Book of Revenge (6 page)

“Take me to Winter Wood,” she demanded.

I could sense her determination. She was agitated with me for not indulging her desires. Her yearning for me only made every minute I denied her worse. Her every movement was like a stab to my wavering inhibitions, the desire inside me like a pool in which I was slowly drowning.

I weighed my options. The last thing I wanted to do was return to that place, but going there and indulging her need to see it would delay this newest problem and relax the overall stress on me. I was naïve to think that the Priory wouldn’t find out about me soon enough. Given the choices I had, it was better to go to them before they came to me. It was the lesser of two evils.

Jane’s eyes narrowed. “I know what you’re doing. You’re stalling, aren’t you?” Suspicion replaced her confident tone.

“No,” I denied, but it came across rather vague.

“Why are you trying to avoid it? So what if you left the Priory? It’s not like you have to
re
-join.”

I drew in a deep breath, steeling my spine.

“What was that for?” She accused, feeling my resistance—an emotion I borrowed from her.

I was beginning to fear that I wasn’t going to win this. “I didn’t exactly leave on good terms, Jane. I’m not just going to waltz back into Winter Wood and hope for a joyful welcome.”

“What do you mean? And who cares? No one ever leaves a job on good terms, or so it seems.”

“Just…” I sat up, forcing her to get up as well. “I’ll take you there,” I had no choice but to agree, but I could still postpone. “Soon enough… but for right now, let me take you home.”

Wes:

I stared at Emily as she waited for my response to her questions about the owl. I finally gave up. “I don’t know what the owl wants, Em. That’s your area.” My voice held a hint of annoyance.

But she didn’t. I could tell. “Well,
fine.
” I tried to flick her nose with my finger but she beat me to it, grabbing my hand and lacing her fingers with mine.

“You’re getting faster at that,” I remarked, trying to get her to yield her fiery emotions.

Emily stood tall, her chin high. “My hearing
is
getting better, yes.” Her assurance confirmed that she was acting cocky now.

Though cockiness didn’t suit her, I was glad we’d moved onto a new subject. Confiding in Max was madness, at least in my mind. I grinned.

“No, we haven’t moved on,” she concluded. “You’re going to ask Max, and that’s final.”

My grin faded and I cursed myself for thinking anything at all, but it was hard to stop thinking. Just try it,
impossible
. Regretfully, I turned my attention back to the owl that had been on my car. What I was finding hard to ignore was the way my heart leapt whenever I saw another animal these days. I was secretly hoping it was my parents, but I admitted that to no one.

“No one but me,” Emily chimed in.

Emily was like a hawk within my thoughts, hunting down every secret I held and poaching it. I sighed.

“That’s why I’m going to make you talk to Max. Maybe he can find your parents, or at least tell you where to look.” We’d come full circle and I was right back on the subject of Max. I suddenly felt exhausted. We reached her front porch and she spun, grasping my shoulders. “Just think! What if that owl is one of your parents? What if that owl was, like, your father!”

A sigh escaped my lips, trying to ignore the fact that Emily was especially cute when she got excited like this. Her red hair matched the falling leaves, her brown eyes bright and unhindered. “I doubt that,” I shook my head, not wanting to get my hopes up, though they still did. “It’s not my father.”

She smirked, knowing I was denying myself the pleasure of hope. “Thanks for walking me home.” She finally relented, allowing my thoughts to remain my own.

I smiled. “No problem.” I reached up, giving her another barely-kiss. She grumbled when I pulled away, making the smile on my face widen—two could play this game. “Don’t forget about tonight. It’s our first date.” I winked.

She slouched, her expression filled with trepidation. “Yeah, right. See you tonight.”

I was oddly satisfied seeing her regret her decision to start over. Seeing her suffer somehow made my suffering over mental privacy seem fair. I watched her walk into the house before turning and making my way back across the lawn. When I felt I was a safe distance away, I let my shoulders relax and my thoughts pull free. I wished there was a way I could hide them from her, and I knew there was, but again that involved talking to Max. I jumped onto my porch, skipping the use of stairs and humming to myself.

“Hey.”

An uncontrollable shiver of hate ran down my spine. I stopped, not bothering to turn my head to look at him. “Hi, Max.” Freaky coincidence, or not? His timely presence only made my distrust for him grow deeper.

He laughed. “Still not warming to me, are you?”

I pressed my lips together. “You could say that.” I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans, fumbling with the lint that had gathered there. “What do you want?” I scuffed my shoe across the deck.

“To talk. We have a lot to discuss.”

I felt myself rope-in every thought I’d previously freed, guarding them harder than ever. “What if I don’t want to talk?” I finally forced myself to hold his gaze and observe him.

He was sitting casually on the cedar bench my foster father had made—he made everything in this house, it seemed. “I think Emily wants you to talk with me.”

Max indulged my procrastination this time. “Inside.” His eyes motioned across the yard toward her house. “Brought her home just a little while ago.”

I wondered what they did with their time together, and if they’d done
that
yet—I couldn’t help it. “Jane hasn’t figured out how much of a loser you are yet, has she?” I was challenging him, but I couldn’t help that, either.

