“They came back?”
Liam shook his head, his normal scowl replaced by something a lot more heartbreaking. “Christine, the Alpha Female, called a few times and expressed her concern, but Mom always brushed her off. Then, just before Nicole’s fourth birthday, Mom had a vision.
“Future Seeing isn’t always clear-cut. The Seers get a bit of this or that, but never any context or timeline. Mom wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but she knew the Alpha Pack would be coming back for Nicole. She got really over-protective, always wanting to know where we all were and what we were doing. I was thirteen, which isn’t the most intelligent time in a guy’s life, and thought she was being crazy. So, when she told me to stay at home with the doors locked and watch my siblings, I didn’t listen.”
I did not like where this was going.
“I had a girlfriend at the time. Her name was Elyse, and I thought she was the love of my life. When she called and asked me to meet her at the gas station down the road from our house, I went and took Alex and Nicole with me. I didn’t want to seem uncool, so I made them stay on the sidewalk out front while Elyse and I made out around the corner.
“I had only been Changing for about a year and a half, but my senses have always been sharper than a normal human. I heard the car turn onto the street and something inside me just knew what was going to happen. I ran as fast as I could, but I was too late to save them both.” Liam’s voice shook. I continued to look at the night sky, allowing him to have his moment. “They called it a hit and run, but it was a murder. I saw the driver. I smelled him. A Shifter ran over my baby sister on purpose, and then drove off, leaving her bloody body on the side of the street.
“After we buried her, we moved. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone where we were going or say good-bye. To the citizens of Provost, we were there one day and disappeared the next. In reality, we just relocated off the grid. Shifters tend to like places with small populations, but our new place was miles from civilization. We weren’t allowed to have Internet or go to school. Mom taught us from books she borrowed from the library while Dad kept taking off on ‘business trips’. Sometimes his ‘business partners’ would come to the house for meetings. They were all Shifters.”
“Were they part of the Alpha Pack?” I asked.
Liam snorted at the thought. “Exact opposite, actually.”
“What’s the opposite of the Alphas?”
“Shifters who want to bring the Alpha Pack to their knees.” He seemed to consider what he said for a moment before adding, “And then cut off their heads.”
Well, that was pretty opposite. “So, you’re talking about a rebellion.”
“Exactly. My parents went from being Potentials to becoming the leaders of the group secretly plotting to overthrow the Alphas.”
“And the Alphas found out?”
“I don’t know… maybe. Or maybe they were just too worried about how powerful our little family Pack was becoming. Mom was the strongest Seer other than the Alpha Female in the world, Dad was beyond Dominant, I was following in his footsteps, and Alex could See and Change. Either way, we were a threat.”
Liam shook his head and took a deep breath before continuing. “It was a Tuesday. I knew something was up. Mom had a vision the day before, and they had been acting weird ever since. They kept hugging us and giving us these you know we love you talks, but since Nicole’s death they did that every once in a while. That night, though, the talk went on for a long time, and before it was over they were talking about things like revenge and tempting destiny.
“In my gut, I knew something was very wrong, but they were my parents. I trusted them, so I didn’t ask any questions when they gave us each a backpack and loaded us into the back of a delivery truck. They made me memorize an address in the United States and told us they would meet us there in a week.
“They died that night.”
My heart ached for the boy Liam had been. “If they knew what was coming, why didn’t they leave too?”
“I don’t know.” I knew that note in his voice. It was grief, pain, and confusion. They were old, dear friends of mine.
“Maybe they did,” I ventured. “Maybe they’re out there and just don’t know how to find you--”
“No. They’re dead.” Liam reached into his pocket and pulled out an old, tattered piece of folded up paper. “This is my parents’ farewell letter. I found it in my backpack that night, but didn’t really believe it until Alex woke up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, and choking on smoke from hundreds of miles away.” He turned the note over and over in his hand. “That night Christopher and Bryce died. In our backpacks we had new IDs with names to remind me of everything I had lost, everyone I let die. William became Liam. Alexandria, Alex. Nicole’s name we both carried with us. They made sure I would never forget the people I failed to save.”
He wasn’t being melodramatic. He actually believed it.
“I don’t think that was their intention. No one would blame you, especially not your parents.”
He acted like he hadn’t even heard me. “You know the last thing my mom said to me? She said, ‘Take care of your brother. It’s his destiny to follow his heart, but it’s your job to protect him.’ And I tried. God, I tried.” Liam pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I failed him, too. My whole family is dead because I couldn’t protect them.”
No wonder he was so grouchy all the time. I would be mad at the world if my whole family was dead, too. “Your family is dead because the Alpha Pack is a bunch of corrupt, power hungry monsters.”
Liam cut his eyes towards me. “Yeah. Well, that too.”
“So you’ve been on your own since you were what? Fifteen?”
“Fourteen. Some of the other ‘rebels’ looked after us for a bit, but we didn’t stay any one place too long. I had trouble quelling my Dominant instincts, and no matter what someone’s intention might be, adults have trouble submitting to a kid.”
“And you couldn’t just submit to someone else for a little while?”
“Could you?”
I thought about it. “Not now.”
“Once I could drive, it wasn’t a big deal. Actually, it worked out really well because we roamed all over the place trying to find other Shifters who might be sympathetic to our cause. That’s what we were doing in Kentucky. We heard there was a large Pack of strong Shifters there who kept to themselves more than normal. We thought maybe it was because they were less than sold on the whole Alpha Supremacy thing, so we came to see if we could worm our way into their good graces and find out where their loyalties truly were.”
“And they were receptive?”
“No. Not at all.”
“So why did you stay so long?”
Liam tilted his head skyward. “You.”
Something happened inside my chest. It was as if my heart tried to swell and constrict at the same moment. It was an altogether unpleasant sensation.
