not for long. There was too much for us to discuss before I could actually go to sleep. I followed his scent up to the second floor. He didn’t answer when I tapped on his door, and a test of the knob proved it to be locked.
“He’s sleeping,” a female voice said from my left. I swung around, already crouched down to pounce.
“Whoa. Sorry.” Michelle stood with her hands raised in the air in the classic surrender pose. “I thought you knew I was here.”
I ran a hand through my very wet, very ugly hair. “I should have.” Crap. I was so focused on Liam and all the stuff happening inside my head I didn’t take the time to adequately survey my surroundings. Stupid mistake. Sure, this place was supposed to be a Shifter Sanctuary or whatever, but if there was one thing I learned over the past year and a half is that I should take nothing for granted. There were always surprises. Things always went wrong.
People I trusted always locked me out.
I glared at the door, weighing the advantages of ripping the damn thing off its hinges.
“I thought you were going back to the library.” Better to the leave the door in one piece for now. There was no doubt Michelle would report the incident to Rachel. It wasn’t like I was scared of a little old lady or anything…
Okay. Fine. I’m a little bit afraid of one particular old lady.
“Went and came back already.” She grabbed the messenger bag she had strapped over her shoulder. “I have something for you.”
I accepted the bag, which was weighed down with books and papers. “What’s this?”
“Research.” Michelle nodded towards a window seat at the end of the hall. I thought it might be a ploy to get away from Liam, but there was no way a few feet were going to make a difference. He wouldn’t even have to try to overhear our conversation from that distance, but I didn’t bother telling Michelle. I did accept the invitation to sit down, though. Actually, I wasn’t opposed to having the conversation with me curled up on the gigantic cushion, even though it would mean that I would fall asleep after the first two sentences were uttered.
Liam was probably just as exhausted as I was. And he probably knew there was a chance one of them would come back. That’s why he locked the door. It wasn’t like he was trying to avoid me or anything.
And I was going to keep telling myself that until I believed it.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the new JR Ward novel,” I said, taking out a large book with an old fabric covering. “Armstrong Line doesn’t really sound like one of her titles. Maybe Strong Armed Lover, but that’s not quite the same.”
Michelle’s eyes narrowed from where she stood above me. “Aren’t you a little young to be reading JR Ward?”
“Aren’t I a little young to be attempting to overthrow a centuries old government?”
“Touché.” Michelle didn’t melt down into the cushions like I did. No, she perched rather smartly on the edge, her back straight and shoulders back. I took a moment to wonder if she had attended Catholic school. I always imagined the nuns made their students sit like that. “That’s why I’m here, actually. Do you know who Reginald Armstrong was?”
“Should I?”
Michelle took the book from my hands and flipped through until she was just a few pages from the end. “Here,” she said, handing the book back. The pages were set up ledger style, all the writing done by hand. She pointed to the top of a page where the name “Reginald Armstrong” was written in red ink.
“Ooookay…”
“The names written below are those of his children.”
I scanned the list. Lois. Evelyn. Gladys.
Wait.
“Gladys Armstrong. I know that name.” How did I know that name?
“Her family’s information is on…” she checked a notation beside the name, “page 173.”
I flipped over, and immediately knew where I heard that name before. “Gladys Armstrong became Gladys Minter. She was my great-grandmother.” I remembered seeing the name on the family tree Gramma Hagan gave me as a birthday present last year. I didn’t really make it far past the great-grandparent line, but that name stuck out because I sent up a secret prayer of thanks that my mom hadn’t followed Lake County tradition and named me after her grandmother. Gladys Donovan. Ick. “Why do you have a book with my great-grandmother’s name in it?”
“We have a book for each of the Shifter family lines. This one just happens to be yours.”
All the Shifter family lines…
I flipped through the pages, noting how several of the names were written in red ink, many with a “PL” beside them. All those names were male.
“My great-great-grandfather was a Shifter?”
Michelle nodded.
Holy crap. This was big. Huge. And something I really wish I had known a year ago.
“This is why I’m a Shifter then, right? I’m a real one, not some crazy reincarnated moon posing as a Shifter.”
Michelle’s eyes darted down the hall to Liam’s room. When she spoke, her voice was lowered. “I knew you weren’t buying the whole magical voodoo stuff either, so when I went back to pick up the other information I did a quick search of our databases. I was lucky, really. Someone just sent in an update of the Armstrong line last summer.”
Last summer was the same time I got my very own copy of the family tree. Coincidence? Doubtful. Gramma Hagan has always been a smart lady.
“My best theory,” Michelle continued, “is that something prodded you to Change last spring. Maybe the trauma of your accident, or your closeness to other Shifters, or--”
“Or getting a blood transfusion from a Shifter?”
Finally something broke through her perfectly-manicured appearance. “You got a blood transfusion from a Shifter?”
“You know about the accident?”
“The one where you were attacked by a ‘wild coyote’ and almost died?” She added air quotes around “wild coyote”.
