Descendant (17 page)

“Don’t you understand?” Kael said quietly. “This is why he took your sister. He knows who you are, and he needed a way to get you to do what he wanted.”

I froze, my eyes going wide as I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that. “Well how do I do it then?” I asked quickly.

“How do I destroy the pact?” A reluctant look crossed Kael’s face, and he turned away. So I looked to Eli instead.

He didn’t look particularly enthusiastic to say anything, either, but after several seconds of my glaring he final y spoke:

“…Different versions of the legend say different things…”

He paused, and gave me a hard look. “But it does not matter—you can not do that.”

“If that’s what it takes to save my sister then I—”

“That’s a very bad idea,” Will interjected. “That pact is the only thing that’s prevented all -out war these past few centuries. Listen—most lycans don’t live peacefully among humans because they want to. Especial y not anymore.”

Eli nodded in agreement. “We are of a select few… but these days more and more of our kind are of the opinion that the race of man has more than warn out its welcome.”

“Valkos knows that,” Kael said. “I’d be willing to bet he’s banking on that. And I bet you anything his plan is to get you out of the way—once he’s used you to sever the pact, of course—and then make sure everyone knows he did it so they’l follow him to whatever end. Trust me—you and your sister are going to be a lot worse off if all of the lycans around here turn on the human race. It’l be like the middle ages all over again…”

“How did you even figure all this out?” I asked Eli. My words came out a lot more harshly than I’d meant for them to, but I couldn’t help it. I felt trapped, like a dog backed into a corner and provoked until it snapped. Deep down I knew being spitefull wasn’t going to make Eli take back everything he’d said. And even if he took it back it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. But the anger growing inside me had to go somewhere— and so I suddenly became determined to poke any holes I could into Eli’s theories.

“The circumstances surrounding your father’s death, and those surrounding your attack, were very unusual,” Eli began in a carefull voice. He was watching me closely, probably wondering if he could continue without worrying probably wondering if he could continue without worrying about me freaking out and turning the table over on him. My fingers curled around the edge of the smooth oak. It was a tempting thought, I had to admit.

“For Sera to have attacked you in broad daylight, days from the full moon— regardless of her motive— it seemed like a risky move, or maybe a desperate one. I was curious, so I have spent the past few days gathering as much information as I could about you and your family, hoping I could uncover some answers.”

“My family…” I interrupted. “Speaking of my family— you said I was the last of my bloodline,” I reminded him. “But what about my mom… and what about Lora?” I asked.

“I do not think the one you know as “Mom” is your actual mom,” he said.

Wow. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better.

My heart sank even further as Eli continued: “If the records I consulted are correct, your actual mom died a long time ago.” He bit his lip before adding in a hurried voice: “Although, according to those same records, so did you—so they could be wrong.”

“Records? What records?”

“The government keeps tabs on us,” Vanessa explained.

“Although they’re terribly inaccurate for the most part. And incomplete, too, since a lot of our kind aren’t especial y cooperative.”

“Wait… so there are humans who know about you guys?”

“Very few,” Eli said. “It is highly classified information, of course—and not very believable information at that. A small department of the government is responsible, and I would say half the people who work in that department do not even believe we exist.” He shrugged. “Anyway, my parents use to work pretty closely with a higher up in this department, a man by the name of Joel Geist, and I was able to get a hold of him. He pulled a few files for me, including one on a family of three that went missing almost sixteen years ago. According to his information, all three of them were official y reported dead a few years back.”

“Dead?” I repeated. Something about that word made me dizzy.

“I am not sure exactly how your father did it, but somehow he managed to fly under the radar all these years. He even married a human, and adopted a human daughter, and you have a human birth certificate and even a social-security card—although both of them are forged, it would seem.”

“Okay. Maybe we could’ve fooled other people—I’ll buy that. But how could I not have noticed something like this?

I’ve been living as a human for sixteen years and then suddenly I’m not human anymore?”

“Never were, Alex,” he gently corrected me. “And I have a theory about that as well —though it may be more than that if my suspicions about you are correct. You see, some of our kind have been trying for decades to come up with a method to turn themselves human.”

“Why?” I asked.

Eli just shrugged, but Vanessa spoke up: “They think it’s easier that way,” she said. “After all , every since Valkos came along we haven’t had any real peace among us. And the human population keeps growing, which makes it harder and harder for us to hide. So some keep on trying.”

She paused, and gave Eli a confused look. “I’ve never heard of a successfull attempt, though?”

“…Nor have I,” he said. But there was a hesitant uncertainty in his voice.

“Not even one?” I asked.

“The thing is, actual attempts are far and few between, “The thing is, actual attempts are far and few between, because most of the procedures invented thus far are risky,” Eli said. “And the benefits don’t outweigh those risks, for most. Though in your case…”

“In my case…?

