Time's Daughter

by Anya Breton

  “That was nice.”

  In a slow, cautious speed I asked, “I don’t suck at it?”

  Alex laughed quickly. “No. No, you definitely don’t suck at it.”

  I found myself blurting out, “When am I going to wake up from this dream, Alex?”

  He sounded confused when he asked, “What?”

  “You’re too good to be true. That usually means I’m either dreaming or I’m missing something.”

  He shifted his pose abruptly to face me more. Alex’s tone was incredulous. “You think I’m too good to be true?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “I’m a shapeshifter,” he reminded me. “I turn into a cat. How can I be too good to be true?”

  “The fact that you’re different makes you even more too good to be true. Like you said, we can be ourselves together.” I paused for a breath. “Alex, I barely functioned all week because I was scared I’d never see you again.”

  He slid his arm behind my shoulder and pulled me to him for a hug. “We Chattans are a hardy bunch. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”

  I couldn’t stop my stupid smile because that was exactly what I wanted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Without warning the glass behind Alex’s head shattered. A hand curled over the top of his hair yanking him away from me. An animalistic growl emitted from him followed by a cat-like shriek as his body was pulled through the glass shards into the parking lot beyond.

  Alex shifted into his other form midair. He quickly broke free from his attacker. A half second later his huge midnight paw clawed the creature in the face.

  The shock of it all kept me quiet but it didn’t keep me frozen. I bounded from the car without a thought for my own safety. I ran around the front of the Chevy to gauge the situation.

  Another seven-foot tall ghastly thin creature with tattered clothing was attacking my boyfriend. I tried to find an opening in the fight to apply my special power. Limbs were moving far too quickly as they clawed and swatted each other. Despite the color difference I could barely make out where the tattered creature ended and Alex began. I needed them to split apart.

  As if hearing my wish, the creature lunged for me, no doubt because I was tastier smelling than my animal companion. It was the opening I needed. I jumped forward, laid a hand on its arm and made it freeze.

  The panther clawed and snarled a few more times. He soon realized his quarry had stopped moving. Alex pulled back cautiously and eyed the creature closely for a half a minute before trotting to the back door of his car. He turned to look at me and then nudged the handle with his nose. My hand covered the small smile on my face.

  Poor Alex. With no opposable thumbs he couldn’t do something as simple as open the car door on his own. It was sweet in a bizarre way.

  I didn’t know why he wanted in the car but I wasn’t going to argue with him. It was his car. If he wanted to tear up the upholstery with his massive claws then who was I to stop him?

  I closed the distance, waited for him to step back so there was room and then opened the door for him. He hopped in, pawed at the door again as if he wanted me to close it and then settled into the back seat until I had.

  A sneezing noise from within had me turning quickly on my heel to face the opposite direction. I took the opportunity to pick up Alex’s shredded clothing off the blacktop so that no one would know we’d been there. The black jeans and gray thermal shirt he’d been wearing were torn into pieces by the force of his body changing. Even his tennis shoes had been split in two. I wondered how many sets of clothes the Chattans went through in a month.

  The door opened behind me. I assumed that meant he’d shifted back but I didn’t dare turn around. Who knew what he was wearing now.

  I blushed at the sight of his naked upper half. He’d pulled on sweat pants that he’d no doubt stashed in the back of his car. Apparently he hadn’t thought to bring extra shirts, socks or shoes. The sight of his wounds offset my embarrassment. Three long gashes from the glass of the window glistened painfully. I was instantly concerned that they might not heal properly if he didn’t get them stitched soon.

  “We can’t leave that thing here and we certainly can’t set it on fire here. I need to get it home where it’s safe,” Alex declared.

  He had a point. The parking lot outside the factory operating on second shift was not the best place to dispose of a supernatural creature. I closed the distance to it and waited to be told what to do.

  Alex took hold of the wendigo from behind, careful not to touch any fluids on it. It seemed to me that the thing’s bulky frame was nearly impossible to get into the car. Alex was forced to climb in the back seat to tug with all his might until we got the thing halfway in.

  Back in the passenger seat, I sat with a keen gaze fixed on the disgusting sunken eyes in the seat behind us. If it awoke from its frozen state, I’d have to put the whammy on it pronto before it distracted our driver. The last thing we needed was a bloodthirsty cannibal playing backseat driver.

  “I hope you don’t mind coming out to the house again,” Alex said as we pulled onto the main street.

  I laughed a little hysterically that he was bothering to worry about something as simple as that. “No. I wouldn’t let you drive with this thing in the car without me.”

  He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’m definitely falling in love with you.”

  My heart skipped again. It was an odd time to tell me something like that but somehow it fit perfectly for us.

  “Here,” he handed me a cellular phone from beneath the armrest before I could respond. “Can you find ‘home’ and call it? The speaker phone button will show up once you’ve hit call.”

  I fumbled with the digital menus until I found the item for home. Seconds later the phone was ringing loudly in the car. I kept an eye on the wendigo in the back seat in case the phone disturbed it while holding the phone out in between us.

  The sugary sweet voice of his little sister answered with an exclamation. “Lex!”

