Shattered (8 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at Nate like I would kill to
have my dad look at him. Like she liked him and appreciated him. Her eyes
conveyed respect.

When she noticed the blood on my shirt, I
fed her the line about Nate cutting himself, and she bought it. She took us out
of the cellar and brought us to my bedroom. While I changed, I heard her asking
Nathan questions about our getaway and thanking him again. His planning had
saved us. God only knew what Kamon had planned after the balloons.

“Christine!”

It was my father’s voice. Sophia must’ve gone
to get him. Good thinking. If Kamon knew my mother, he was one step closer to
knowing my father too. I ran out of the bathroom and into his arms.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you afraid?” I shook my head, lying.
“Good. You don’t have to be. I have a gun, and I will blow that guy’s brains
out.” I laughed, half because he was being ridiculous and half because he
hadn’t stuttered yet. Those sessions with Sophia were doing wonders.

Mom had pushed herself into the furthest
corner of my room. I wasn’t sure if she thought she was invisible over
there
or what, but she was clearly avoiding Dad.

“So what now?” he asked.

I hunched my shoulders. Everything had
changed. We wouldn’t be able to sit back and ignore Kamon anymore.

“I obviously have to quit school,” I
said.

“That’s not obvious,” Mom said. “What are
you talking about? Quit school? You love school.” Not as much as I loved the
idea of her loving me loving school. “I can make this work,” she said. “I can
track Kamon, and magic can buy us time for me to get to you. Nathan’s plan was
brilliant. Sophia can protect that entire building like he protected that cellar.
Couldn’t you, Sophia?”

“I can.”

“Then it’s settled,” Mom said. “You’re
still going to school.”

Was she nuts
? Kamon knew who I was and where I was.
Why would I put myself at risk every day? Moreover, why would I tempt myself to
act out every day?

“I don’t know about this,” I said.

“Honey, Sophia and I think it will be
fine. Isn’t that enough?” Dad looked like he was finally about to say something
to her but decided against it. Maybe something about her leaving him out just
now. He probably thought he deserved a say in this, but he just twisted his
mouth and let a loud breath out of his nose.

“You have to stay in school,” Mom
continued. “The thought of you being this happy keeps me breathing, honey. I
love it, and I’m not letting Kamon take this from you. You’ve given up enough.”

“But...” I said, and stopped myself. She
had on
the
face–the sad one
that said:
I’ve given up everything for
you. My life. My happiness. My soul
. Now wasn’t the time for buts. It was the
time to suck it up, stay in control, and keep pushing towards being normal. No
matter how hard I had to claw at it to make it happen.

“Okay,” I said, instead. “I trust you
with both of our lives.”

I managed to chuckle. If Kamon ever
succeeded in killing me, the first time, he wouldn’t actually kill me. I had my
mother’s soul and could escape death once. Since my life was far from simple,
she would have to die in my place.

Mom smiled but didn’t come closer, still
avoiding Dad.

“Perfect,” she said. “Both of your souls
are safe. I swear. We are not letting this change anything. Agreed?” I nodded,
even though she’d clearly lost her mind. Kamon had come to Trenton with
shocking news, and I was going back there tomorrow.

The tension between Lydia and Mr. Gavin was
thick enough to choke a horse. But for once, he didn’t make me feel like scum.
He was too busy not saying anything to his ex-wife.

When her parents left, Chris started her
homework like pink balloons hadn’t floated into our lives and changed
everything. And explained everything.

They
are rejoicing over your witch’s blood
.

Devin knew Kamon well enough to know what
he knew. Between Chris jumping through the portal and Lydia capturing him for
killing my parents, he’d discovered Christine’s secret.

My witch’s blood. Christine’s blood.
Bloodline. Kamon was rejoicing over Christine’s bloodline. Her real one.

I’d spent a month watching over her at
Trenton, studying blueprints of McCray Hall and prepping the cellar I’d found for
a day like today, because I’d thought Kamon was going to try to spill her
blood. I supposed that could still be a threat. I supposed that was as big a
threat as ever. But other than Christine nearly hurting herself, nothing had
changed. She’d gone back to her quest to be a better, more controlled person,
and I was still standing around waiting for our lives to change.

There should’ve been a move to a more
secure location, plans to take out Kamon, or drills in case he found the house
tonight. I’d come up with hundreds of things to do, but we were sitting around
like the most notorious hunter wasn’t aware that Christine was his enemy’s
daughter.

I decided to shift so it wouldn’t be that
hard to play along. Shedding my skin was usually easy, with the exception of
the first time and the night my mother was killed. Tonight, it was just as
hard. I got down on all fours when my skin didn’t change just from the thought
of transforming like it usually did. I grunted and pushed and strained, until finally,
my other form obeyed me and came out of hiding.

