by Chase Connor
Andrew frowned.
“Is that why you came all the way from Point Worth?” He asked evenly. “To ask if I knew you were Jacob Michaels and insult me further?”
I waved him off.
“Not especially.” I shook my head. “I realized that people often say things without actually saying them. Or they say something that kind of relates to what they want to say, hoping that the other person will pick up on it and do the talking for them.”
Andrew just stared at me.
I figured there was a button for security under his fancy desk and soon his manicured hands would be groping for it.
“You don’t have a pack,” I said, leaning forward.
“No.”
“That’s weird, right?”
“How would you know if that’s weird?” His brow furrowed so deeply I worried his face might crack and bleed. “You’re not exactly an expert. Are you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It just seems that all shifters—werewolves—belong to a pack or ‘family’ of some kind, right?”
“I guess.”
“You don’t,” I said. “Why?”
“There’s only one pack around here that I know of and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“Jason’s pack?” The corner of my mouth turned up.
“Uh, yeah.”
“You don’t have a problem giving them information, though.” My eyebrow raised against my will as I stared Andrew down from across the desk. “I mean, Oma is pissed at you. Like, super pissed. She already threatened to…uh, flip her chicken…on Jason. Her words. Not mine. Obviously. You will probably be the next person she goes batshit crazy on.”
“What did she do to Jason?” Andrew’s eyes were like saucers.
I waved him off.
“After I blasted him into the kitchen counter, she just pinned him there with the table.” I rolled my eyes. “Nothing all that drastic. He walked out of the house on his own two legs. Nary a scratch.”
Andrew gave me a horrified look yet said nothing as I smiled evilly at him.
“She was all upset because he disrespected her multiple times, nearly broke her kitchen table, yada yada yada.” I gave a vaguely bored flip of my hand. “She might be madder at you for running to Jason and crying about Lucas plowing into you with his truck. Like you aren’t perfectly fine.”
Andrew’s horrified expression changed to one of “fight or flight.” Maybe I was lying a little to him in order to put him on edge, but the fact was that Oma had been pissed off about Andrew talking to Jason after the whole incident with Lucas’ truck. Of course, she had probably forgotten all about being upset with Andrew due to other things that had occurred since. Oma had a good memory when it came to getting even with people who had pissed her off, so maybe I wasn’t entirely off base.
“But,” I said, holding a hand up as Andrew started to rise from his seat, “if you were maybe able to help me out a little, maybe she’d be less pissed off when the time came for her to talk to you.”
If she remembered.
Big “if.”
Andrew didn’t have to know that Oma had probably already forgotten about being mad at him.
“What do you want, Rob?” Andrew sighed, his exhausted eyes closing slowly. “Jacob. Whoever you are?”
“Where is your pack? Family? Whatever you call them.” I asked. “Back in New York?”
“That’s where they are based, yes,” Andrew replied, his eyes sliding open cautiously to appraise me from the other side of the desk.
I smiled.
“Things have happened in the last week. A few days ago,” I shook a finger at him, “I would’ve missed what you just did there, Andy.”
“What?”
“Where are they now?” I asked. “I don’t care where they are based out of regularly, I want to know where they are now.”
Andrew rolled his eyes and sighed, sinking back into his seat.
“I don’t know.”
“Sure ya’ do.” I grinned goofily as I laid my hand on his desk, palm down, and pushed out a little magic.
When I raised my hand, the scorch marks were very noticeable.
“Jacob…Rob.” Andrew pushed his chair back slowly. “Don’t.”
“I wonder if I set this office on fire with magic if anyone would believe you?” I asked thoughtfully. “Or would they think you’d gone ‘round the bend and haul you outta here in a ‘Me Time’ jacket?”
Andrew stared at me, nearly emotionless, as we sat across the desk from each other in his fancy-schmancy office in the tall, fancy building. I’d had many a meeting with self-important people in fancy-schmancy offices in tall, fancy buildings. Typically, I used my charm and charisma to deal with their bullshit—especially since my memory had been a problem during those meetings—but that would not work with Andrew. Magic was the answer.
“You seemed like such a nice guy.” Andrew finally sighed, his head slowly shaking as he stared into my eyes.
I frowned.
“But you’re kind of a douche, too, ya’ know.” He said.
“I don’t think the guy who verbally and physically assaulted me on a date has a right to tell me about my manners.”
“What’s happened to you?” He asked, his head cocking to the side marginally. “I mean…I’m getting a vibe from you now that wasn’t there before. That trick there is new, too.”
He pointed at the scorch marks.
“It’s funny what happens when someone remembers how exhausted they are, Andrew,” I replied evenly. “I’ve been tired of my circumstances for a very fucking long time. And I’m looking to correct them. Immediately. Where is your fucking pack?”
With each word spoken, I leaned in closer and closer, pushing myself into the desk and further into Andrew’s space.
“What’s that even mean?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I clenched my teeth tightly. “I got—well, we—got attacked by two werewolves the other night. I want to know whose pack they’re a part of because Jason doesn’t claim them.”
“That’s convenient.” He snorted.