  “Put Dad on the phone, Abs,” he spoke brusquely.

  “Dad!” She shouted without pulling the phone away. The sound reverberated in my eardrums. “It’s Lex! He wants to talk to you on the phone.” Abby wasn’t content with waiting quietly for her father to come to the phone. “Did you kiss her?”

  Alex glanced at me briefly with a smile. “Of course I kissed her.”

  “Did she notice your foul cat breath?”

  “Abs,” he griped petulantly.

  “So you had a breath mint first?”

  “She can hear you, Abs.”

  “Oh, oopsie,” Abby responded sheepishly. “Hi Aeon!”

  I chuckled for her benefit. “Hi Abby.”

  “Here’s Dad.”

  The phone changed hands noisily. Arthur’s smooth voice spoke over the speaker moments later. “Hello?”

  Alex was all business when he explained the situation to his dad. “We’ve got another one of those things in the back seat. It attacked me while I was in the car but Aeon froze it. We’re bringing it to you. I’m going to need help getting it out of the car and doing something with it.”

  Arthur swore quietly. “I’ll get the clan together. Be safe, Alex.”

  “I will.”

  The call disconnected abruptly. I set the phone in the area beneath the armrest then resumed my vigil over the thing behind me.

  Alex’s car stunk now. The odor was unbearable. I had to open my window to keep from gagging even though it was thirty degrees outside. I knew the stench was because of the wendigo because his car had smelled perfectly fine the few times I’d been in it. It had smelled more than fine. It had smelled like Alex.

  “I’m gonna need a new car,” Alex grumbled.

  “We’ll spray three bottles of Febreeze in here.”

  “Well, not only that, but the window,” he gestured to the window beside him that was smashed.

  “Your back.” I frowned upon remembering what it had looked like.
/>
  “Mom will take care of it after we’re done.”

  “It must hurt.”

  “It doesn’t feel good,” he agreed. “But I’ll be fine. All things considered, it could have been far worse. That thing could have bitten me.”

  “Where are they coming…?”

  My heart jumped into my throat as my speech halted. Alex had slammed on the brakes to avoid something in the middle of the darkened country road. We could now see that it was coming for us in the headlights and though it was seven feet tall, it was no moose.

  “Another wendigo!” I exclaimed. “Alex, we can’t let it…”

  “I know,” he cut me off. “Can you freeze it?”

  “Not without touching it.”

  He cursed then maneuvered the car to the shoulder. Alex was out the door a split second later. I realized with a start that he was pulling his sweat pants off. He meant to shift there on the side of the road while the thing lumbered toward us.

  The black panther tackled the wendigo before I’d realized he’d finished transforming. He hadn’t explained any plan to me but I assumed he’d want me to freeze the creature in time while he distracted it. I stepped out of the car, crept behind them, and used my power to end the fight by touching its feet while the cat held it down. Alex pulled back as soon as he realized the wendigo was no longer moving.

  Glass crashing a short distance away was the final straw. I let out the scream I’d been holding in since the initial attack.

  “Shhh,” Alex cooed softly in my ear. His bronzed arms came around me to pull me back for a tight hug.

  “I can only hold one of them at a time,” I told him miserably.

  “It will be okay,” he assured me calmly. I didn’t know how he could be calm when there were two of these things. Nonetheless he continued, “I’m going to distract the one in the car. I want you to freeze it again. Then you need to call my house and have them give you directions. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, but what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to draw the other one home on foot.”

  “Alex, no,” I twisted in his arms until we were facing each other.

  His slate-blue eyes were far too serious for his young age. With a bittersweet smile he replied, “It’s the only way we can make sure they don’t attack anyone else.”

  I winced as his finger slid beneath my chin to lift my lips to his. It felt too much like a final gesture. He’d just come back to me after days of being apart. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured me. “I can easily outrun it. I’ve got to shift now before the thing trashes my car anymore than it already has.”

  He pulled me upward onto the tips of my toes for another firm kiss. I clung to his sides desperately but the soft fur was already breaking out across his skin. I jumped back in time for him to fall onto his front paws and start into a run. The ferocious snarl ahead seconds later meant he’d already engaged in battle.

  The wendigo had gotten halfway through the window before Alex attacked. With flailing arms the massive creature tried to fight against the powerful slices the panther’s claws made on each pass. I snuck around the car to the opposite door as quietly as I could but its senses caught on my presence. The wendigo pulled itself away from the fight into the backseat toward me. Recklessly I pounced on it to freeze it in place.

  The black panther shot out toward the tree line a breath later. I made myself get out of the back seat. On my way to the driver’s side I made sure to pick up his sweatpants. Down into the front seat I sunk inside the stinky Cobalt.

  I took hold of the phone I’d used minutes earlier. My fingers trembled on the buttons until I got the correct entry up. Soon it was ringing.

  “Lex!”

  “It’s Aeon,” I greeted Abby in a wavering voice. “I need someone to give me directions to your house.”

  “Um, one second.”

  Anna’s voice spoke next. “Where are you?”