Pushing Christine’s studio door open with
my nose, I trotted inside and curled up by her feet. She burrowed her toes into
my fur and continued painting.

She hummed along to the song playing on
her laptop. I wished she’d sing more. She had a beautiful voice. As I lost
myself in the sound of it and in the smell of her, my eyes roamed around the
room. She’d added some of her work to the walls, but most of it belonged to her
grandmother.

My personal favorite was the unfinished
ballerina. I liked the lines leading to nowhere and how amazing it looked even
though it wasn’t finished. My keen eyes followed a faint pencil line from the
slipper until it disappeared into the white space of the canvas. At the end of
it, there was a red dot, so small no one else here would see it. I hadn’t seen
it until now.

It looked like dry blood, a tiny reminder
of what happened in that art studio. Vincent and Cecilia Shaw had lost their
lives in there. That forgotten trace of blood was the reason we couldn’t sit
around and act like nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. Christine’s family
was cursed because of their powers and the people who wanted to control it.
Years passing since that blood landed on that canvas hadn’t changed anything.
Hunters were still thirsting for Shaw blood.

“This sucks,” Chris said. “What am I
doing?” I thought she was done pretending, so I jumped up to my feet, ready to
shift and console her. But she didn’t need it. She was talking about her
painting. “I’m just going to take a break before I throw this into the wall.
Deep
breaths
, Chris. Deep breaths.”

I followed her to the kitchen. She drank
her last dose of the potion for the day and grabbed a bag of baby carrots. She
took them back to her studio and settled on the floor with her history
textbook. Before long, either from boredom or the potion, she passed out on the
floor.

I tried to shift so I could carry her to
bed, but my fur suddenly didn’t seem as temporary as it usually did. It felt
like my real skin, and for a terrifying moment, I forgot what it felt like to
be anything else, anyone else. I was trapped. Then, my body heaved out of the
white fur, and I panted for a minute, still scared out of my mind.

“Oh my God,” I said, as I lifted Chris
into my arms. “I need some sleep. I’m a little out of it tonight.”

I hoped that was all it was. The last
thing I needed was a shifting problem.

I tucked her in and walked to her
dresser. In the very back of her very last drawer, we’d hidden clothes for me
for situations like this. After pulling on boxers and a pair of shorts, I
crawled in bed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I had one of the reoccurring dreams that
had plagued me for most of my life. I was rolling around in the snow with a
huge white dog, and an older woman broke up the wrestling match. She wrapped me
in a fur blanket and smiled at the white dog.
“Zain,”
she said.
“He’s too
young to play rough.”
The dog barked at her, and she laughed. I always woke
up after she said,
“Shift, son. Dinner is
ready.”

Today was no different.
 

A cold hand touched my arm, and my eyes
flew open. Lydia freaking Shaw waved at me, and I jumped. It took me a moment
to put her into context. It wasn’t as odd for Christine’s mother to be here
than it was for a famous assassin to be standing over me.

She pushed a finger to her lips to shush
me, then pointed to Chris. It meant:
don’t
wake her
.

“I need to talk to you,” Lydia whispered.
She extended her hand. I took it timidly, and after a blink, we were standing
in a ritzy apartment. The furniture was all white and modern. I was barefoot
and shirtless with my girlfriend’s mother who just happened to be Lydia Shaw.

“Paris,” I said. “We’re in Paris.”

“How did you know?”

“Christine talks about this place. It’s
where you live, right?”

“Sometimes.”

She headed towards a hall, and I caught
up with her.

“Sophia says you’re doing well with the
ordeal with your parents,” she said. “Is that true?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“It’s only been a month, I’m sure it’s
still fresh on your mind.”

“Um, not really,” I said. “They weren’t
really my parents.” She paused, maybe waiting for me to elaborate or possibly
to stop lying. I didn’t do either. “Is this about what happened earlier?” I
asked. She nodded. “Thank God. I was starting to think everyone was crazy
enough to pretend it didn’t happen.”

She chuckled. “No. We are just very
cautious about what we say in front of Christine. I’m hoping you will keep this
meeting between us.” I nodded and sighed. I was good at keeping things from
Chris, she wasn’t the type to pry, but I didn’t exactly revel in the idea of
lying to my girlfriend.

She led me into a home office and said,
“CC.” The walls opened and revealed a high-tech surveillance room. Most of the
screens showed important buildings and monuments like the Eiffel tower and the
Statue of Liberty. Some of the screens showed houses. The largest screen showed
a map with a blinking red light hovering over Louisiana.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Kamon. I have a tracker on him.”

Of all the questions to ask, I came up
with, “How did you get a tracker on Kamon?”

