by Rachel Jonas
For now, Evie’s secret was likely only obvious to me, but Liam had clearly been outed.
The class sat waiting for an answer to the million-dollar question: whether he’d been tethered to one of the royals, a family everyone but me believed to all be long-dead. I knew of at least one who was alive and well.
“It’s true I was once linked to the princess, but … as I’m sure you’ve all guessed, that family no longer exists,” he lied. “The Sovereign made certain he had no rival, made sure there was no one alive to contest the throne, so … case closed.”
His explanation died there. It came as no surprise to me that he shut the Q&A session down right after. Roz was among those disappointed by not having her questions answered. But judging by the page full of notes she jotted down in the last five minutes alone, she’d have enough to get her through at least a week of research.
There was a ton of speculation buzzing when we were dismissed. Several were questioning how abruptly Liam killed the conversation after being asked about the other original lycan. Some thought it was just still too hard for him to discuss, losing someone he cared about. Others thought there might be more to it than that.
I knew the truth.
Or most of it anyway: at least one heir to the fallen kingdom still existed, and her life depended on that information remaining secret.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only possible, future threat Evie needed to look out for. There was undeniable tension in my gut. It accompanied the need to protect her. That hadn’t left despite our relationship tanking.
I packed up my things and was aware of her doing the same further down the row, only much slower. She was distracted and peered up at Liam frequently. His eyes, full of concern, hadn’t left her either.
“I have to make a quick stop in my room. See you at lunch?” The sound of Roz’s voice pulled my gaze from Evie.
“Uh … I was actually thinking about skipping it today. I’ve had a bit of a headache since I got up, so I’m gonna see if a nap helps.”
She smiled. “I guess that can happen when you hit the sheets at three and get up at six.”
I nodded, pretending to be casual as I kept an eye on Evie. She stood from her seat and was heading for the door. At the risk of Roz seeing me scramble to chase after her, I excused myself, taking quick steps in Evie’s direction. I made it to her just as she exited.
“Hey, mind if we talk a sec?”
She still seemed a bit shifty after the conversation in class took a turn, but she faked it pretty well—making eye contact, smiling politely.
“Sure, what’s up?”
My mind went kind of blank and all I could think about was who she was—royalty. When I didn’t speak right away, she seemed to guess as much. It was confirmed when she gently took my arm, leading me further away from where bodies continued to pour out of our last class.
Those big, brown eyes that had been my undoing since day one, peered up at me, and now that it was just us, I saw the fear she’d tried to conceal in them. A question flew from her mouth and her forthrightness caught me by surprise.
“You won’t say anything, will you?”
I wasn’t so much surprised that she figured I knew her truth, but … more so by the fact that she didn’t trust me to keep her secret. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, her thinking it was necessary to ask.
I felt the tension in my brow when I answered. “Of course not. I, honestly, wasn’t even going to bring it up.”
And I wasn’t. Mostly, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. With what just happened in class, with her leaving my room so abruptly last night.
Both arms crossed her chest and she glanced around, completely missing the fact that I was offended. But I was. Deeply. Had we fallen that far already? Did she consider me such an outsider that I was no longer trustworthy?
Instead of letting her see she’d wounded me, I went on with my original reason for stopping her, trying to ignore yet another subtle reminder of where we now stood in each other’s lives.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You left kinda quick last night, so…”
When I had her full attention again, her expression softened. I wasn’t sure what was on her heart, but when her answer came, I knew she held back. Another sign of how her trust in me had waned.
“I just wasn’t feeling like myself,” was her response. “Guess I felt a little out of place. It wasn’t anything you did,” she explained. “I think it’s just … me.”
She blinked a few times and I got the distinct impression she was working up to something. And when she opened her mouth again, I was sure that had been the case.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to hang out like that.” After getting the words out, her chest heaved with deep breaths. She fidgeted with her nails while staring, waiting for me to respond. Maybe nervous about what I’d say.
My ego took another blow, but I was careful not to let her see that either. It was starting to feel like I was foolish to let my guard down around her. Without even trying, she kept stabbing me right in the heart.
Over and over again.
Those inflictions were sometimes small and subtle—like how that warmth that used to be in her eyes when she looked at me was now gone. And other times, they were more damaging. Like today.
Like now.
“I really thought we could make the ‘friends’ thing work, but … we were both probably kidding ourselves.” A dim, humorless smile touched her lips when she finished speaking and I looked away.
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” she added. “I wanted to believe it wouldn’t be so hard.”
While she made it seem as though that last part was only about us, it felt a lot heavier than that. When she didn’t elaborate, it reminded me of how closed off she’d always been, reminded me I was never as much inside that inner circle of hers as I thought. Verbally putting space between us when I first arrived was merely a formality. The longer I observed her from a distance, the clearer it became:
She never belonged to me.