“Yeah, after that I needed a lot of blood. Our local hospital is small and was running low, so my step-brother Jase gave me some.”
“Jase Donovan of the Hagan Pack? A coyote Shifter?”
Yeah, I totally saw the same flaw in my logic, and God knows Jase would have been all over it if he was there. “But a Shifter is a Shifter, right?” I thought out loud. “Like, whatever it is that makes a person Change is the same, the only difference is the animal they Change into.”
“And whatever activates the Change might be the same in both wolfs and coyotes.”
“And maybe wake up dormant Shifter tendencies in the great-great-granddaughter of a Shifter.”
Michelle’s smile was wide and sported those ubiquitous dimples. “I knew it! I knew there had to be a scientific explanation!”
I was really starting to like this girl.
“So, you’re not into the whole magical voodoo either?”
I had pegged Michelle as one of those always-serious, super-together chicks who walked such a narrow line of “rightness” that black and white offered too many color options. So when she snorted and prefaced her “no” with the most forbidden of all four-letter words I almost fell off the window seat.
“In case you haven’t heard, I’m latent.”
As if someone would have missed her grandmother’s somewhat rude announcement. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Michelle sighed and leaned back against the wall. I wondered if this was the real Michelle, the one few people got to see. Had we bonded? Were we friends now? I’ve never had many of those and most of the ones I have are either by default or accident. I wasn’t sure how this worked, but I thought maybe this was it.
“Im
agine spending your whole life surrounded by unexplained things and hearing that it’s magic, but never getting to experience that magic for yourself.”
“I guess you would get a little bitter…”
“No, not bitter,” she spat out. I raised my eyebrows in the beat that followed. “Okay, maybe a little bitter, but more than that, you start to think of reasons, real reasons, it works for some people, but not you.”
“You look for science and logic.” I could certainly understand the appeal. “Is that what these papers are? Is this the science behind who we are?”
“I wish. Unfortunately, everyone besides you and me are satisfied with the magic explanation. I try to learn as much as I can about genetics and stuff like that, but I’m usually so busy helping Grandmother with the library--” She shrugged as if her inability to follow through was nothing, but I could see the frustration written all over her face. “Last week Marie told me we needed to start researching history of the Alpha Female. Since she can See what’s needed but doesn’t have the research skills it took some time for me to find what she was being pulled towards, but eventually we came up with all this. I thought it might help.”
“Thanks.” I flipped through the first few pages and already things were catching my eye. “Seriously, I’m really grateful.”
“Pay special attention to the stuff in the manila envelope. It was really hard to get my hands on, which probably means no one is actually supposed to ever see it.”
When I was finally able to pry my eyes away from my new treasures, Michelle was at the top of the stairs.
“I don’t know anything about magic or fates, but I know people,” she said. “And I know that you’re the good kind. I may not be able to See or Change, but my daddy made sure I know how to fire a rifle. If you need me, just say the word.”
***
I doubted I would ever call on Michelle to fight, but I moved her to the top of my “people to call when I need information” list. The stuff she gathered on the Alpha Females was amazing. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but I sat in the bed I claimed as my own and read for a long time. I started with the stuff in the manilla envelope. At first glance, I couldn’t figure out what was significant about it other than it was a translation of some records from nearly two thousand years ago. Then, finally, I saw it. Alpha Female after Alpha Female was listed, and each was a Shifter. Their daughters were Shifters. Two thousand years ago female Shifters lived and flourished. Of course the current regime wouldn’t want this information easily accessible. Who would believe that whole “girls are too weak to Change” propaganda then?
The translation wasn’t complete, which I suppose is bound to happen when the original manuscript was written on parchment scrolls or whatever, but something happened right around the time they were nailing God’s son (or Sun, depending on your beliefs) to the cross. The files were annoyingly short on details, but the Alphas both died suddenly at a young age with no children. In fact, from what I could understand, a large portion of Shifters died around that time, leaving only a few male Shifters and a Seer in the Alpha Pack. After that change of leadership there was a period of about five years that a very young Female Shifter took the Alpha position, but then the daughter of the Seer who originally filled the role was listed as Alpha. From then on, it was all Seers all the time, and the number of female Shifters listed in the records dropped dramatically.
Two thousand years. It was a span of time I couldn’t really wrap my head around. How many had to know what was going on? How many turned a blind eye? How many willingly participated?
I wanted to think the number was small. I needed to. I may not be the fountain of happy thoughts and kumbaya Talley is, but I had to believe in humanity at least enough to think most people wouldn’t allow this sort of thing to happen over and over again for so long.
I grabbed the phone Michelle left tucked into the bag and scrolled through the pre-programmed numbers.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Rachel, it’s Scout.”
I heard the sound of footsteps, and then a door closing. “What is it? Has something happened?”
“No, nothing has happened. I’m fine. I just…” How to ask? “I was wondering how you found out about what was happening with the female Shifters.”
