Scarred (the Spellbound Series Book 3) (16 page)

Behind me, I hear Alyssa ask, “Was that off the top of your head?”

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

“It kinda shows.”

I roll my eyes, and gaze out at the crowd. My impromptu speech may not be up to Alyssa’s standards, but I can see the effect I’ve had on these people. They look ready to do anything I ask, within reason. A shapeshifter a few feet from the desk asks, “When do we start?”

“When’s the next full moon?,” I whisper to Rachel.

“Tomorrow night,” she whispers back.

I stand tall, and put my hands on my hips. “Tomorrow it is. Be here a couple of hours before sunset. It’s gonna be a long night.”

16

            
 
I’m exhausted, but after meeting with all the people who showed up to help, I’m too excited to rest. It’s just as well; there’s still so much to do. Production materials to find, crew to enlist, half of a speech left to write. I’m up well into the early morning trying to find the right words for when I address the nation. Nick keeps me company for a while, listening politely while I brainstorm out loud, and critiquing the few ideas I keep. I may have dabbled in writing once upon a time, but it feels like lifetimes ago. I’ve lost my touch.

              “Don’t worry too much about it,” Nick tells me before he heads off to his own apartment. “Staring at the screen until you can force out the words will just fry your brain. Maybe you should try to unplug and let them come to you.”

              I throw a crumpled up sheet of paper at him out of mock annoyance. “Oh, what do you know? You don’t even write.”

              Nick rolls his eyes, and tosses the crumpled paper in the garbage. “I know you’re Heather Santos,” he says after a moment. “And you can do anything. So don’t sweat it. You got this.”

              “Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off, and go back to staring at my laptop’s screen. Nick comes over to my side, and plants a gentle kiss on my forehead. I tense up as if he’s done something horribly wrong, and he backs away accordingly. I don’t think I’d be able to bear the look on his face, so I turn my eyes down towards the keyboard. It’s not that the gesture was unwanted, exactly. I’ve sort of started missing the physical affection that comes with a romantic relationship. But I wasn’t expecting that out of Nick; we’ve hardly even hugged since breaking up.

              “Sorry,” Nick mutters as he backs out of the room. “I won’t let that happen again.” He turns on his heel, and walks away with his head hung low. For a moment, I consider chasing after him. And maybe a younger me would have. But right now, I’m not in the right frame of mind to worry about him and his bruised ego. There’s so much more at stake than my love life, and I hope he understands that.

              Around three in the morning, I decide that what I have is good enough for now. I let out a frustrated sigh, and flop down on my bed, thoroughly tired from the day’s efforts. And tomorrow's going to be even busier… No rest for the wicked, I guess. In spite of the dozens of thoughts chasing each other across my mind in an endless cycle, I fall asleep in record time, drifting off to a vague image of myself in glistening armor, riding through a field on the back of a white stallion. Maybe in another life, I could have been a knight. I’d like to think so, at least. But there are no knights in my lifetime. There are only angels, and demons, and all sorts of creatures in between, and part of me is starting to wish none of them even existed.

              Morning brings with it a pleasant surprise; sword training with Michael is cut short when I finally land a blow on him. I notice an opening between his sword strokes, and step in to take advantage of it. Michael is so impressed that he lets me have the rest of the day off. “Go on, enjoy yourself,” he tells me. “You’ve earned it. But do not expect a true victory any time soon. You still have a long way to go before you can ever hope to be my equal.”

              “Thanks, old man,” I grumble as I put away my sword. I’d have appreciated at least a moment of pride, but Michael won’t let me have it. Maybe he’s wounded beyond anything I’ve managed to do with a blade. Maybe he’s afraid he won’t always be able to best me.

              I spend the rest of my day coordinating with Nick and Alyssa, assigning tasks to some of the people they’ve recruited, and putting the finishing touches on my speech. When I finally decide I’m ready, I change into my leather suit and slowly make my way over to the condo where I told everyone to meet. To my surprise, quite a few people are already there by the time I touch down outside the building. I immediately put them to work setting up green screens all around the lobby, and figuring out how to turn on all the lights we’ll need. As soon as Emma and Jenna arrive with the cameras, we’re ready to start filming.