I was foolish to think otherwise.
“Understood,” I blurted, squaring my shoulders. “It is what it is.”
She winced a bit when I said that. “This doesn’t make us enemies, Nick.”
While I agreed, I also knew it meant we weren’t exactly friends either. Despite our efforts to prove otherwise.
“It’s cool,” I added, wishing I really was as okay with this as I tried to pretend. “And don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone what I know.”
This time, it looked like she had at least some confidence in me when she gave a solemn nod. “I appreciate it.”
It still stung that she needed to hear me say it.
“Well, I uh … I guess I’ll see you around,” she said quietly.
A chill settled on my heart and spread to my head, worsening the headache that had already set up shop there. When she walked away, I let her, keeping to myself how I never meant for this break to be so permanent. So official.
As quickly as things with us had come together … they had now completely fallen apart.
—Chapter Eighteen—
Nick
Thanks to the pain in my head, I sat out the last half of today’s training. It also forced me to turn down an invite from some of the guys to hang out in the gym, shooting hoops since it was Friday and we didn’t have to be up early tomorrow.
And now, I was wondering if that splitting headache was the reason I was, again, standing in the middle of my room covered in filth. I’d lost three hours this time.
When I last looked at the clock, it was a quarter to seven. Now? Half past ten.
It felt like my head was broken, like time was slipping through the cracks. Dark, damp soil covered my hands and feet just like before, but I still had no recollection of being anywhere but this room.
I was losing it.
Breathing wildly as I tried to contain the mounting rage and frustration, I hurried to
the bathroom before any of my roommates came back, asking questions when they saw the state I was in.
What’s wrong with me?
Am I going crazy?
Am I becoming what I feared I would?
Brown-tinted water rinsed down the drain as my skin went back to its usual shade. I stared at nothing. Lost, wondering if, one day, I’d black out like this and the real me wouldn’t ever return, leaving the beast inside to wreak havoc on the world.
On Evie.
I braced the edge of the sink and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t afford to think like this, like I was already defeated. I had to fight what I felt growing inside me.
Had to.
But something else was also clear to me now, whether I liked it or not; she was right to put the final nail in the coffin today. It wasn’t good for her to be around me.
An urgent knock at the door had me quickly drying my hands and feet before going to answer. Through the peephole, I saw Roz standing on the other side, so distraught she was literally wringing her hands.
I pulled the door open and didn’t expect to be ambushed with a hug, followed by the huge sigh of relief she breathed into my ear.
“Thank God, you’re okay.”
With her still hanging around my neck, I frowned. What was she talking about? The last time I saw her was in class. Was she freaking out because I told her about the headache?
When I didn’t speak, her grip loosened and, slowly, she pulled away, staring with bewilderment and suspicion in her eyes.
“You … don’t remember, do you?”
My brow quirked. “Remember what?”
She settled on her heels again and reached back to shut my door, closing us off from the rest of the world. Her bottom lip clamped between her teeth while she studied my face. I had no clue what she was thinking, but I wished she’d just tell me what I missed.
With all the time I was losing, I was kind of desperate for that.
“We passed each other in the hallway a few hours ago,” she started. “I was … I was surprised to see you up walking around because I knew you weren’t feeling well. So, I stopped to ask if the headache had passed, but … you just kept walking. Didn’t stop. Didn’t speak,” she added. “So, I followed you.”
She followed me. Maybe that meant she could tell me where I’d been, what I do when my consciousness goes on hiatus.
“You went to the elevator and I got on with you, but I didn’t know what happened to you after that.” The look of bewilderment returned to her face and I felt it, too.
“You didn’t get off with me? Didn’t keep following me wherever I was headed?” The words came out kind of harsh, but my frustration wasn’t with her. It was with myself.
Her dark hair shifted when she shook her head. “For starters,” she went on, “…I was afraid to.”
My head tilted at those words. So many feelings came at me at once, I couldn’t keep them all straight. Mostly, I was angry with what dwelled inside of me, but the next contender was guilt. I felt terrible for whatever I’d done—even if it wasn’t actually me— that scared Roz off.
“I’ve never seen you like that,” she went on. “The way you looked at me; it was like … you were dead inside. Like you could have ripped me to pieces without thinking twice about it.”
My back fell against the wall behind me.
“It shook me to the point that I almost didn’t come here,” she shared, “but I needed to know you were okay, so … I came anyway.”
And I was glad she did.
She stood in front of me with so much fear and uncertainty. I could feel it, could see it in her posture as she fidgeted with her nails, unable to keep still.
And yet, she showed up. Right when I needed someone.
Despite my initial thought—that I should shut the rest of the world out and deal with this on my own—having her here made me realize I didn’t want to be alone. I needed someone who understood me, someone who knew what was happening to me and, right now, Roz was the only one who consistently came through.