She chuckled. “It’s a long story.” I
couldn’t stop my eyes from bulging, imagining some weird scheme involving her
and Kamon that I didn’t really want to think about. “Not that kind of story,
Nathan. Sophia did it. With a spell.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

She tapped a monitor as I recovered from
my flub. At first glance, it looked like any ordinary home. Then, I spotted Christine’s
window of our old home, remembering when all I wanted was to see inside of that
room and talk to the girl in there. The thought had consumed me completely and
eclipsed where I’d come from and who I was before then.

With a remote, Lydia changed the screen
to the kitchen, and I jumped. Kamon was sitting at the island with his feet
propped up on a chair like he lived there. The room was full of balloons.

“As you may know, Remi showed Kamon the
house after I rescued you two from the chapel.” I nodded as I watched Kamon.
I’d assumed as much. “It’s why he chose it for the portal spell,” she said. “He
thought she would try to kill me, and that it would be easy to lure her to the
house, but nothing he tried worked, mostly because Christine was knocked out
from a very bad seizure for days.”

I’d never panicked so much in my life.
Christine hadn’t answered her phone in days, and when she finally did, a man,
calling himself Chris, had answered. I will regret my subsequent fit for the
rest of my life.

“That night, he didn’t get her,” she
said. “But I walked right into a trap, and for the first time ever, I lost a
fight with Kamon. The triplets drugged me, and brought me there. At that point,
they didn’t expect Christine to show up. They didn’t need her to. As you know,
she did.”

The rest of the story went:
and my girlfriend ended the world
. We
both loved her too much to mention that part.

On the screen, Kamon adjusted in his
seat, and the panther we should’ve killed months ago, walked into the room with
him. Remi attempted to massage his shoulders, and he shrugged her off.

“I think a similar thing happened today,”
Lydia said. “He was trying to lure her. He had the balloons there first, and when
she didn’t come, he sent them to Trenton. He’s still waiting there for her.”

 
“How would he lure her with balloons?” I
asked.

“The balloons are just for dramatic
effect. He wants to lure her with what he knows. Make her fight, I guess. If
she had her powers, it would be very easy to make her sense him being in New
Orleans.”

Remi tried to touch him again, and he
leaned back slowly and pointed a finger at her. She flew across the room and
caught her balance before hitting the wall. She seemed amused. She liked
whatever game she thought she was playing.

“Just by being there?” I asked. “She
could sense him just by him being there?”

Lydia shook her head. “If you don’t want
someone like us to discover something, you would rarely speak about it. You
would tell very few people and keep the energy of this
thing
from growing and becoming perceivable. You would do the
opposite if you wanted us to know about something. Kamon is purposefully
putting energy in the atmosphere. I sensed this too late. By the time I felt what
he was doing, he’d already sent balloons to Trenton.”

Lydia flipped through more channels, more
cameras. There were hunters I didn’t recognize all over our old home. In her
room. In my room. By the pool. My stomach squirmed like a thousand evil butterflies
were running amok in there. Thankfully, she shut off the screen.

 
“I cant ever repay you for what you did today, Nathan. You saved her. Us,
really.”

“No sweat. She’s kind of my life,” I
said.

“I see that. The setup you had at Trenton
was genius,
pure genius
. I brought
you here tonight to ask for help. Sophia and I have been keeping her safe for a
long time, and now we need you. If things are too much with your parents right
now, let me know.”

“No,” I said. “Chris is more important.”
Those were the truest words I’d ever spoken. I didn’t have to lie that time.
“What do you need me to do?”

“Keep her calm. Smiling. Things you’re
already great at. Sophia will have tons of magic covering you two, but that
might not be enough. She’ll need a bodyguard.”

“A bodyguard?”

She nodded and two chairs appeared in the
room with us. I sat and resisted the urge to put my head between my knees. I
didn’t want Lydia to know how close to fainting I was. “She’ll need someone
with her. Someone who will react like you reacted today. Someone who loves her
enough to keep her safe. And … someone who knows her well enough to know what
she should and should not be told.”

So she wanted me to do what I was already
doing, just in the midst of a very real and present danger, and lie to
Christine’s face about it.

“Why not have her quit school?” I said.
“She would be safer at home. From the look of things, he’s going to try
something else.”

“She’s in love with Trenton. I can’t pull
her out of school.”

I wanted to tell her she was exaggerating
her daughter’s love for Trenton. Chris loved the idea of doing what her parents
and Sophia wanted her to do. I think she wanted their approval or forgiveness
or both. But Chris would be beyond pissed at me for mentioning something she
hadn’t even admitted out loud. I’d sensed it because I knew her. I hadn’t even said
anything to her about it yet or suggested she quit school and do something that
made her happier, so I didn’t say anything to Lydia either.

“I need you to help us make her feel safe
enough to continue taking the potion,” she said. “Her powers could ruin
everything. I keep having this vision of her in a hooded robe on her knees … in
Kamon’s chapel. I see it when I’m awake. I see it in my dreams. She’s there, maybe
because he lured her, and I can’t let her do anything else reckless.”