by Megan Curd
The kiss was on my forehead instead of the glorious, Oscar-worthy make out session that had just been about to happen. I wanted to string Reese up by his toes, but he was giving me the saddest eyes that got him off the hook for everything. “Real nice, Reese. Real nice.”
Hopping up off of Mary’s bed, he walked over and took my hand, still grinning triumphantly. I pulled away from him. He must enjoy rejection. “Hey, I was just saving you from mono or H1N1. Those are really nasty deals. Someone’s gotta keep your best interests at heart.”
I walked to the stairs and began taking them two at a time until Reese groaned behind me. He’d followed behind. “Aw, come on Ash, don’t be like that. We never fought before you left Jamie in Ireland and brought back your little Irish souvenir instead.”
“Shut up, Reese. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He wouldn’t let it go. He knew just what buttons to push. “I mean, who would trade their friend for an Irish dude who doesn’t even know how to shower half the time? You know cleanliness is next to godliness. I shower daily, sometimes twice a day.”
That was enough. He had no right to talk about Jamie like he knew what happened, no right to talk about Liam like he knew him at all. I whipped around and punched him in the chest, seeing red from his comments. “Will you shut up? You don’t even know what happened! You weren’t there when Jamie was bludgeoning me with a crowbar, were you? Or when I passed out from losing so much blood and Liam’s mom had to carry me home? What about when I was lying in bed with three broken ribs? Oh yeah, you weren’t there for that, either. So why don’t you shut up about things you don’t understand?”
That was entirely too much information. Information that would put Reese in even more danger than he was in by just being my friend. My normal, human friend. So much for having one of those.
Reese stood still, shocked from the conniption fit that had come from nowhere. At least, that’s why I thought he was still. “Ash, your eyes are red.”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap. “I must have busted a blood vessel from freaking out at you.”
“No, not the whites of your eyes. The color of your eyes,” he made sure he was seeing correctly by taking two more steps forward, peering down into my face with more focus than I’d ever seen him have off the football field. “How’d you do that?”
I sighed. “Even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn’t.”
He attempted to take my hand again. This time I allowed it. Reese would be in serious trouble if Liam came back right now. “Yes you could. You can tell me anything.”
“I can’t, Reese. You don’t have any idea what’s going on, everything that happened in Ireland.”
“You said Jamie hurt you.”
“Yeah, she did.” I pulled my pant leg up to reveal the four inch-long gashes that were healing into pink, puckered scars.
He gasped. “Jamie did that to you?”
I nodded, lifting up the side of my shirt to show him the massive, still yellowing bruise that went across the width of my chest. His eyes bugged.
Reese tried to make a joke of it. I had to admire his attempt to not look appalled. “What the heck were you doing over there to make her so mad? Did you take her clothes without asking?”
“Not exactly.”
At that moment, my phone started buzzing in my back pocket. The number calling wasn’t one programmed in already.
“Hello?”
Memaw was on the other line. “Ashlyn, tell him.”
TWENTY
I looked over my shoulder as if Memaw would be standing there. How did she know Reese was here? There was no way she could know. I checked the number on the phone once more, then pressed it against my face to speak. “What are you talking about?”
“You need to tell him. You need a friend who you can trust.”
Reese was sitting on the bed, confused by the looks of it. I couldn’t blame him. “Are you sure?”
“Completely. Do you think I’d let you tell someone who wasn't safe? I’ve got an eye on you. Tell him. He’ll be a good person to have around when you need to keep a grip on things.”
Reese really did help me stay sane, even though he drove me crazy half the time. “I don’t understand why he’s allowed in on the secret and Liam isn’t."
“Ashlyn, Liam’s time will come. I know it’s hard on you to have to keep secrets from him, but you need to understand. Tess wants to keep this under wraps for the time being. She doesn’t think he’d understand the difference between you two and Changelings. He’s still too emotionally charged from the loss of his brother. They were only a year apart in age. Reese, on the other hand, has no preconceived notions. You can show him and he’ll accept it. Quite easily, actually,” Memaw said.
“How do you know?”
She chuckled on the other end. “My dear, I’ve been around a long time. That boy is pure and good. He’ll understand because you’re his best friend. He'll accept it because he loves you silly."
That brought me up short. I looked up at Reese to find him looking back at me, smiling. Even while confused, he tried to wait patiently. Well, sometimes. When he wanted to.
“Keep this phone on your person. I’m paying for the bill; I want to know that you have it.” With that, the line went dead.
I slid the phone back into the pocket of my jeans. After the past few months, it was probably best to just listen to Memaw no matter what.
Glancing at Reese once more, I went to the door and locked it. This was against all better judgment. If Liam came back…the thought wasn’t a good one. He’d think the worst. I couldn’t allow him to even venture down that road.
“How do you feel about long stories?” I asked Reese, walking back to the bed to sit beside him.
“If it’s yours, I’m totally game,” he said, pulling me beside him to sit against the wall. He was proving Memaw right.
“You need to be good with weird.”
“Totally good with it. I hang with you, don’t I?” he said, joking.
If only he knew how weird I really was.