“Why would he lie?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Don’t you think I’d recognize local boys, Andrew?” I quipped. “Even if he were lying, I’d know if the guys looked familiar. These guys were bigger than any of Jason’s—even in human form—and they weren’t from around Point Worth. So…where is your fucking pack? They in town for a visit?”
Andrew chewed at his lip.
“What do you want me to burn first?” I asked, sitting back nonchalantly. “I can start with anything that I think looks super important.”
I reached to grab a stack of papers off of Andrew’s desk. When he reached out suddenly to grab my wrist to stop me, I didn’t jerk away or react with violence. I just looked up at him, waiting to see what he would do.
“Don’t.” He pleaded. “Please. This is my fucking job. I can’t lose it because you’re a fucking psychopath.”
“Pot meet kettle.”
“I’m not a psychopath.” He sat back, his long fingers sliding from around my wrist. “I’m a werewolf.”
“Tomato, tomato.” I shrugged.
“You mean tomato, tomahto.”
“No.” I chuckled. “I really don’t. They’re too interchangeable for that.”
Andrew squinted angrily at me.
“Look,” I sighed, leaning in even more, my ass barely hanging onto the edge of the seat, “I don’t give a shit what you and your furry brethren do when it doesn’t involve me. I don’t care if you’re bathing in other people’s blood under the light of the full moon and getting your rocks off to it, either. What you guys do has absolutely no effect on me whatsoever, puppy. But…we were attacked. Lucas got bitten by one of these assholes. I want to know who they are and why they are here if they are not part of Jason’s pack. That simple.”
Andrew stared at me impassively.
“Or I burn this fucking building to the ground with us
in it.” I sat back with a sigh, my ass squeaking against the leather of the cushion.
Rolling his eyes, Andrew sighed. “They’re Jason’s people, Rob. He’s finding new members outside of Point Worth, obviously. I know for a fact that my people are not anywhere near here, though I would rather you burn me alive than tell you where they are.”
“He’s recruiting elsewhere?” My head fell back in frustration. “I should have thought of that. Could-a saved me from having to look at you.”
“I’m surprised you and Esther Jean hadn’t thought of it,” Andrew said.
“Fair enough.” I relented as I rose from my seat. “Of course, you could have saved both of us a lot of trouble if you had just said that when I first asked. So…you’re still a major douche.”
Andrew glared up at me as I stood before his desk.
“Have a nice day, Andy.” I gave him a half-wave as I went to turn towards the door.
“I guess,” Andrew’s voice stopped me, “the question you aren’t asking that you should be asking is why they’re attacking you and Lucas, right? I mean…shifters usually only care about business that involves shifters. Neither one of you is a shifter, are you?”
Turning to look at Andrew, one of his eyebrows was raised, questioning.
“That’s yet to be seen,” I said. “I know I’m not. Lucas did get bit, though.”
Andrew smiled.
“Your boyfriend is not going to be a shifter.”
My brow furrowed deeply as Andrew snickered to himself, very confident in what he had just said.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what he said was the truth. “He got bit by one of those ass—”
“Everyone in Point Worth knows about those people.” Andrew shook his head, amused. “There’s no point in pretending that he has to worry about something like a bite, Rob.”
“Those people?”
“The Barkley’s.” He replied. “But…if shifters are acting out of the ordinary…that is a concern, isn’t it?”
I swallowed hard. Apparently, not everyone knew about the Barkley’s—whatever that meant. A million questions spilled into my head, but I didn’t have the first clue as to whether or not I wanted to ask them of Andrew. Nor did I know how to ask those questions. Anything I asked or said would only give him more information about my family and Lucas’. Something in the way Andrew was looking at me and smiling let me know that he knew more than he ever let on. In fact, I was beginning to think that he wasn’t actually afraid of me burning down his building at all.
“Go fuck yourself, Andrew,” I said simply.
“Close the door on your way out, Rob.” He winked.
Chapter 6
The horizon was that lazy red color that’s trying to decide how long it will be before it turns purple. Higher in the sky, the deep, nearly black, blue color was encroaching on the blood-like color pouring towards the ground. Somewhere between the two colors, a pale-yellow moon was climbing higher into the sky, watching the war between the two colors. Day and night fighting each other as the moon stayed out of the way and did what it was created to do. The sky could fight with itself as long as it kept out of the moon’s way, for it had to bring forth destiny.
Nearly a quarter of a million miles beneath the moon, a scream of agony cut through the woods as the man fell to all fours. Writhing and gnashing, the man screamed out as his bones shifted, and his skin crawled. Popping joints and stretching sinew, like being stabbed repeatedly with hot pokers, the man knew that the pain alone would be enough to kill him. The moon shone down, indifferent to the man’s suffering as he went through the transition—the first to ever experience a pain so unique…so exquisite. A pain that demanded to be felt, for reward was on the other side of that wall of agony.
Throwing himself back to his elongating knees, the man looked up at the moon, his eyes wide and yellow, lengthening and glistening as his mouth opened wide. Teeth, impossibly long, glistened with drool that fell to the ground in fat, viscous globs. His yellow eyes connected with the yellow light of the moon, and his soul learned a truth that had never been whispered to another soul. He was now part of the night—a part of the frightening uncertainty of darkness that forced the first people to walk on two legs to hide in caves when the God in the sky went to sleep each night.
