by Rachel Jonas
“You’ve been watching too much TV,” Kyle laughed. “We’re shifters. Lycans if you want to get specific.”
“Whatever you do, don’t use the ‘W’ word,” Ben added with a smile. “No one likes it.”
Richie paced, seemingly at ease in his new form, and I kept my eyes trained on him.
“There are things we’re all willing to do,” Kyle stated flatly. “We want to help you understand what you’re dealing with, so we’ll break down the details of the gift when you’re ready.”
I took note of him calling it a gift instead of a curse. Maybe he was right about me watching too much TV.
“And there are things we aren’t willing to do,” he went on. “Like coddle you while you come to grips with this.” The words were as cold and unfeeling as the look in Kyle’s eyes. “You’re a man now, whether Mom wants to admit that or not. And we’ve got a lot to school you on, so there’s no time for babying. Either you’re gonna sac up and bear it or we leave you here, alone in the woods to figure it out on your own.”
At first, I thought this was just a ploy to force my cooperation, to scare the fight out of me, but then I saw the seriousness in his expression. There wasn’t even a hint of jesting and Kyle was usually the easygoing one. Ben didn’t say a word to defend me either, just stood there, silently backing Kyle’s ultimatum. With Richie being unwaveringly militant by nature, I knew not to hold my breath for him to object on my behalf either.
So, that was it.
These were my options.
There was so much to take in, so much to learn. I wanted to understand, but it was like Kyle said; there was no time. My body ached from head to toe, inside and out as I resisted the change I felt coming on, the change I now believed to be inevitable. I was sure that, if I gave in, it would spread and worsen, but Richie had just endured it right before my eyes a moment ago. Since he survived it, I wondered if I could, too.
Maybe that was the point of him putting himself through it.
My heart beat wildly, but my brothers’ energy urged me to charge full-steam ahead, to let what was bridled within me break free. They always looked at me as the young one, the one they had to protect. If it was like they said, where I’d have to get through this with or without them, I’d endure it like a man.
The words, “Undo the chains,” left my mouth in a rush, before I could lose my nerve.
All three looked at one another, including Richie, cloaked in dark fur.
“I won’t fight it anymore,” I added, lifting my eyes to meet Richie’s. His stare was intense while he tried to read me, trying to decide whether I spoke from a place of reason or if this was simply a ploy to break free.
“Undo the chains,” I repeated, more firmly this time, completely in control of the rage that still filled me to the brim.
In my peripheral, I saw Kyle look to Richie for approval and, after a long stare-down between my oldest brother and I, he nodded, giving Kyle the go-ahead.
Searching Richie’s pockets, on the ground beside a nearby bush, Ben found the key. He gave that same warning look as before while unlatching the lock. The chains fell to my feet and I took a step away from the tree. My t-shirt was soaked with sweat and I had no idea how to restart this process, how to embrace what I was, how to transition.
But I’d just given my word that I wouldn’t punk out.
So, instead of trying to make sense of things I knew would probably never make sense, I let go and gave in to instinct.
Opening my mouth with absolutely no inhibitions, no idea what would come next, I let my voice carry into the night, releasing a sound that, at the start of all this, was foreign. But now, with my brothers standing by to see me through, it wasn’t lost on me that the roar that shook nearby trees felt as natural as breathing.
Of all the ways I saw this birthday ending—the one that, according to society, signified my rite of passage into manhood—this was not one of them. As I took in the breadth of what was happening to me, as I finally began to understand, I embraced a family secret I’d finally been let in on. One that, before tonight, I didn’t even know existed.
Whether I was ready or not… my life had just changed.
Forever.
—
Chapter Fifteen —
Evie
I dreamed of him on purpose tonight, focusing my thoughts intently before falling asleep so I’d have no choice. This time, I wouldn’t let fear or doubt steal my chance to finally understand.
There were questions stuck in my head. Questions only he could answer. I’d ask them aloud and, hopefully, he’d comply and write the responses. It wasn’t ideal, but I’d take what I could get.
I drifted into the fog, letting it carry me to him, giving in to the sensation of no longer being in control when the inside of a truck came into view. It was old and a thick layer of dust covered most of the surfaces. Gripping the steering wheel were arms and hands with tattoos that I now saw clearly, as plainly as if I was right there with him.
Maps and symbols covering his forearm. Words I couldn’t pronounce or understand because they were written in foreign languages. And on the back of his hand, a compass.
My line of sight rose to the blue, tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and then higher to a set of eyes I caught in the reflection. Deep hazel ones I looked into for the first time last night, but… never when I visited him in my dreams.
It was as though the haze of not being able to see him and his surroundings clearly had finally lifted away. The more of his world I allowed to bleed into mine, the thinner the veil between us became.
The thought of it made me shy away a bit.
The distinct creaking and groaning of metal against metal confused me, spurring me to wonder what inside my room could possibly make such a noise. Before drifting off, the house was silent. My parents had long since gone to bed, so what was…
Music.
Liam’s fingers drummed the steering wheel to the beat. I could hear that, too. It was like… his world was open to me now.
