by J. N. Baker
I took a deep breath, running my hands over my face. “Look, William found a new place for me to stay. I’m sure you’ll be more than comfortable in your girlfriend’s motel room.” I snatched up the guitar case and my bag and stormed off the beach without looking back.
For the first time in six years, I didn’t want to feel so human.
Black clouds formed across the night sky as I made my way through empty city streets. The world had become as dark as the inside of my mind. It was getting colder as the minute hand rounded the clock, sending goose bumps across the surface of my skin. I crossed my arms to keep warm, cursing myself for leaving Cody’s jacket at the beach.
I’d gotten as far as the parking lot when I’d realized the photo of Josh, Cody, and me was still in the pocket of the jacket. I’d damn near turned back. But I didn’t. It was just a stupid photo—one I had kept with me since Cody had gifted it to me five years ago. William would have found it and destroyed it eventually anyway. At least, that’s what I told myself.
I felt the first drops of rain as they hit my bare skin. I exhaled. “How appropriate,” I mumbled to myself. A crash of thunder rattled the sky, showering my head with buckets of water. I made futile attempts to pry away the strands of hair that stuck to my jawline. They clung to my flesh like leeches, sucking the life out of me.
As if things couldn’t be any worse, I was completely exposed—markings, eyes, sword-sized guitar slung over my shoulder. If there were a definition of a “walking target” in the dictionary, my picture would be next to it. Honestly, I was shocked that no one had tried to chop my head off yet. Not that they’d ever be able to get close enough. Part of me wished someone would try. I could use an outlet for my anger.
As I reached the hotel, I searched the door numbers until I found room 118. I slipped the keycard into the slot. It blinked green and I stepped into the dark room.
“Zoe, wait,” Josh called after me, car keys jingling in his hand as he ran up behind me.
I closed my eyes, sighing as I turned to face him. He stood in the doorframe, trying to catch his breath, his heartbeat pounding in my ears. He was no more than two feet away, but it could have been miles. I felt feverish as my eyes betrayed me, dancing over his strong body, noting how his wet clothes clung to him in all the right places. What the hell was wrong with me? I clenched my hands into fists at my side to keep from reaching out to him.
“How did you find me?”
“Someone texted Cody the hotel information after you left.”
“Where is he?” I asked, glancing over Josh’s shoulder. Anger pulsed through me all over again as I thought of Cody pretending to be my cat all those years without my knowing. What all had he seen? It was probably best if I didn’t know—for Cody’s sake.
“He thought maybe you needed a little space,” Josh said. “Look, Zoe, I can explain.”
“Explain what?” I spat. “That you’ve had a girlfriend for who knows how long and didn’t tell me, or maybe you’d like to explain why she hates me and doesn’t want you having anything to do with me? Better yet, let’s start with how you promised her that you’d never see me again. Dammit! I knew you were trying to avoid me when I asked you to come up.”
“Me avoiding you? What the fuck are you talking about?” he snapped, closing the space between us. He pointed a stiff finger at my chest, nearly jabbing it into my sternum. “You’re the one who left out of nowhere, without so much as a goodbye. I spent an entire year in hell after you disappeared. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. Do you have any idea how that felt, any idea at all?”
His words sounded so familiar. I was no different than Alec. I’d left Josh just as Alec had left me. I opened my mouth to speak but he stopped me.
“And let’s not get started on who’s keeping the bigger secret. I kept one thing from you—you kept your entire life from me. I’ve spent the past five years fighting just to get near you, Zoe. You said it yourself, everything was fine and dandy on the phone, but every time I came to visit you were so damn distant. I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. And Tiff doesn’t hate you, she’s just uncomfortable with the idea of me being here alone with a woman she doesn’t know.”
“That was different,” I raged. “I didn’t tell you to protect you. And what about the promise you made her, huh? Were you really going to keep it?”
“No, I…she knew how much time we’d spent together, the things we’d gone through. I was always on the phone with you. I talked about you constantly. She’s just jealous, that’s all. What was I supposed to do? I had to tell her something. How can you be so mad at me? I came when you called. I left her at that stupid motel to come see you.”
“Why, because I was in the hospital?” I tossed back at him.
“That’s not fair, Zoe. That’s not it at all, and you know it.”
“Be honest—would you’ve been in such a hurry to get to me if you hadn’t found that out?”
“Where the hell do you think you get off? You know what, fuck this.”
Josh turned to face the open door, his hand lingering on the knob. He took a step back, shaking his head. He slammed the door shut, throwing his fist into the splintered wood. It was like he couldn’t bear to turn and face me. I wasn’t sure I could face me either. “What did you expect, Zoe? After all these years, what did you really expect? Tiff is a beautiful, loving, decent woman and she’s here, right now, waiting for me.” Josh rested his head against the dented door and sighed. “I can’t keep waiting around for—”
“Is there a problem here?”
Josh spun around at the sound of someone else’s voice in the room. Alec emerged from the dark bedroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He came up behind me, coiling his arms around me and pulling me into his half-naked body.
