Sunder

by Tara Brown

  He started the van and drove in the direction the nice lady with the English accent in the GPS told him to.

  “How do you know my Liv?” her mother asked.

  His heart tugged at him. She was his Liv. He gave her a look, wondering how stable she was. “I am her shadow twin.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What?”

  “We are soul mates.”

  “But you’re . . . gross.”

  He chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “I mean, you’re not gross, you’re something that is gross.”

  He pulled onto the old highway. “It’s fine. I don't expect anyone to understand. We just are. We can’t fight it.”

  “Has she changed yet?”

  He nodded. “Last night and the night before. She does it with ease and maintains her common sense somehow. She doesn't attack people or vampires. Very unusual. We haven’t said anything to her yet about it. We don't want her to worry about being different.”

  “But she is different.”

  He noticed the tone she had used. She knew her daughter was different? What else did she know? “Why is she different?”

  “Because he was doing things to me when I was pregnant, I just didn’t know it. Injecting me with things. I didn't know he knew what I was. He says he was trying to find a cure and assumed the fetus was the best place to start. I learned about it after he had taken me to his little torture chamber there. When I got sick from the things he had done to me, he convinced me I had Lupus, very uncommon for born wolves to get. In fact, I have never heard of another case except in bitten wolves. I got so sick, I couldn't even shift anymore. Of course after I had vanished into the caves of doom, I learned he had been giving me things to prevent the change, again trying to cure it. He kept telling me he loved me. It was sick. I had spent our entire marriage as his guinea pig and never knew it.”

  Briton couldn't believe the doctor was so gruesome.

  “When he realized there was no cure, he decided to let them harvest venom from me. But my venom is different. The shit my ex husband has done to me has made it different. I can’t kill a vampire, only paralyze them and knock them out. So they have been using mine to capture more vampires for harvesting their venom. Gunnar there, he’s the same. The tests and things done to him have made him completely harmless. His bite doesn't even stun anymore. They have had him a long time though. The poor boy.”

  He looked in the rearview at his brother in the cage. He wasn't moving. “He is going to require a lot of help.”

  She turned and gave him the saddest look. “The only help he needs is to be free of it all. There is no recovery. They have had him for a hundred and sixty years. Experimenting on him and hurting him. Forcing him to do revolting things and demeaning him. You must free him.”

  He swallowed his hatred and spite. “That is not my call.” He left it at that.

  She shrugged.

  They sat in silence and he contemplated the death of his brother.

  No longer wanting to think on it, he asked, “How did you snap back so fast?”

  “I ate her heart and other organs. Wolves do best with organs—hearts, livers, and kidneys. Humans are like magic for us. I never eat them, ever. We were being sustained on a retched mix they have experimented with. One part blood. One part water. One part ground meat. One part our own kind. Makes you crazy. Makes you weak and limits your abilities. You can’t shift. You heal like a human almost, it’s so slow.”

  He gagged and she nodded. “I know. Disturbing. And like humans who consume their own, we start to go mad. It is fixable, apparently.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The Knights, the same ones. They are no different than they were a thousand years ago. Different men—yes, but no different in the values and morals department. We are evil and they are holy. We run our lives by rules and guidelines, they do the lord’s work to torture and kill us all.”

  “Doctor Daniels is a Knight?”

  She nodded. “He is. I never knew what he was, and he sure as hell didn't know what I was, or so I thought. When I got sick, I confessed to him what I was. I assumed he would shun me, but he didn't. He was sweet and caring and devastated. Until he and I were alone, and I was supposedly dead. Then he became the man he really is, just a creepy Knight. When it was just the two of us in that hole, he would tell me he was searching for a cure so we could be together again.”

  “He is remarried.”

  She turned and smiled weakly, still looking sick but much better than before. “I know. He brought me the video of the wedding, the elopement to another wolf, my own damned cousin.”

  Briton didn't know what to say about that. All he was thinking about was where Liv was. She was his driving force for everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Liv

  I sat on the couch staring at Finn. He was still asleep. Liz was next to me. We had no leads. My father had vanished. Briton had vanished. Josh had vanished. Until Finn woke, we would have no answers. I was getting annoyed and ready to wake him up on my own. Not to mention, I was in another one of Maria’s ugly-ass dresses. I had left my neat pile of folded clothing at my father’s clinic.

  Finn shuddered again in his sleep.

  Maria came and sat beside me. She was so pretty. There was no way she was the mother of such old boys, and yet she was. Ragnar looked behind himself at the window. He was up and out the door instantly. I jumped up and followed him.

  Briton climbed out of a random minivan, and my heart leapt. I ran to him but stopped short when SHE got out of the passenger side. I dropped to my knees, sobbing instantly. She ran to me, smothering me in her love. She kissed my head, “My sweet girl. You’re all right.”