“If your father was trying to hide you then it would have been a logical decision to attempt suppression.”

“Assuming it can actual y be done,” Will said impatiently.

“But real y, how likely are we thinking that is? I mean, I’ll admit I’m impressed by all your theories here Eli, but you said yourself that no lycan’s ever been able to successfully become human.”

Vanessa nodded in agreement. “And that still doesn’t real y answer Alex’s question,” she pointed out. “Why now? Even if they were successfull in suppressing Alex’s true nature, then why has she started having symptoms all of a sudden?”

“I am getting to that,” Eli said, somewhat crossly. “You have to understand—this is far from exact science. Now, I think that when Sera attacked her, the toxin she released must have reacted somehow with the existing lycan blood, and it has ‘activated’ it, so to speak. It is only suppression, after all —the lycan blood was, and is, still a part of Alex.”

Silence fell over us again. I tried my best to come up with more questions, more ways to tear apart his theories. This couldn’t all be true.

“This is…” I started, standing up and backing away from the table. As I staggered backwards though, I realized I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence. Crazy?

Unbelievable? I definitely could’ve used either of those words. But this was something more. My anger from earlier was starting to fade. I don’t know why. I should’ve been angry—because this wasn’t fair. Why was this happening to me? What the hel had I done?

Yeah, I had a moment or two of self-pity.

But then came—of all things—relief, which sounds crazy; but I found it incredibly relieving that everything happening to me wasn’t just a series of horrible coincidences. Don’t get me wrong—the fact that I actual y was being targeted wasn’t much more reassuring. Still , it was something that, for the first time in what seemed like forever, I didn’t feel like I was just a subject of fate. I wasn’t a puppet. And I was back in control.

Eli was still talking as these thoughts fought it out in my head. But his words were mostly background noise until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him get up out of his chair.

Then he walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Alex?” he said, in a surprisingly stern voice.

“Yeah?”

“Up until that day, they must have been suppressing your lycan blood somehow,” Eli said. “It is the only thing that makes sense. I need you to think, Alex: did your father ever give you any sort of medicine even though you were not sick? Do you take a daily vitamin? Or maybe he gave it to you in the form of a shot? I have heard of it being administered both ways.” He looked at me hopefully, but I had to shake my head.

“No. I don’t take vitamins and I’m terrified of needles,” I said in a dazed voice. I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. Then I stood up and stumbled toward the door.

“Alex?” Vanessa said uncertainly.

“Where are you going?” Eli asked. “We should—”

“I just need…” I interrupted, placing a hand against the back of Will ’s chair to steady my self. “…To get some fresh air.”

I walked the rest of the way out of the kitchen, and nobody argued against it.

argued against it.

Still , despite my body’s insistence on staying human, I was beginning to entertain the idea that maybe I was a lycan.

The more I thought about everything Eli had said, the less I could deny that it made sense. And once I’d made up my mind about that, there was only one way it could progress from there:

Now I could fight.

I could learn to shift. I could— I real y could— fight back. It seemed inevitable now. That was what I had to do. But how quickly could I learn? It couldn’t be easy to go from human to wolf as fluidly as I’d seen both Kael and Sera do it. No, it wouldn’t be easy. But I could still do it. I had to do it—there was no time for arguing otherwise.

I heard a door shut. I reluctantly abandoned my thoughts and turned toward the noise. Kael was walking toward me.

He stopped a few feet away, leaned over the porch rail and just stood there quietly, staring off into the distance. He was holding something in his right hand, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

“What do you want?” I said grumpily after a few minutes of silence.

He cut his eyes sideways at me. “A simple ‘hel o’ would have sufficed,” he said. “Maybe a ‘how are you this evening?’”

“You didn’t say hel o to me either. And I don’t actual y care how you are this evening.”

“It’s called small talk, Alex. Nobody real y cares how other people are—it’s just polite to ask.”

“Do you real y think you’re qualified to give me a lesson in manners?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Whether it’s from me or not—you definitely need one,” he said under his breath.

“Well I’m sorry,” I grumbled. “I’m kind of stressed out right now, so maybe I’m a little bit irritable.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked. I lifted my gaze to his then, and tried to read his expression. His eyes revealed no hint of whether he wanted to be there or not. I knew what I wanted, though—even though I wasn’t about to admit it out loud.

“Then I’ll stay,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“You don’t want me to go.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“But you were thinking it,” he said, a tiny smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“I…! You…you real y need to stop doing that,” I said. “I thought I was getting better at keeping my thoughts to myself…” I added with a groan.

“You are. You kept them from Vanessa earlier, remember?”

“Yeah… but why can’t I keep them from you?”

“Yeah… but why can’t I keep them from you?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s because I have amazing mind-reading abilities?”