Josh scowled at Alec, or maybe it was at me. He took a step back, disgust written all over his face. “After all that,” he paused, tightening his jaw like he did when he’d passed the point of just being angry. “Dammit, Zoe! You’re such a hypocrite.”
I’d always been told that the truth hurt, but I didn’t realize how much. His words stung like venom. “Josh, I—”
“Oh, save it,” he snapped. “I need to go check on Tiffany. I’m sure you’ll be more than comfortable here.” With that, he stormed out of the hotel room and I wondered if I would ever see him again.
I pried Alec’s hands off me, but before I could run out the door, he grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me back into his hard chest. “What are you doing?”
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing? I’m going after him. He’s my best friend.”
“We don’t have friends,” he said sternly. “Not anymore.” Alec put a hand under my chin, forcing me to look at him instead of the door. His bright golden eyes pierced my soul. “Everyone we know, everyone we’ll ever know—they’re all going to die, Zoe. Whether it’s in a few days or fifty years, it doesn’t matter. They’ll all die while we remain, forever unchanging. We don’t have friends,” he repeated, “we have each other. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
“He is right,” William said, walking in from the patio with Jade at his side. “You need to let him go. This is your life now.”
“He’s part of my life,” I argued.
“No,” Alec snapped, “not anymore.”
I felt dizzy with emotion that I was no longer accustomed to. Alec steadied me as I started to sway. He smoothed my hair over my back and tucked me safely in his arms. Without warning, his lips were on mine. Heat rose into my cheeks, suddenly very aware of every nook and cranny on his nearly naked body. I hated how good he made me feel when I wanted nothing more than to feel like the scum of the earth that I was.
I pressed two hands to Alec’s chest and shoved him away, desperate to catch my breath. “I told you, Alec. I need more time.”
Jade chuckled, reminding me of her and William’s presence in the room. When my eyes met hers, she flashed me a wicked grin. “Isn’t it fun
having a mate?”
Mate?
“Enough,” William thundered and a hush fell over the room. William motioned me to sit, and while I wanted to, I didn’t dare argue. Alec led me to a small kitchenette table, pulling out a chair for me before disappearing into the bedroom to put some clothes on. My eyes traveled to the front door, willing Josh to walk back into the room. It didn’t happen.
“Zoe, focus,” William growled. Apparently, he’d been talking to me.
“What?” I asked as Alec returned, fully clothed.
“I have been told that Alec has already introduced you to Jade,” William said again, his jaw tight. He really didn’t like repeating himself.
“Something like that,” I mumbled. I didn’t bother looking at her. I could feel the daggers her eyes were throwing at me from a mile away.
William must have sensed my irritation. “You could learn from her, Zoe. Jade has been one of the Chosen for over three hundred years.”
Jade smirked, picking at nonexistent dirt under her black-polished nails. She’d love to hear me ask her for help, wouldn’t she?
“Like what? How to be a cold-hearted bit—”
The hotel lock beeped and the door swung open. I reached for my blade and then stopped when I noticed the others weren’t doing the same. A man entered the room, the door closing itself behind him. He wasn’t too tall, maybe five eight, with jet-black hair and the most amazing hazel eyes I’d ever seen. He wore solid black sweat shorts and a hoodie, his feet bare. A katana was strapped to his hip.
“She’s here, William,” he said.
William rose to his feet. “Where?”
The man strolled past him, coming to a stop a few feet away from me. “You must be Zoe.” He bowed at the waist. “Alec has told me so much about you in our years of travel together. It’s an honor to finally meet you.” His raspy voice tickled my ears.
“Ryuu,” William growled.
Ryuu winked at me before turning back to William. His defiance brought me joy. I could already tell we’d get along just fine. “She’s right outside,” he said finally. “He completed her transformation, but she’s nowhere near ready. This will not be easy for her. She’s terrified.”
“Being kidnapped twice tends to have that effect on people,” Jade put in.
“Wait…He who?” I asked William, pushing thoughts of my own kidnapping aside. “You weren’t the one who changed her?”
“Baldric did,” Alec said when William didn’t respond. My jaw dropped.
“And you didn’t…dispose of her? Like the other one?”
“No,” Ryuu said with a chuckle. “We didn’t need to ‘dispose’ of her.”
“Baldric didn’t have time to sink his claws into this one,” Alec explained further. “Ryuu and I had been searching for LeDon’s replacement since her death a year ago. Baldric got to her right before Ryuu got the chance. Luckily for her, Ryuu was able to get her away from him shortly after Baldric changed her.”
“Bring her in,” William said with a nod.
I began to wonder if I was the only one of the Chosen who didn’t know a damn thing about our kind. William never told me anything, not even about shifts and one of my best friends was one. There was still so much I didn’t know after six years. Hell, I didn’t even know what the “change” entailed. I blacked out when William had performed it on me. But I was sure to wake up for the pain and screaming. Wouldn’t have missed that for the world.
As Ryuu reached the door, it opened on its own. He leaned into the night air, whispering something to someone just beyond my sight. Stepping back, Ryuu held the door ajar and a petite woman passed through with a tentative step. “This, my wonderful comrades, is Annie.”