And, although he drove through the dead of night with darkness penetrating the windows of the old truck, I was so awake and so aware, it was like the sun had just come out.
I’d been waiting for this—clarity.
His body rocked back and forth with the motion of the truck as it rolled over potholes and uneven sections of road. And I got to hear it all. Every single rumble. Every thud. If I could have, I think I would’ve smiled.
Every so often, his eyes blinked and I zoned out listening to him sing the lyrics to a song I’d watched my mother dance to more than a thousand times—‘Talihina Sky’. I was pretty sure, thanks to that woman, I knew every song Kings of Leon ever wrote.
Liam knew all the words, carrying a tune with more skill than your average amateur, his deep tone filling the space. He was so candid, so raw in this moment, I nearly felt bad for spying. I got hung up on the sound of his voice, on the undertone of familiarity to it, as if I’d heard him sing a hundred songs before—soft and quiet to wake me, or close to my ear where I could feel his breath on my skin. I couldn’t explain any of this, but these foggy glimpses of memory slithered in and, while they weren’t visions per se, they left an emotional footprint on my heart.
His words came to mind again. The ones he spoke in a desperate moment in town when I was ready to run:
‘You’ve always known me.”
Once or twice, when I wasn’t careful, I found myself believing him.
Ahead of the truck, headlights illuminated the road—tall, foreboding trees lining each side. So vivid. All of it. Having access to nearly all my senses had almost blinded me to my reason for seeking him out.
Doing everything I could to not talk myself out of this, I concentrated, remembering how I was able to access his thoughts the night before. My attempt to rouse myself awake during that dream, I’d startled him instead.
So, that’s all I needed to do now—focus and just see what would happen.
Nothing. He continued to drum his fingers to the music without a clue I was with him.
I focused harder and tried again.
“Liam…”
Still nothing.
Frustration set in and, even in my sleeping state, I could feel the deep, ragged breaths puffing from my nostrils. This time, pushing harder, I spoke to him from my mind, yes, but from a deeper place.
My soul.
“Liam.” My voice faded in from some distant place, but I knew the moment he heard it because there was awareness in his eyes. A look that hadn’t been there before.
He reached to turn down the radio and his speed slowed from ‘reckless abandon’ to ‘sensible’ right away. He sat straighter and, from his mouth, came one word.
“Evangeline.”
The heavy breathing hit me again. Only, this time, I wasn’t frustrated. Overwhelmed was a more appropriate word.
“Can you hear me?” he asked. The surge of panic behind the question wasn’t lost on me. Like he hoped he hadn’t imagined it. Like he hoped it was really my voice he heard.
It took a moment to answer and, in the seconds that passed, he seemed to hold his breath. “I can. And I have questions.”
It was strange communicating this way—my statements only thoughts. His, fully-spoken sentences. However, from what I could tell, we understood one another perfectly.
His hand ran through his hair and, in the reflection, I could see its length. The night before, he kept it pulled back, but it now hung loosely. From what I could see, well past his shoulder. Dark, loose waves with sun-kissed strands that probably faded after summer passed.
To my surprise, Liam pulled off to the side of the road, turning off the engine and lights. Night overtook my view and his surroundings were cast in ominous, dark-gray light. It was obvious that the moon hovered somewhere above, but I didn’t have a clear visual on it.
“Ask me whatever you need to.” His directness caught me off guard. There were no terms and conditions. Whatever I wanted to know, he was open to answering.
“To start… how can I see… through you. Through your eyes, I mean.” I wasn’t sure how to word it, but I knew that, no matter how I phrased it, it’d be uncomfortable to ask. It took everything in me not to revert to my previous notion; that he was make believe.
He breathed deep and did that thing with his hair again. I wondered if it meant he was frustrated.
“You, uh… you sure you want to start with the heavy stuff?” he asked. There was a hint of laughter in his tone and the corners of his eyes crinkled.
His question made me pause to rethink my approach. Another thought had crossed my mind a few times, so I went in that direction instead. Although, I was already sure I knew the answer.
“Are we related?”
A short laugh left his mouth and he was shaking his head before verbalizing his answer. “Uh… no. Definitely not related.”
Well, there goes that theory.
“Last night, you said something,” I forced out. “Something about always knowing me. What’d you mean by that.”
A solid stare went to the rearview mirror and I felt exposed. Like he was staring right at me. “I meant exactly what I said; that, since the beginning, I’ve known you,” he declared, exuding a confidence that left me silent when he added. “Always.”
There was that word again.
“Since the beginning,” I echoed. “So, if you’ve been following me for almost eighteen years, why have I never seen you? In person, I mean. Before yesterday.”
He inhaled deeply again and his eyes shifted toward the window to his left. He scanned the trees. Not looking at anything in particular, just the darkness.
“First, I don’t follow you,” he clarified. “Yesterday was the first time I’ve ever had confirmation I’ve even been in the right state.” He paused and I waited while my heart drummed. “Second, that wasn’t quite what I meant when I said always. Always goes back a lot further than eighteen years.”