Max tilted his head toward me. A noticeable tension lighted across his features, something that hadn’t been there before. “Wes.” His voice was commanding, telling me he was done with games and that I’d gone too far.

Max’s cool attitude once again returned. “I can hear her, feel her animal instincts—natural instincts. There is no human in her. I can see that because of what I am.”

I shook my head. “
Great.
Now I’m attracting animal girlfriends,” I muttered.

Max chuckled, and it angered me.

He stopped suddenly, licking his lips before continuing. “I haven’t seen your parents in almost seventy years, but I did know them very well, as I said before.”

I felt my heart tighten. A part of me had hoped he
still
knew them.

“They were classmates of mine, and like you, their senior year got complicated rather quickly. Just before I died, they’d finally come to terms with what was happening to them and were falling in love.”

I was concentrating on my hands, attempting to hide any emotion that might have shown on my face. Just knowing I had parents that could still be out there was shock enough; knowing Max had known them was worse.

“Your foster parents know, Wes. They took you in with the understanding of what you are. They had to.”

I swallowed hard, feeling as though a log had landed on me. “What?” I couldn’t picture Gladys holding a secret like that at bay. “How?”

“I haven’t been there in a long time,” he added, fulfilling my curiosity as to whether this was a place he still went, and why we hadn’t known about it sooner.

“Is that where they are?” A part of me hoped it was that easy.

“I’m afraid not.”

I felt a little angered by his reply. “How would you know if you haven’t been there in a while?” I wanted him to get to the point.

Max tilted his head. “It’s a good assumption, but…” His voice trailed off.

“
But
what?”

“Your parents are dead, Wes. I’m sorry.” His gaze dropped. “I heard word of it long ago. There was a massive reaping in the mountains of Washington where many of your kind had fled for refuge. No one survived.”

Just like that, the little hopes I’d had vanished. “Why tell me this?” My voice was raised. “Why lead me to believe they could still be out there?”

Max touched my shoulder, but I jerked away from him.

“I’m sorry. But in my defense, I didn’t have the time to tell you before because of what was going on with Greg, and I regret that you assumed otherwise.”

I was suddenly angry at Jane and Emily for putting those thoughts in my head. I remembered the day they’d first mentioned it. It was before we had truly learned what Max was, right before Emily had been taken by Greg.

“You were conceived in Winter Wood, but when your mother gave birth to you, they knew you needed to have a human upbringing. Even with both parents being shifters, there was no guarantee that you would be. They wanted to be sure to prepare you for that. If you never developed the gift, they wanted you to remain in the human world, unaware of their trials and tribulations. It was safer this way. Our world was, and is, a dangerous place.”

He ignored my negative comment. “Your foster parents are friendly with the magickal beings here. They’re some of the few humans that know about our world and want to help.”

“It’s like a giant conspiracy,” I muttered.

Max stood. “You should tell them what has happened to you. You can confide in them, and they’ll want to know that you’ve made the transition. They’ve been anxiously waiting to see if you take to the gift or not. They deserve to know that you have. Your parents were good friends with Gladys. I know she has stories she’d love to tell you about them.”

He stepped off the porch, not bothering to turn back. I watched him walk across the lawn toward Jane’s house. My gaze fell to my feet as the reality sank in. My parents were dead. Dead as dirt. Dead and gone. Once again, I had no one.

I heard the front door open, the hinges whining. “Are you alright, Wes?” Gladys’s small eyes peered out. She tilted her head. “I just don’t normally see you sit out here, and—”

“I’m fine, ma’am,” I interrupted before she could say anything more. I didn’t want to talk about my parents, and I didn’t want to talk about me. My parents had left me, and I was going to leave them as well. They never existed in my memories so there was no point reliving their life through stories. There was no point in sharing my life with Gladys.

I would not allow any of them to exist or know.

This was my life.

Jane:

“Oh, Jane. Thank you.”

I handed my mother a cup of tea as she wiped her nose with a tissue. She was slouched against the counter in the kitchen, watching me as I rushed to make myself breakfast before school.

“I must have caught that flu that Wes and Emily had last week.”

I turned away from her in time to hide the smile. What my mother still didn’t understand was that what Wes and Emily had was anything but the flu. Thankfully, Max had made sure she thought otherwise. I turned back to her, toast in hand.

“Well, drink that tea and I’m sure you’ll feel better.” I smiled, but it was quickly washed away as her future death trickled over me. I saw her running, tripping as she stumbled from a cliff. I jolted and gripped the counter, my hand flying to my mouth in order to cover my scream.

“Jane?” My mother reached across the counter with concern. She touched my hand, making the image more vivid—her body hit the rocks.

I shuddered and shut my eyes, a chill icing the room.

“Jane? Are you all right?” she asked again.

I slid my hand from my mouth. “Yeah,
um…
I just remembered I forgot to do an assignment.” I looked into my mother’s large, almond shaped eyes, the same eyes she shared with Emily.
She’s still alive,
I told myself.
It’s not real.
“Sorry…
Darn it.
Now I’m going to get a ‘B’.” I tried to make the excuse seem relevant. I pounded the counter with my fist, though the image of my mother dead on the rocks still lingered.