* * *
Two hours later, it turned out that Reese was incredibly good with weird. He chuckled as he leaned against the side of the bed, pillow behind his back. He began to recap our conversation, making sure he had all the finer details. His version was funnier to listen to than mine. He made me laugh as he gave me his rundown. “So you’re telling me that Memaw is like a thousand year old FBI agent for faeries?”
I shook my head. “In a nutshell, sure.”
“And you’ve got a crazy faerie locked up inside of you, along with some of whatever Memaw is?”
“Pretty much.”
“And this Ankou guy has a grudge against Memaw for some stuff that happened forever ago, so now he’s trying to take it out on you? He tried to take you out by sending Jamie, who’s a crazy water faerie incarnate? So now since that didn’t work, he’s gonna try to finish the job himself, right?”
“You know as much as I do.”
“What did I tell you before you left? We could seriously make your life into a movie and be millionaires. That’s some freaky, totally unbelievable stuff you just told me, but I’ll believe it since it’s you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well thanks for making an exception.”
“No problem. I think it’s more believable since you’re claiming that Jamie was a nutter. Now at least she has an excuse.”
With the story out there and Liam not going to accidentally hear anything, the door was once more unlocked. I didn’t want it to look bad, especially when we had been so close to being alone for the first time. Hopefully we would get to reenact that scene again when I had humored Reese long enough. My stomach balled up in excitement at the thought.
“You know the one thing I can’t believe, though?” Reese asked as he thumbed through my old video games, deciding which one to play on the miniscule TV sitting on my dresser. I couldn’t figure out why he tried; the colors blurred every time he played.
> This was bound to be good, considering none of what we’d gone over should have been believable. I rolled my eyes. “What is that?”
He looked at me antagonistically. “That you can shift. You know, into other people and back. That’s pretty ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ if you ask me. I think you’re bluffing.”
I knew what he was doing, and it was annoying. “That’s what Changelings do, you nerd. We’ve gone over this. They take someone’s appearance, thoughts and soul and mimic it perfectly. That’s how they kidnap children.”
“Well then if you’re with the good guys, why can you do it? Why do you do it?”
I sighed. He was being difficult, steering the conversation somewhere I didn’t want it to go. “I can do it because the Changeling abilities are still there from the one that tried to kidnap me. I do it because Tess thinks it’ll come in handy at some point. Memaw does too, but she won’t admit it. Memaw can shift because, well, I don’t know. She’s in the faerie FBI, remember? Maybe that’s the reason. I’m still not great, but it’s getting there. It takes practice.”
He grinned. “I think you should practice. Shift right now.”
“Reese, you know I can’t do that. If Liam comes back and sees he wouldn’t understand. He can’t know right now,” I said for what seemed like the thousandth time. Reese was morbidly curious to see this. Apparently the eyes weren’t enough. He’d had me change them to every color in the rainbow, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to see the whole shebang.
“If you can’t even tell your boyfriend because he’ll make wrong assumptions, what kind of boyfriend is that?” Reese said lightly, though making sure I knew he was still keeping his foot in the door, just in case. “I’m sure if you told him his mom wasn’t too far off from you he’d understand.”
“Maybe…after he tried to kill us both. Reese, you don’t understand how deep the scar of having your sibling kidnapped goes. Not only that, but knowing he’s somewhere out there, being a slave to a bunch of evil, soulless Changelings. That’s if he’s lucky…” Just thinking about it made me see red again. Reese laughed at my eyes automatically shifting from the relaxed purple to red.
“You don’t wear your feelings on your sleeve, Ash. You wear them in your eyes. But I do understand. Kind of. I think I would pretty much want to tear that thing apart if they kidnapped Chris from you or if they took my little brother. That still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell Liam. How can he protect you if he doesn’t even know what he’s protecting?”
He brought up a good point. “Memaw and Tess don’t think it’s time to tell him. I’m not sure why Memaw said it was okay to tell you, actually.”
Reese smiled. “Because I’m just that awesome.”
I smiled back. “Maybe you are.”
Reese cocked his head to the side, waggling his eyebrows up and down just to antagonize a little more. “So are you going to shift or what? Liam’s been gone for almost three hours. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to come back in the time span it takes for you to shift into me and back. What’s it take, ten minutes? Or do you still suck and it takes you longer than that?”
He knew just what buttons to push. He was such a punk. “Actually, I could shift and be back in three minutes, but your eyes might not see it.”
Reese grinned, knowing he was going to get what he wanted. Rubbing his hands together, he sat back down against the bed. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back, readjusting the pillow behind his back to get comfortable. “Let the freak show begin.”
I went to stand in front of him at the bed. There was no need to tell him there had been only two successful shifts before today. Getting it right was the only way to prove to him that this wasn’t all a made up story. Later I’d shift into his dad and scare the crap out of Reese by walking into his room and yelling at him for something he’d done behind his dad’s back. He’d get his comeuppance.
Closing my eyes, Reese’s face swam behind my eyelids. Dirty blonde hair sticking up in all directions, hazel eyes twinkling as though he was up to something. I felt the current run across my skin and I opened my eyes.