  “I have no idea.” I trembled from the fear for Alex more than the cold flowing in through the broken windows. “It’s dark. There are no street lamps and there are a ton of trees but the road is still paved. I don’t see lights anywhere around so I can’t be near any houses.”

  “Okay. You’re probably on Brown. Go ahead and start driving. Describe anything you see that isn’t a tree.”

  Anna’s calm was inspiration enough draw in a deep breath and try to focus. “I have to turn on the car. One second.”

  My trembling fingers fumbled with the keys. I started forward at no faster than ten miles per hour. Driving wasn’t a skill I’d perfected and I was even worse at doing it in the dark.

  Anna questioned me while she waited for the first description. “What happened?”

  “We almost ran into another one with the car. When I froze it, the one in the backseat woke up. Alex is trying to lead the other one to you. I’m so scared,” I admitted with a snuffle.

  “The one with you is frozen though, right?”

  “That isn’t what I’m scared about.”

  Anna’s voice softened. “He’ll be fine. Just worry about getting here, Okay?”

  “Okay. I see a mailbox. Hold on.” I slowed in front of it. “Yeah, two thousand and forty one Brown Street.”

  “Okay, hon. You’re going to have to drive two miles down this road and look for the Lake Shore street sign on the right.”

  I checked the trip counter on the speedometer and tried to add two to it. The simple math was nearly impossible in my frazzled state. My eyes were peeled on the road for wild life, supernatural or otherwise.

  An oncoming car made my stomach flip sickly. I nearly forgot to turn the high beams down in my worry. What if the driver could tell there was a seven-foot monster in the back seat?

  Anna’s voice broke into my worried thoughts after the car had passed. “Aeon? Did you find it yet?”

  “No. I’m doing like ten miles per hour.”

  She gently scolded me. “Honey, you need to speed up a little more or someone is going to think you’re a drunk driver.”

  “I can barely drive,” I moaned pitifully.

  “You have your license?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Aeon. It isn’t really that hard. Take a deep breath. Exhale slowly.”

  I did as Anna requested.

  “Feel any better?”

  A nervous laugh was my first answer. “Not really. Oh! I see the sign!”

  “Take the right at Lake Shore. You’re almost here.”

  It was a fib but I didn’t fault her for it. I knew half of the trip had been on dirt roads. I’d turned onto the first. I’d wanted to gnaw on my fingernails badly but didn’t dare pull my hands from the steering wheel.

  “Okay. I can hear the car,” Anna told me fifteen minutes later. “You’re going to come upon a hidden driveway to your left.” She paused a long moment. “Okay, slow down. See it?”

  The opening in the greenery was so overgrown that I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t spotted the sparkling eyes of Anna beside it. “Barely, but only because I see you.”

  “Want me to drive now?”

  I heard her voice both over the phone and from outside the window. “Yes, please.”

  She disconnected the phone once she’d reached the car door. We exchanged places but not before she cast worried glances at the thing in the back. I hurried around to get into the passenger seat as her foot revved the engine impatiently.

  Anna drove like a NASCAR driver up to the house. The clan converged on the car before she’d turned it off. No one asked where Alex was, what had happened or why I was in his car without him. Their primary concern seemed to be ridding the world of the creature in the backseat.

  Drew, Aaron and Antonio removed the wendigo from the car with ease. The guys made it look easy even thought the thing had to weigh a ton.

  A bonfire was already going in the backyard. I turned away, moving toward the car
again because I didn’t want to watch what followed. My fingernails went to my mouth for a good biting session as I stood in the lamplight out front.

  Alex was out there somewhere. A monster was chasing him. We’d run into two of them within a half hour’s time. There was no telling how many more of them there were. He might be able to easily outrun one wendigo. Could he handle more than one? I hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “He’ll be fine,” Anna’s soothing voice was doing little to chase away my fear. Nor had her squeeze to my arm.

  “We ran into two,” I repeated my worries aloud. “There may be more.”

  She nodded mutely while looking into the darkness ahead.

  “And he got pretty scratched up by the car window,” I added.

  Anna’s eyes snapped to mine. I saw the worry flicker in them before she hid it behind another reassuring smile. “We’re going to go out after him. You were ten miles from here. If he’s moving at the wendigo’s speed it will take him nearly an hour to get home.”

  “You need me. I’m going too,” I insisted.

  She shook her head. “We’ll make do without putting you in danger.”

  “But I can freeze it so we can get it back here.”

  Her eyes scanned mine for a moment before she responded. “I’m sure he’d prefer you not be involved in this anymore than necessary.”

  The answer irritated me enough to give her the truth. “I don’t want him involved in it either. But he is. So I think it’s only fair that I help.”

  She gave momentary smile. “I know you want to help but you have no immunity to their attacks…”

  “What if this is why Chronos gave me my power?” I persisted fiercely. They couldn’t leave me behind. I had to make sure Alex was safe. “This might be the bad thing that happens to Junction Hill. He gave me the ability to manipulate time for a reason. I need to go with you.”

  Anna sighed in defeat. “You can come if you insist. But you’re staying at the back with Abby and Arnold. Alex will never forgive me if anything happens to you.”

  I threw my arms around her for an impulsive hug. “Thank you!”