“I see.” There was scraping noise, probably a chair being pulled out. “You’re wondering how they pulled it off for so long. How deep the corruption runs.”
“Yes.”
“It is not as bad nor as good as you think.” I didn’t bother telling her she had no idea what I was thinking. “It is not as if everyone in the Den knows what is going on, and I believe most of the Alpha Males, if not all, have been kept in the dark.”
“So, Stefan could actually be innocent in all this?”
“Stefan killed my niece and her husband, and then spent a considerable amount of effort tracking down my nephews so he could do the same to them. And, if I’m not mistaken, he tried to cut your head off.”
“Okay, maybe ‘innocent’ was a bit generous.”
“You meant to say that he is not involved with the genocide of female Shifters, which I believe may or may not be the case. I simply know that he was not among those aware when I left the Den.”
“Who was aware?”
“The Alpha Female and the girl she was grooming to be her replacement, Alexandria.”
Wait. Alex and Liam’s mom was going to be the Alpha? “I thought you were the potential Alpha.”
A soft chuckle. “That was many, many years ago. I had already been passed over and was beginning to train as a Bibliothecary, although I hadn’t really planned on moving off and using the knowledge. It was simply a way to fill my days. But then Alexandria came to me. She said the Alpha Female took her aside and told her the story of Lilith, the demon who seeks to eliminate Seers from the face of the earth. According to her, every generation Lilith is born into the form of a female Shifter, who are in and of themselves an abomination. In order to protect Seers, and the world, the Alpha Female must ensure no female Shifter is allowed to come of age. It was a compelling story, one I’m almost positive she believed, but Alexandria struggled. She came to me, asked me to See the truth in what was being said.” There was a brief stretch of silence on the line. “She and I both left the Den by the end of the month. By the end of the year, Alexandria had begun to put things into motion that would become this insurgence you have joined.”
My chest was tight, and my stomach queasy. I felt like curling up into a little ball and crying, but I couldn’t figure out what was causing this almost-panic-attack. Something wasn’t sitting right with my subconscious, but for the life of my consciousness, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Luckily, Rachel knew.
“You’re questioning what you’re going to do. You worry you’re going to be spilling innocent blood.”
Yes. That was it exactly.
“Liam said Sarvarna believes she’s doing the right thing. This is what he meant, isn’t it? She honestly thinks I’m an evil being bent on Seer genocide.”
“Does that change what she has done? The deaths she has condoned?” I laid my head on the pillow. It suddenly seemed too heavy. “You’ve spoken with her, seen how she treats others. Do you really think the truth will change her actions? Do you honestly believe she will allow anyone who might take her power away from her to live?”
“What about the Stratego and Taxiarho? They’re not evil.” I knew from all those hours I spent locked in a basement with them. Sure, they held guns to my head and led me to death, and I did have to kill one just to stay alive, but they were just people. In any other circumstance, I might have considered some of them friends. Was it their fault they worked for a corrupted system? Did they even know? “Some of them will die, some of them already have, because of me.”
“No, they will die because this is a war, and innocents always die in war.”
Chapter 26
Liam was standing in front of the stove when I fin
ally came out of my exhaustion-induced hibernation and ventured out of my room.
“I know it’s technically supper time, but breakfast just sounded better,” he said without turning towards me.
“Sounds great.” And it smelled even better. I walked past the toaster just as two pieces of bread jumped out. I grabbed a butter knife and tub of margarine and started in on one of the few culinary tasks I was ever allowed to do at home. “Liam, we need to talk.”
I was expecting an exasperated sigh or annoyed glare, but instead I got no response.
Zero.
None.
Nada.
“I’m not this Lilith person.”
“Rachel said you are, and she Sees truth.” Stoic Liam was stoic.
“My great-great-grandfather was Reginald Armstrong, a Shifter.” Still nothing. “I think I was born with Shifter genes, but they didn’t become active until Jase gave me blood after the accident.” And still nothing. “See? There is an actual reason I can Change. No personification of the moon or offspring of deity. I’m just a normal girl with some abnormal genetics.”
Finally, he looked at me. “What makes you think one cancels out the other?”
“Liam, you can’t seriously believe I’m some destined leader sent to save the race or whatever. That’s crap, and you know it.”
And there was the annoyance and anger I was looking for. “Why? Why is it crap?”
“Because it is! There isn’t any such thing as fated paths and destined leaders.”
“And if I believe there is?”
I sagged against the counter. “Come on, Liam. You said it yourself. You don’t believe in fate. You’re not Alex.”
“No, I’m not.” He turned back to the stove and stabbed the eggs with excessive force. “Too bad you didn’t remember that sooner.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
More egg stabbing. I considered doing a little stabbing of my own.
“You are so pissing me off.” Although, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure if it was the fact he was being a giant pain in the ass, or if it was because I could feel the force of his anger pulsing through me. It was probably a combination of both. “Will you just turn the Hades around and talk to me?”
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