  “Mom! Mom, you’re here!” I pinched her and squeezed her. She looked bad, really bad, but she was alive. It had been real then? The torture had been real? Something bad switched on inside of me. Something that I wasn't sure I would be able to fix. But I gripped to her, forcing my eyes to stay open in case it was a hallucination and she was indeed gone.

  She checked every inch of me, running her hands and inspecting. It got annoying quickly, but I knew she was making sure he hadn’t hurt me. I tried hugging but she smelled and squished until she was satisfied I was fine.

  Briton walked to me, hovering over us.

  “You found her?”

  He nodded. His father and mother came out of the house as Ragnar carried Gunnar from the back of the van. He stayed curled in a ball. I could see Thorlack was distraught but he held himself together. He shook with rage but when Ragnar passed him his son, he cradled the grown man in his arms and kissed his face as tears rolled from his eyes. It was Maria who was the hot mess. She screamed and shook with anger. She spoke in Italian and crossed herself a hundred times. She got down on her knees and prayed in the grass.

  Briton looked on, his lips pressed together and his jaw trembling. I got up from my mother and wrapped myself around him. He clung to me, taking in deep breaths of me. I could feel him shaking.

  Ellie came walking up to the house; seeing it all must have affected her too. Tears slipped from her eyes. She glanced at me. “Is Josh hurt? I had a bad feeling about him.”

  I nodded towards the van. “He’s sleeping. They must have drugged him.”

  She walked to it and opened the door. Simon and Liz helped her get him out. “I’m going to take him to my house. He’s safe there. I’ve put the guards back up to full strength. Whatever is in here with us, we will have to fight but nothing that intends anyone in town harm may enter.”

  Briton nodded. “Thank you, Ellie. We will start tomorrow. Flushing out the evil.”

  She sighed and walked to her house with Simon and Liz. It was weird they had spawned such a friendship so quickly.

  I looked at Briton and inwardly laughed at my own comment.

  He looked disturbed. I didn't know what he had been through, but I had a feeling it was the kind of thing you didn't recover from.

  The thought made me look
at my mom. I smiled and hugged her again. She looked so old and tired.

  I knew what she needed. I pointed at the field. “Want to run?”

  She shook her head. “We can’t. I can’t. Your father made it so I can never shift again. It’s gone. I can heal pretty quickly from wounds as long as I eat a lot of bloody meat, but I will continue to age and die as a normal human. I won’t ever get back what he took from me.”

  “How old are you?”

  She smiled. “Three hundred and eighty-seven. So I feel pretty good about my lifespan.”

  Tears started down my cheeks again. “But I need you.”

  She wiped my tears. “I know. I’m here. You’re going to be safe. Tonight we will sleep in the one house your father fears more than any other.”

  I winced. “I need to get Judith.”

  My mother flinched.

  I reached my hand for her but she pulled back. It was a petty reaction I never expected from my mother. My humanitarian mother who had lived her entire life as a vegan, which I still needed to have explained to me, couldn't spare a drop of kindness to the woman who had taken me in? A woman who was family? I cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Her jaw set. “I don't have to like that she stepped into my life so quickly.”

  “No, but you have to accept she is a part of the family, and I care about her. And it wasn't quick. Dad was single for three years. It wasn’t fast. He was miserable.”

  “IT WAS AN ACT, LIV! HE IS A SCHEMING BASTARD!”

  I jumped back, Briton was in front of me immediately. She snarled and turned and walked away. I didn’t understand what was happening.

  Briton held me, whispering, “She isn’t quite right. He did a lot of things to them.”

  She stalked off into the street. I watched her go, feeling like I needed to run after her. But I didn't. If I were honest with myself, I would admit to being scared to leave Briton’s side.

  She left my line of sight, making a panic build in me. Briton took my hand and pulled me that way. “Come on.” He dragged me until I decided he was making the right choice.

  “How bad was it?” I asked the question I decided I needed to know.

  “I won’t ever be the same again. Nothing in two thousand years has scarred me so.”

  I grimaced. “That’s bad.”

  “I don't want to talk about it.” He looked down on me. “I just want you to know that I love you, very much. From the very first time I saw you then and even more now.”

  “You remember?” He remembered it?

  He nodded. “Faintly. I saw it when I was unconscious. It was a wonderful life. Simple, but wonderful. We were farmers, a community of sorts. You and I had just been married in our people’s ritual of bonding a man with a woman, and were about to start a family. We were happy.”

  It made me feel better he remembered, like our love now wasn't so weird and forced. I still couldn't shake the bad feeling I’d had all day. I kept my senses alert as we rounded the corner to downtown. My mom was sitting on a curb, staring up at the night’s sky.

  I walked to her, letting down my guard a little bit. I sat next to her and looked up. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  “You didn't. I know Judith is important to you now. I hate it because it was my job. I was supposed to be your mom, and when you needed me the most, I let a human take me away. I let him in and trusted him and risked us both.”