As the first patch of fur split the skin on his back, the knobs of his spine spilling forth from that crevice, he understood everything. His eyes were drawn to the edge of the clearing, where a man in a black hooded cloak watched, his red eyes glowing out from the shadows of that hood.
Magic.
It was connected to everything.
His wish had been heard.
Carlita slowly slid her hand out of mine, her fingers trailing across the top of the table between us in the corner booth. My eyes opened, and I looked over at her, wondering what there was to say.
“He’s been around for a very long time, baby,” Carlita said as her fingers found her coffee cup.
It was evident that she was trying to keep her hand steady, but she couldn’t quite manage it as her shaky hand nearly upended her cup before her fingers latched onto it. My own hand was cold and clammy and just a little shaky as I slid it back across my side of the table and into my lap. She brought the disposable to-go cup to her lips and took a sip from the minuscule hole in the plastic lid, but her eyes did not lose their hold on mine.
What she had just shown me didn’t answer many questions, it merely added more to the growing “List of Things Rob Doesn’t Know.” So, my friend in the black hooded cloak was around when the first man became a werewolf. What did that mean? Had he created the first werewolf? Or was he merely an observer to something that the magic of the world had brought forth of its own accord? Why would someone wish to become a creature like a werewolf and where would such a primitive person get such an idea when no such thing had existed before? Someone doesn’t just wake up one day and have such a thought, nor make such a wish.
Why are the shifters acting weird in Point Worth?
That had been my question for Carlita when I had found her at the LGBTQ+ center in downtown Toledo. Instead of answering, she had led me to the coffee shop—the same one I had been to with Andrew before—and ordered us both a coffee. Then we had slid into the corner booth, mostly out of everyone else’s sight since it was the middle of the day, and business was slow. Her hand had reached for mine, and I had placed mine in hers willingly. My mind had been treated to a memory that wasn’t my own.
But whose memory was it?
Memories were a tricky thing. What is a memory comprised of? Are they flickers of electricity being fired by synapses in the brain? Then again, does the brain contain memories…or is it memories? No matter the answer, I knew one thing for certain, the memory had to be Carlita’s. How else would she have it to share with me? My hand was finally steady when I reached for my own disposable cup and lifted it to my lips. As the warm, black liquid flooded my mouth, I found myself wondering if anything would ever make sense again.
When I had first gone off to Hollywood, all of my pertinent memories about magic and the history of my family taken from me for safe-keeping, things were rough. But they made sense. I didn’t wander through each day blindly, wondering what this thing or that thing meant. I didn’t develop one question after another about every event in my life. One foot in front of the other was how I lived my life because everything was linear and logical. Now…I felt like, with my memories returned…I understood nothing.
I was worse off than I had been before.
“Why don’t you people ever just give simple answers?” I sighed as I set the coffee cup back on the table.
“I’m an oracle, baby.” Carlita smiled as her cup was set back on the table. “Not Dear Abby. Knowing my role in all of this doesn’t mean I can just tell you any-damn-thing that pops into your handsome little head.”
“Thank you,” I said quickly before launching in on her again. “Carlita—”
“Yes, baby?”
“Why did someone become a werewolf?” I reiterated. “Why do they exist?”
“You saw why they exist, Rob.” She replied.
I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes.
“When the first,” She looked around and leaned in, “magic, was used, someone had to be around to keep that shit under control, right? I mean, you can’t have people just running around batshit crazy doing whatever the hell they want without someone there to make sure they didn’t go too far.”
I wasn’t sure she was answering the question I had asked.
“So,” I said, “they came about because some guy wished to be a wolf?”
“No.” She looked at me like I was stupid. “And yes. They came to be because some guy wished to be a wolf without realizing that magic is everywhere. It sees everything and hears everything. Be careful about what you wish…because you might just get it.”
“Why was…he…there?” I asked quietly, nervously reaching for my cup.
“Baby,” The look didn’t leave Carlita’s face, “he’s been around for a lot longer than you know.”
“Like you.” I sighed.
“Like me.”
“Is that your memory?”
She smiled at me, took another sip of her coffee.
For several moments we stared across the table at each other, enjoying sips from our own coffee cups in amiable, comfortable silence. I tried making a timeline in my head but found it too complicated. With everything that had happened throughout my childhood, all of the unexplained, weird things, then my teenage years, discovering my sexuality, meeting Lucas, then…the well…it was driving me mad. Having been gone for ten years with the effects of what I’d done, then coming back and having all of those memories back…my mind just couldn’t handle it all.
The things in my past never got talked about, even with Oma. Everything was vague and referred to as though something we’d best just forget for fear of making things worse for ourselves. We were always on eggshells, doing our best to not draw attention to ourselves. At first, I thought it was just Oma’s way. When I was a little kid, that made sense to me. You just followed the lead of the person who was your guardian, whoever that may be. As I got older, I realized that we were trying to be discreet. In my mid-teens, I found out whose attention we were trying to avoid.