              I suggest we start with the werefolk, since they’ll be transforming in a couple of hours and we have tons to do. I set up the cameras where I want them, set them and the microphones to record, and ask who wants to speak first. It seems like most of our volunteers are shy now that they know what they’ve signed up for, but a werewolf from Jersey City offers to go first. She sits on the stool where all the cameras are focused, and asks, “What do I talk about?”

              I stand behind the camera facing her dead on, and think for a second. “Start with your name,” I suggest. “Then tell us a little about yourself, and what your experience as a werewolf has been like.”

              “My name is Juniper, but most people call me June. I’m a speech pathologist, I’ve lived in New Jersey my whole life. And… I’m a werewolf. And it sucks. I have to take a trip out to the middle of nowhere every month because I don’t run with a pack, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. But then after the full moon, I wake up with all these memories of ripping small animals apart, I pick bits of fur out of my teeth, I have to wash blood off my hands. I’m not a danger to anyone as you see me right now, and I like to think I’m a good person. But I have to live with that part of myself too, and there’s no one I can really tell. It’s lonely, and I hate it, and I wish I’d never been bitten.”

              Juniper falls silent, so I assume she’s done for now. “Perfect. You’re done for now. I need you to go find a guy named Landon, he should be setting up the green screens in the basement. He’ll tell you what to do next.” Juniper nods, and walks toward the elevators. As soon as the stool is vacant, I turn to the rest of the volunteers, and ask, “Who’s up?”

              From there, it’s an easy process. More and more of the werefolk are willing to come forward as time goes on, and they’ve all given their testimonials well before the full moon rises. I send them all downstairs with Landon, so they can be filmed transforming into their bestial forms. We move on to hearing from the other races, in no particular order, which takes longer than I expected it to. When we take a break after interviewing a vampire from Yonkers, we’re only halfway through the volunteers we have left. I step outside for some fresh air, and immediately regret doing so. The sun is long gone, and I’m not dressed appropriately for a brisk October night. I rub my arms for warmth, and make a mental note to sew the sleeves back onto the leather hoodie. I need them now more than ever.

              Alyssa comes out to join me after I get in a few minutes of solitude, and I’m immediately jealous of her; she’d had the forethought to wear a long sleeved shirt. “This is going well,” she says. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

              I nod, and lean my back against the building. “It’ll be even better once all this stuff has been edited. I have a feeling this is gonna be huge.”

              “Probably. The people like a good government scandal, and this is one hell of a cover up.” Alyssa looks up at the full moon, and says, “Just promise me one thing.”

              “What?”

              “Don’t take it too hard if this thing goes wrong, cuz it might. I get that you’re trying to make a difference, but that doesn’t always go well. Things get off to a slow start sometimes, and sometimes what you’re doing might be totally misinterpreted. And you’re a first-time activist, so… I dunno, don’t give up if this doesn’t pan out.”

              “It’ll be fine.” I let out a long sigh, and push off the building. “Ready to get back to work?”

              “As I’ll ever be.”

              Alyssa and I head back inside for the rest of the interviews, starting with Ben, a demon living in Mamaroneck who’s grown attached to the human life. He hasn’t come to Earth to hurt anyone; he just likes to party. But the woman after him, a shapeshifter named Raven, refuses to say anything about herself beyond her name. I fight hard not to groan at her; some of these people can talk on and on about themselves, but others offer less information than a blank diary. And the people on either end of the spectrum are the reason this is taking so long. Another few hours have passed by the time our last volunteer has come and gone. “Thank you for your time,” I tell him. “You can head home now if you want, or stick around to see what’s next.”

              “There’s more?,” the man asks.