  I waited to see if she was going to say anything else, but she was silent. I shook my head and whispered, “Mom, I never felt like that though. I loved you. I loved you a lot. I loved Dad too. Now I hate him, but I have never suffered or had hardship. You were an awesome mom and I felt loved. I still do.” She smiled and wiped her eyes. But I wasn’t done. “Now how come you were vegan? How did you make that work?”

  She chuckled. “Oh that. I wasn't ever a vegan. I was just trying to be like this mom I met at playschool. She was so awesome. So I emulated her. I voted the way she did, I ate the way she did, I preached the way she did. I figured it made me super human. I wanted so badly to be with your father. When I met him here in Wolfville, I fell in love with him and left with him, against my family’s wishes. My parents were dead. They died in the hunter wars, so I was an easy target for the Knights—I just didn’t know it. Anyway, we moved to Chicago and I got pregnant, and I wanted all of us to just be normal. When I knew you weren’t, I hid it. Your father didn't know what I was, or so I thought. I made it my mission to act like you and I were human. I did everything in my power to make sure we were the most normal people ever.” She turned and looked at me. “I always hunted in the woods until I got sick. When I got too sick to move, I finally had to tell your father what I was. He brought me bloody meat and I ate it in secret.”

  I lay back on the cold sidewalk and stared up at the stars. “So you thought he never knew but really he did? All along?”

  “Yup.”

  “He was a regular human?”

  She didn't answer. I looked at her. She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

  I sat up. “What does that mean?”

  “You aren’t a regular wolf, my dear. Wolves are savage. They can’t stop themselves. They eat humans if they get the chance. They can’t control themselves around humans, animals, or vampires.”

  My insides started their fluttering again. “What does that mean?”

  The look she gave me chilled my bones. “I don't know.”

  I looked at Briton. I could hear him sigh. “Did you know I was weird?”

  His eyes gave away the answer. As did his not moving.

  “Great, I’m not only a wolf, I’m a freaky one?”

  He still didn't move. I looked back at my mom. She nodded. I slumped. “I am never going to have the awesome year I planned. This sucks. Dad’s a dick, you’re all weird and touchy about shit, Josh and Liz are going to change, and I am never going to have the senior year I swore to myself I would have.”

  She started to laugh and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I have missed you, Liv. I really have.”

  We got up and walked back to the mansion.

  When Briton and I were finally alone in our room, I sent a bunch of texts.

  “Judith will message you when she gets a chance. Put your phone away.” Briton whispered into my ear. We lay on his bed, wrapped in each other. Everyone had gone to bed. Finn was still passed out and Gunnar was still a hot mess. They had been feeding him blood bags all night long, but he was still sitting silent, scared of every noise. My mom showered and changed and started looking like a normal person again too. She was still rocking the homeless bag-lady look, but at least she didn’t smell homeless anymore.

  I closed my eyes and curled into him. “What are those needles on the dresser?”

  He tensed up.

  “I saw them, don't even try making shit up.” I smiled when I spoke.

  “Venom. They are venom. They make a vampire or werewolf very sick. Blue is wolf and red is vampire.”

  “That’s the venom my dad steals and uses as a weapon against us?”

  He kissed my neck, moving closer to me. “Yes.”

  I moved closer to him, but the whole it being his parents’ house, was killing it for me. “I can’t do this with your brothers next door and my mom down the hall.”

  He kissed again, nibbling my skin softly. “We will be very careful and quiet.”

  I opened my eyes and looked back at him. “They all have super hearing. No. I heard your brother fart ten minutes ago.”

  He laughed but it sounded bitter. He slumped next to me and pulled me into him. I could feel how much he wanted to do it. Truth be told, I wanted it too but not enough for everyone to know we did it. Not to mention, I had plans.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed. I was just waiting for him to pass out. The minute he did, I had to move. But his looks distracted me. I couldn’t stop staring. He really was perfect.

  His breathing started to get regular, then his body relaxed into the bed. He
twitched once and bam—out like a light. He slept so bizarrely, like a coma patient.

  I slipped from the bed, grabbed the needles, and jumped out the window to the roof. I crept along the rooftop until I reached the back. I changed there. Learning how to be quiet was awesome, but I needed to learn how to change and not make it hurt every time.

  I jumped down, letting my wolf senses run on high alert. I crossed town in the shadows. I caught a whiff of a few wolves but nothing serious. When I got to Liz’s house, I scratched at the door. She opened it and tiptoed out of the house. She was glowing. I knew she had drunk her grandma’s blood and summoned her spirit. She didn't have her own magic yet, but she could borrow from her dead grandma. It was weird, but if it worked—awesome. She had been doing a lot of reading since the dream walk. It had enabled her to understand the books we had looked at but thought were gibberish. I passed her the needles I had carried carefully in my mouth. I drew in the dirt, “Venom. Blue Wolf, Red Vamp.”