I glanced over at him, half-believingly. I mean, after everything Eli just told me—superpowers real y wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch.

“You look cold,” he said, sitting down beside me.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled.

“Stop acting tough,” he said, his voice muffled by his hooded sweatshirt as he pulled it over his head.

“I’m not acting,” I said, just as the gray fleece hit me in the face. If it hadn’t been so cold, I’d like to think I would’ve thrown it right back at him. But truthfully, I was cold. So I slid it over my own head—while looking disgruntled of course.

“Oh yeah—before I forget,” he said as I wrapped my frozen hands into the sweatshirt’s extra-long sleeves. “The whole reason I came out here was to bring you something to eat,”

he said, offering me what he’d been carrying in his hand earlier. It was a wrapped sub sandwich, and my nose automatically wrinkled at the sight of it.

“I’m not hungry,” I said quietly.

“Will you just eat it so that Vanessa wil stop freaking out?

She’s reminded everybody about ten dozen times this evening that you haven’t been eating properly. I’m kind of tired of hearing about it.”

“Sorry. You can tell her I ate it—I’ll back you up.”

He sighed. “…You real y should eat, though.”

“I might later,” I said. “Stomach’s a little weak right now….”

He didn’t respond, but the look on his face told me he understood.

We sat in silence for at least five minutes after that. Then Kael let out a quiet sigh, stretched and laid back, resting his head on his hands and closing his eyes. He looked so peacefull that, after a minute or so, I was almost sure he’d fallen asleep.

“You know… I never actual y met my real mother,” Kael said, his sudden voice startling me. “Never real y cared to, either—since obviously she didn’t care to know me.” He shrugged. “I mean, I guess I must’ve seen her when I was born… but I don’t remember anything about her.”

“I guess we have something in common now,” I said dryly.

He nodded. “More than that—because for me too, there was another… She wasn’t my biological mother, but a mom in every other sense of the word.”

“…You said was. Where is she now…?”

“She died a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“…Life goes on,” he said with a shrug.

“It doesn’t always feel like it wil ,” I said quietly. “But it does,”

he insisted, rocking himself back into a sitting position.

“Maybe,” I said, not feeling up to arguing for once. “What about the rest of your family?” I asked.

“I’ve got an older brother, too,” he said. “But I haven’t seen or heard from him in a couple of years now.

“What about your dad? Is he still around?”

Kael looked suddenly hesitant, and I got the feeling I’d struck a touchy issue. “…Yes. He’s around,” he said, frowning.

frowning.

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked without thinking. “Sorry for being so nosey,” I added quickly.

“It’s okay,” Kael said. “It’s just that my father and I don’t talk much these days. We don’t always see eye to eye on things.”

I gave him a knowing look, thinking about all the arguments I’d had with the woman I’d called “Mom” for the past sixteen years. “That’s pretty common though, right? I mean, I feel like most people don’t agree with their parents on a lot of things,” I said.

He just laughed. “Trust me—our relationship is very uncommon. And very… complicated.” He turned and met my eyes, and for a second it looked like he wanted to tell me more. But when I lifted my eyes expectantly he just looked away.

“My mom—I mean, not my mom but…you know what I mean. Anyway, her and I…we never real y got along,” I said after a few seconds of silence from him told me he wasn’t saying anything else about his parents. “Maybe it’s better this way,” I added quietly.

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

“…Maybe, maybe not,” I said, taken aback by the challenge. I stared at the ground as I continued. “But anyway, let’s not talk about her anymore right now.”

“Fine by me,” he agreed abruptly, sitting up and getting to his feet.

“I didn’t say you had to leave,” I said hurriedly. “We can talk about something else.”

“I know. But I should go—I was just coming to check on you.

As much as I’d love to hang out here all night…” There was a subtle hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I have things to take care of.”

“Things?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of things?”

“Things that don’t concern you?” He shrugged. “I’ll be back after awhile.”

“Where are you going?”

“Must you know everything?”

“Yes?” I replied hopefully.

“Well , I’m afraid you’re out of luck tonight.”

“But…”

“I’ll see you later,” he said, turning his back to me. He’d made it half-way across the yard before I called after him, a sudden idea popping into my head.

“Hey Kael?”

“What?” he said, turning back to me with a dubious look on his face.

The words rushed out before I could stop them: “Will you teach me how to shift?”

He turned back toward the woods, and for a second I thought he was just going to walk away. But then he glanced back over his shoulder. The moonlight caught in his eyes and gave them that surreal glow that made me shrink back automatically .

“…We’ll see,” he final y said, and without another word he was gone.

I stared at the spot where he’d disappeared into the woods until my eyes burned in protest, but no matter how hard I stared, he didn’t come back. And so I was alone again.