I said nothing as I tried to make sense of that. Since pretty much the first time I dreamed of him, I felt a sense of his age. Twenty. However, hearing him speak, I believed I may have misjudged. While his outer appearance was still in line with my first assumption, there was something cryptic hidden beneath his words that made me think I’d gotten that very, very wrong.
I was jarred by the sound of his voice when he went on. “Believe me, if I could’ve gotten to you sooner, I would have.” His eyes came back to the mirror, back to me. “But that’s kind of hard when this looking glass only goes one way.”
A pang of… I don’t know… something… struck me in the center of my stomach. “Are you saying you’ve been looking for me?”
He gave a slow nod. “Since the first time I felt you.” My thoughts got stuck on his wording, but I didn’t have a chance to speak on it because he kept going. “I came back to the States simply because that’s where I felt you the strongest. After that, the feeling went cold and I was just kind of… drifting.”
There was vacancy behind his eyes as he seemed to go someplace else.
“Then, a few years ago, I decided to do a coast-to-coast sweep, trekking through California first. From there, I headed east,” he explained. “I thought I had a strong sense of you in Chicago, but… nothing ever came of it.”
Chicago.
An image of him making a temporary home in the Wilson Viaduct came to me and I said nothing.
“The latest instinct that hit me was to come here; to Seaton Falls.”
“What’s it feel like?” I asked. “These… instincts? Whatever it is that tells you where to find me?”
Liam was thoughtful for a moment, his eyes softening when he finally answered. “It’s just intuition. Second nature,” he explained. “Have you ever been driving and you pull up to your house, but aren’t quite sure how you got there? Not like you fell asleep or anything, but your body just knew all the turns to take, knew to stop at all the signs and lights without even thinking about it?”
I zoned out listening to him. “Yeah… I’ve done that.”
He nodded. “That’s kind of how it feels.” There was silence for a moment, but then he said more. “Wherever you are, I’m just… drawn to you.”
My heart beat so wildly, I felt it even in my sleep.
“Where are you from?” I asked next, hoping to distract myself. His words, all of them, hit me square in my chest and I wasn’t sure how I felt about how easily he affected me.
“Egypt. Cairo, to be specific.”
His answer came as somewhat of a surprise. “I thought you said you didn’t come to the States until you came looking for me.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then why don’t you have an accent? You sound just as American as I do.”
He laughed a short, thoughtful laugh. Apparently, my accusatory tone didn’t offend him. “I move around a lot so, I suppose it would’ve been more accurate to say I came back to look for you.” The laugh softened to a smile. “I’ve lived pretty much everywhere,” he shared. “One of the perks of having so much time, I guess.”
Sometimes, it felt like he spoke in riddles, but I couldn’t tell if it was his intention to confuse me, or if he just spoke that way. However, instead of letting it frustrate me, I moved on.
“Why can we communicate this way?” This was very close to my first question, but I didn’t feel as uneasy about hearing the answer now.
Before responding, Liam cranked the window down until it disappeared inside the door. Propping his elbow in the open space, I noticed his tattoos again, deciding I’d ask about those next.
“Why can we communicate this way…” he sighed, repeating my question. “Well, the short answer, the one I can give without making your head explode,” he joked, “… it’s because you allow it.”
I tried to make sense of that on my own, but came up empty. “I don’t get it.”
He shrugged. “It’s kind of l
ike how you’re here now. All I can say is that, if you didn’t want to be inside my head, you wouldn’t be.”
He stared again. The answer felt more like an accusation. He implied that I, for whatever reason, wanted to visit him in my dreams.
“That’s crazy,” I rebutted. “I can honestly say, tonight was the first and only time I came to you on purpose.”
He found something I said funny, but I wasn’t amused. “All I can do is tell you how it works. Only you know why you come to me.”
I was done with this question. If he was just going to play games, I’d move on again.
“Your tattoos—do any of them have meaning?” I asked. My tone was sharp, a dead giveaway that I was feeling a bit annoyed with his last answer.
His eyes did that thing again that let me know he was smiling. “All of them do, actually. There’s a story behind each one.”
I hated that I wanted to hear more.
He held his arms out in front of him, letting his wrists rest on the steering wheel. “Pick one.”
I scanned them, settling on the extensive one on the left. “The map,” I replied.
He stared at it a second. “It’s of home. So I never forget where I came from.”
I hadn’t pegged him, this big brute of a man, as sentimental, but clearly, I’d been wrong.
“The words on the sides of your fingers,” I said next, staring at the shadows between each digit. It was too dark to make them out.
Liam held up each, one at a time and I read them. “Love. Lost. Never. Dies.” That one felt too personal to ask for more details.
There was something printed in beautiful script on his arm. Something in Arabic. I traced the curves as I spoke. “Those words on your right arm; what do they say?”
Again, he brought the arm closer, probably for my benefit as he read. “Embers that burn, but can never be consumed’.”
This one left me confused. “Is it from a poem?”
Liam shook his head, answering, “…It’s more of a legend.”
I was intrigued, guessing it was most likely one from his home. However, just as I was getting ready to ask, I caught sight of his eyes in the mirror. He was hiding something—that was my first thought—but then I realized I was wrong.