Reese yelled out loud, jumping up. His jolt shook the bed, causing a couple pictures to fall off the little bookshelf at the head of the bed. “Holy CRAP! You look just like me! I’m seriously looking in a mirror! You are me!” He was immediately in my face, taking in all six foot four, two hundred pounds of himself. He touched me to make sure I was real.
I laughed, his deep voice booming from my mouth. “Do you believe everything we’ve talked about now?”
He laughed. “Of course! I didn’t know how good I looked. No wonder all the ladies want me.”
I shook my head. His head. It was so weird to shift. I couldn’t ever quite figure out who was controlling whom while shifting. Memaw said it would become easier to truly become the person you shifted into over time. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but it seemed cool enough.
“Don’t get a big head. You’re really not that good looking,” I said, laughing again. “Are you done checking yourself out? Can I change back now?”
He was still laughing in shock at the proof in front of him. “You know, I always knew you were a side-show act.”
“It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? Now I can change into you anytime I want…which is pretty much never,” I teased, getting ready to steel myself and shift back.
Looking down I closed my eyes, but looked back up after hearing a gasp. At the foot of the stairs stood my favorite person. I also knew he was the last person on earth that should be here right now.
Liam was standing there, staring at two Reeses. One was too much for him on a daily basis, and I knew instantly this was going to end badly.
Sprinting forward, Liam pulled out the knife he always kept underneath his shirt, raising it above his head. Reese covered his face and leapt to the side, tripping over Mary’s mattress but managing to avoid Liam’s fury. On the other hand, I stood rooted in place like a deer in headlights.
Liam was on top of me in a second. How long had I hoped this moment would come, to feel him against me? I had dreamt of it how many nights? However, in those dreams I was never in Reese’s form and never had Liam been wielding a weapon, trying to behead me. I jerked away from the blade as he brought it down, connecting with my right shoulder instead of my face. The blade cut through like butter. It should have been pain beyond belief, but I couldn’t bring myself to even feel. I was in too much shock, knowing what this would mean. I was vaguely aware that another person had jumped into the dog pile.
It was the real Reese, struggling to get Liam off of me before he did any more damage. Wrestling him off to the side, I rolled away, trying to pull my focus together. The quicker I shifted back, the faster Reese wouldn’t have to worry about being gutted. That thought didn’t help the process.
It took a second to remember what I even looked like. The pain was becoming overwhelming now. Blood was spattered all over my clothes and the floor. I focused everything into remembering the image I saw every morning in the mirror.
A moment later, the familiar electric current was running over my body. Once it was gone, there was only one option. Springing up, I returned to the brawl on the other side of the room.
I clutched Liam’s back and grabbed his arm as he pulled back to strike Reese. His shoulder was bleeding just like mine. Didn’t he notice that? I stopped his forward motion enough to make him realize someone was on top of him. Not even looking, he whipped me off his back and sent me flying into the bookshelf along the wall. I screamed in pain as my bleeding shoulder smacked against the shelf, books and CDs showering down.
Liam jerked like he’d been electrocuted. “Ashlyn!” he gasped, then rolled off of Reese, who was covering his face with bloody hands. There was no way to tell whose blood it was.
Collecting my senses, I ran forward to Liam who was holding his shoulder as blood seeped onto the mattress on the floor. “Liam! Look at me, Liam! Are you okay?”
; Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Reese get to his feet, holding his right arm. “Sure, run to the nut job,” he muttered, as he grabbed a sheet off the bed, ripping it into strips. He was making a tourniquet for himself from the looks of it. Liam had stopped bleeding for the most part. I held his face in my hands, trying to make his eyes focus on something.
“Ashlyn,” he said, eyes widening as he saw the mirror image of his wound on me. “What happened to you? Where…what just…” the color drained from his face as he connected the dots. “You’re not human.”
Reese saw what was coming before I did. Running over to push me out of the way, Liam grabbed Reese by the head instead, flipping him over his uninjured shoulder. Reese flew into the dresser, knocking everything off as it tottered precariously. Reese slid into a heap, a small line of blood dripping from above his left eye. The dresser slid to the right, crashing to the floor, blocking the entrance the bathroom.
As he turned back to face me, I backpedaled into the wall by my bed. “Liam, listen. I can explain.”
His shoulder was dripping blood, pooling onto the floor where he stood. “I swore to protect you. I swore my life to keep you safe at all times, and you’re not even human. You’re not worth protecting.”
I felt the blow of each of his words as though he was slapping me across the face. He was shaking as he said them.
I stepped toward him. He backed away, his face layered with hate and disgust. “You don’t mean that, Liam.”
He smirked, hateful and sarcastic. His eyes were slits, but not from the smile I had grown to love. “What would you know about it, Changeling? You even fooled my mum and Emily. You’ve ruined me; I’ve sworn to protect the very thing that took my brother from our family. You might be the same one. I hate you.”
The power behind his words brought me to my knees. “Liam, don’t. You don’t understand.”
Reese staggered from the TV, pressing a hand to his head that was still bleeding. “Liam, you aren’t even giving her a chance to explain. If you’d just listen –”