The only one I could trust.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “For snapping just now, for scaring you earlier. I—”
“It’s okay,” she interjected. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
I nodded, knowing she meant that.
“And, for the record, I didn’t stop following you because I was afraid,” she shared, only leaving me to guess the real reason for a moment. “I stopped because you opened the ceiling tile on top of the elevator and climbed up the shaft. I couldn’t follow you.”
Of course that was the only thing that stopped her. I should have guessed it was something like that. It wasn’t like her to get rattled to the point that she stopped pursuing the truth. She was the bravest person I knew. Hands down.
Which was why she dared to come to my room just now.
My hand sought hers and I was surprised how much the contact soothed my racing thoughts. She squeezed my fingers between hers.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me.” It was tough admitting I was powerless, but there was no getting around it.
I was spiraling.
“There have to be answers out there somewhere. There was a Liberator before you,” she said with a sense of optimism I didn’t share. “There has to be some sort of documentation of him other than what we’ve already found. For all we know, there’s a way to stop the blackouts. A way to—”
“Reverse this curse altogether?”
That slipped out.
I didn’t mean to keep creating hope where I knew none existed, and Roz hadn’t stumbled across anything yet. But maybe I said it because I was desperate not to become a monster. From the way things had been going, I was already on the fast track headed to that exact destination.
Roz’s eyes softened, and it wasn’t pity that filled them. It was sympathy. She nodded. “Yeah … maybe there is.”
I turned away from her again, but kept her hand.
“I’ll keep looking,” she promised. “We’ll figure this out.”
It wasn’t lost on me how she always made my problems her problems. There was once a time I resented her persistence and the way she couldn’t seem to let go when she had a lead.
But now, in the thick of things, I knew to thank my lucky stars she stuck around.
*****
Liam
The line at the vending machine was longer than usual, but, from what I’d seen so far, it was like that every Friday night. The kids were out and about later than usual because there were no sessions until Monday. So, with very little to do to keep themselves occupied down here, they hit the junk food pretty hard and just hung out.
I hadn’t been gone more than five minutes, but returned to find that Elise had let herself into my room. My first thought was that news of how today’s class discussion went had somehow reached her.
I’d been on edge ever since. How was it that a well-meaning kid in weird glasses nearly threw a wrench in the entire plan to keep Evangeline safe? It became even clearer that I could never stop being vigilant in my effort to protect her. It’d also made me second-guess my role here as an instructor. It seemed that these kids’ parents were finally sharing their knowledge with them willingly and I couldn’t risk another connection being made.
Not with there being so much on the line.
Elise sat on the couch, patiently waiting. Seeing her was, of course, a surprise, but not an unwelcomed one. However, it didn’t take long to pick up on the emotion bleeding through her expression, one I hated seeing there.
Guilt.
Yes, I was certain that, in part, it was due to the fact that she’d come into my room without permission, but I guessed the larger component was the rift between she and Evangeline.
A rift she was responsible for.
I latched the door and she offered a dim smile as she clasped both hands in her lap. “You look well.”
I set down my drink and smiled back while taking the seat across fro
m her. “I am.”
I was sure she knew that would be my response. Her daughter had always been the only thing I needed to consider myself okay. And despite the way we started—with Evangeline resisting the pull we both felt every step of the way—I’d begun to see progress.
“Sorry for just dropping in,” she sighed. “I would’ve waited in the hall, but I’ve tried to maintain a low profile around here. When my staff catch me roaming about, they tend to swarm me with questions that aren’t really my concern. Needless to say, I try to stay to myself, doing my part to keep things running smoothly in the background.”
Which begged the question: what was so important that she’d come all the way down here when she could have simply picked up the phone and called? The ill-timed question I’d been asked earlier came to mind again. That had to be it.
“You’ve been … distant,” she said, pretending it didn’t bother her that I’d stayed away, although I knew that wasn’t true.
For so long, she thought I hadn’t survived the war, and I thought the same of her. As someone she regarded like a son, I was sure she expected we’d be making better use of our time here, reconnecting after so much time had been lost.
But I couldn’t do that.
Getting close to Elise again, now—with Evangeline feeling so disconnected, so alone—would have only made her feel like even more of an outcast. And, with all she’d lost recently, I wouldn’t be the cause of more pain. If she needed time to wrap her head around meeting her mom, then I’d learn to be content waiting with her.
Even if it meant keeping the only mother I’d ever known out of my life a little while longer.
“How is she?” Elise asked, unable to even utter Evangeline’s name.
I nodded. “Seems to be adjusting well. Considering.” That one word was so loaded.
Considering she just found out she isn’t human.
Considering she just lost what little family she had.
Considering she just found out even more of her life was a lie.
…Considering.
Elise lowered her head as if she heard every thought that just went through mine. “Well … I’m sure she has you to thank for that.”