              “Yeah. Next, it’s my turn.” I reposition the camera I’m standing behind, and move the stool out of my way. I want to be seen standing. Emma and Jenna move their cameras, but Nick keeps his right where it is, watching me closely. He mouths
You got this
, and I nod in response, though my insides are twisting. My speech will be on the teleprompter, so at least I’m not reciting from memory. But all the same, I’m not so confident that I’ll be able to deliver it
well
.

              Alyssa takes over the camera directly in front of me, and gives me a thumbs up to let me know we’re rolling. My words start rolling up the screen, and I read them aloud:

              “Attention, America. I’m sure you recognize me by now; all of you have seen me on your screens on the six o’clock news. I’ve been called a terrorist. I’ve been called an abomination. I’ve been called a monster. You do not know my real name, and I doubt you ever will. That’s because who I am is not important; it’s what I’m here to say that matters.

              “You have been lied to, all your lives. Your government knows more than you could ever have imagined, and have withheld the truth from you. They have convinced you that ghosts, and demons, and vampires, and witches are all figments of your imagination. They have convinced you that metahumans are nothing but a myth. But we are here. And we will not hide any longer.

              “I’m sure many of you are scared. Part of me was, when I first found out. I initially thought of all these strange, powerful beings as something other, something inhuman. And because you’ve been lied to instead of exposed to the truth, you are all probably thinking along the same lines. But I can tell you, these ‘monsters’ are more human than a lot of the mortal men and women I’ve met in my lifetime. We are not other. We are you. We live alongside you. We do not want to hurt you. And even now, if you have a violent reaction to our presence among you, we will not hurt you.”

              I notice my voice rising in volume and intensity, and for a moment, I wonder if I should reign myself in. But I decide to roll with what’s coming out as it comes. “I say this because we
expect
you to get violent,” I continue.  “We
expect
you to object, and panic, and shut us out. Because we know humans to be one of the most fiercely territorial species ever to exist. We spend so much of our time fighting over ideals, over resources, over lines in the sand that say one group of people can live here, and the other can live there. And when we run out of these, we draw lines between us and others; we think to ourselves, ‘these people are different, and therefore not important to me’.

            
 
“But if you fly up high enough, you’ll see that these lines in the sand don’t exist. There’s no one line that separates the United States from Mexico, or one that separates Israel from Palestine. Likewise, there are no lines that should be so efficient in dividing us as individuals. Some people are white, some people are black. Some people are straight, some people are gay. Some people have fangs, some people howl at the moon. But at the end of the day, a universal truth must be recognized; we share this one planet, unmarred by our imaginary lines, much in the same way that the lines we draw to shut out others cannot truly distance us.”

              At this point, I flex my shoulders, and allow my wings to spring free, spreading them as wide as I can as I speak. “We are all connected. By our humanity, by our consciousness, by our will to survive, we are connected. Even ‘freaks’ like us are connected to all of you. If you reject us, so be it. But we will not hide. We will not run. We will not idly sit back while your country tries to sweep us under the rug. We want you to recognize us, and accept us if you can. And if you can’t… then the next few years are going to be an uphill battle for you. Because like it or not, we’re here to stay. And we will not be silent anymore.”

              I know the speech is over, but I hold my gaze with the camera for a moment, letting the intensity of my gaze speak for me. But then I let go of all the tension that’s built inside of me since the speech began, and look around at the camera operators. All of them are watching me with rapt attention, speechless. “What?,” I ask. “Do you need me to try again?”

              Emma steps out from behind her camera, and says, “Holy shit. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

              “Had what?”

              “That. You sounded… well, not
perfect
, but-“

              “You sounded amazing,” Nick interrupts. “I knew you could do it.”

              I let out a breath that I’ve been holding for a long time, and pull down my hood. Performing is exhausting, and I’m sweating a lot more than I expected to. From behind her camera, Alyssa asks, “What happens now?”

              “I’m glad you asked.” I wipe the sweat from my brow, and look around at my small group of friends. “This was only phase one. Phase two is where things get interesting. That’s when we show America the truth.”