Fire red hair cascaded over her pale shoulders, loose curls flat from the rain. She looked at me with deep emerald eyes, biting the corner of her lip like a scared child.
Will they hurt me?
I furrowed my brow and quickly scanned the room. No one else seemed to have heard the voice. Before I could say anything, something more important caught my attention. William tripped over the coffee table. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him do anything that wasn’t of utmost grace. His jaw hung and I thought I saw a spark of emotion wash over his face.
And then it happened. A tear slipped over the rim of William’s eye. Jade started choking on her water and Alec damn near fell out of his chair. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to notice the rare sight.
“G-Gwen?” William stumbled over his words and I thought I might have been dreaming.
She retreated a step. Ryuu grabbed hold of her shoulders, just in case she tried to make a break for the door. “I-I’m sorry. Do I know you?” she asked timidly.
That voice—the same voice I’d heard in my head.
After a long minute, William shook his head. “No. No, you do not.” The cold, emotionless William that I’d come to know and tolerate returned after a few weighted breaths. Still, I couldn’t seem to get the image of “human” William out of my head.
I leaned toward Alec. “Who’s Gwen?”
“His wife.”
“I really hate to agree with the noob,” Jade said, “but she’s right. It’s about time we took the fucker’s head.”
“That isn’t exactly what I said,” Annie whispered into her lap. It was true—what she’d said was if the general was the bad guy, maybe we should try to stop him or something. To be honest, I liked the way Jade put it better—not that I’d ever admit that to her face.
We’d been talking in circles for twenty minutes straight about our next steps and hadn’t gotten anywhere. Well, all of us except William. He sat in the corner of the kitchenette’s tiny dining table looking mildly annoyed by our endless chatter and overall existence. His eyes stayed fixed on Annie’s face. It was bordering on creepy.
“Is there some sort of plan at play here, William?” Alec asked, rising to his feet. When William didn’t respond, Alec stepped into his line of sight. “Do you have a plan?” he asked again, snapping his fingers in William’s face.
If looks could kill…I braced for Alec’s head to roll across the floor.
Ryuu jumped up and clasped a hand over Alec’s shoulder with a rough laugh. “Now, now, Alec. We don’t poke the bear when it’s brooding, remember?”
Alec and William held each other’s gaze for a moment longer, two alpha males on the verge of attack. Alec huffed, shrugging off Ryuu’s hand and returning to sit by my side on the opposite end of the dining table.
“Men,” Jade mumbled, rolling her eyes. She hopped down from her perch on the counter and smacked her palms onto the table. “So, what’s the plan then, boys?”
“Sit around and do nothing.” I twirled one of my throwing knives between my fingers. When I looked up, all eyes were on me. Shit. I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud.
“What was that, princess?” Jade asked, silver-gray eyes fixed on me.
“Look,” I said, rising from the table, “I just don’t understand why we haven’t acted yet. I mean, isn’t that the entire reason we exist—to act? To protect this godforsaken planet? If that’s the case, then why haven’t we done a damn thing yet? I mean really, what have you all been doing for the past however many centuries?”
I could hear Jade’s teeth grind together. “Killing the general’s men,” she growled.
“Killing his men, but not killing him. Not stopping him from taking millions, if not billions of lives.” I turned my attention across the table to William. “How many visions do I have to have before you’ll actually let me try to do something about it? How many more must die?”
William was in my face before I could catch my breath. He loomed over me, his nose damn near touching mine. I steeled myself, determined not to give him the satisfaction of my fear. My fingers tightened around the throwing knife.
“How many times do we have to have this bloody conversation?” he spat. “Just because you have a vision of what is to come, does not mean you possess the abilit
y to stop it from happening. Once you have seen it, it is already too late. It will always come to pass. Every. Single. Time. No matter what you do.
“Which means, as I have told you before, it would be pointless to try. All you would do is lead the general’s men straight to us. You are still nothing more than a child. Do not pretend to know about our kind or of what we have been doing to stop this war. If it were not for us, it would have happened much sooner.”
I gulped, the table digging into my lower back as I leaned away from him. I’d seen William mad many times over the six years I’d known him. Hell, most of the time I was the cause of his anger. But I’d never seen William this angry. I nodded. It was all I could do.
He took a small step back, closing his eyes and rolling his shoulders. “It may come as a shock to you, Zoe, but I am not as cold and heartless as you think me. I do not enjoy standing by, watching millions of innocents lose their lives. I know it must be hard for you—to see their faces, knowing that no matter what you do, you can never save them. But we still have a purpose. We may not be able to save everyone, but we can save those who remain.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he held up a firm hand.
“There is nothing else that you or I or any of us can do. The end has already been foreseen.”
“But I haven’t—”
“Not you,” he interrupted, moving back to the corner chair. He resumed his stare-off with Annie, smiling weakly at her. “It was over a thousand years ago. Lady Seraphina was also a seer, she too had the gift of sight. She warned me of something she called the end of days.”
Alec’s hand wrapped around mine, gently pulling me back into my chair.