“Me? Because of Alex?”
This time, Liam didn’t just look at the landscape stretching out in front of us, but turned his head completely away from me. “Partially.”
“And the other part?”
“Do you remember the first time we met? It was at that burger stand down by the lake.”
Some people you have to meet four or five times before you start to remember them. Liam Cole was not one of those people. I could remember every moment of our first encounter at The Strip, from his insulting stare to his threats against me and my family.
“Seems to ring a bell.”
“I knew right then we couldn’t just leave.” He wasn’t looking over his left shoulder anymore, but he wasn’t exactly looking at me either. “The way you smelled, I had only smelled it on one other person in my life.” He took a deep breath, and this time decided to shift his gaze to the stars. “You smelled like Nicole.”
“What do you…?” The pieces slid together slowly in my head. “You mean, you could tell I was a Shifte
r?”
“I knew you had the potential to be one. I’ve met two of the other female Shifters, and you didn’t smell like them. They had a stronger, more demanding scent. And there is this whole aura of power other Shifters have--”
“I’ve noticed that.”
“You didn’t have that then. There was just this faint scent layer underneath your normal smell. It was like a ghost of a smell, barely perceptible.”
“So, it wasn’t something that happened the night--” I stopped myself before saying, “the night Alex died.” It was getting easier for me to accept, but saying it in front of Liam seemed callous and mean. “I’ve always been a Shifter.”
“Honestly, Scout, I have no idea. I think you’ve always had the potential to be a Shifter, but something happened that night to trigger it. And before you ask: No, I don’t know why the potential was there. Your dad isn’t a Shifter. It shouldn’t have been possible. And I don’t know what caused you to Change either. Maybe it was your connection to Alex, or maybe it was something the Hagans did. I don’t know, so don’t ask.”
I closed an imaginary zipper over my lips, turned an imaginary lock, and threw away an imaginary key.
“It wasn’t until you Changed that Toby began to understand the threat of the Alphas,” he continued.
“Just Toby? What about the rest of the Hagans?”
“Jase, Charlie, and Talley are obviously pro-rebellion, but the others don’t know anything about it. After Alex died, I asked Toby to hide me as payback for the unlawful death of my brother. It’s one of those Shifter customs dating back to the dawn of time but nobody ever really remembers or uses. I was a little worried he would refuse, but in the end he agreed.
“To keep my whereabouts secret, we decided to only tell Charlie and Jase. They were both so shattered by what happened they wanted to repay me however they could. At first, we were just going to try to figure out a way to join the rebellion without causing Toby to have to face a dozen different Challenges for Pack Leader, but then you Changed and so did our priorities.”
“You knew they would come after me.”
“You’re a female Shifter. There is no way they would let you live.”
Goosebumps broke out over my arms.
“There is something I don’t get,” I said, mulling over the whole Cole-Hagan relationship. “Why didn’t Toby Challenge you when you first moved into their Territory? That’s how it normally works, right? Did he just meet you and realize there was no way he could take you down?” That didn’t really sound like Toby, whose cocky arrogance might have been more annoying if it hadn't been hard-earned, but since neither he nor Liam was dead, something had to have happened.
“Not exactly.” When he didn’t elaborate I prodded. “Then what exactly was it?”
“I convinced them I was part of the Alpha Pack.”
Here’s the thing, if I didn’t know any better, I would assume Liam was part of the Alpha Pack myself. He’s the sort of person even normal people who have no clue about supernaturals would steer clear because of his animalistic personality. As a Shifter, it was even more pronounced. The amount of power radiating off of him even under the new moon was overpowering. I had been in the same room with the Alpha Male, and I wasn’t sure which - Stefan or Liam - was actually more Dominant. So, I could have just left it alone, assumed that was all there was to the story. But the way he said it, as if he was embarrassed and wanted to let it drop, made certain I wouldn’t do that.
“How?”
“How what?”
Ha! He was hiding something. “How did you convince Toby you were part of the Alpha Pack?”
I thought he was going to ignore me, but then he did something totally unexpected. He unbuttoned his pants.
“Whoa! Wait a minute! Britches stay on. That’s a rule.” It was an unstated rule, but one everyone should know.
“Calm down. I’m not going to offend your virgin eyes.” My face flamed at the v-word, which was probably the only confirmation anyone needed that his assessment was completely accurate. “It’s right here…” He pulled down the edge of his pants to reveal his hip. It was hard to make out due to the lack of light, but I thought I could see a mark on his skin.
“Is that a paw print?”
“Yes.”
“Like a wolf’s paw prin?”
“Yes,” he said with no small amount of annoyance.
“You got a tattoo of a paw print on your hip to make Toby think you’re with the Alphas?”
“All members of the Alpha Pack have one there.”
Kind of a less-than-masculine place to put a tattoo, in my opinion. “So why doesn’t everyone who wants to pass as a member get one?”
Liam quirked a lip at me, which was so reminiscent of his brother my heart clenched. “I’ll give you two guesses, but you’ll only need one.”
Of course. It was the Alpha Pack. What was I thinking?
“Let’s see, could it be…” I paused for dramatic flair. “Death to all who fake a paw print tattoo?”
That earned me a full-on smile. “Exactly.”
“So, why risk it? Aren’t you afraid of being severely punished for your ink?”
The smile disappeared. “I’m a dead man walking as it is. A tattoo isn’t going to change that.”
We were quiet for a long time. There wasn’t really anything to say. As far as the Alpha Pack was concerned, we were both living on borrowed time. I thought of Jase, Talley, Charlie, and the others who were putting their lives on the line as well. Was it worth it? If this had all just been for me, then no. But it wasn’t about me. It never was, even though I had been too self-centered to realize it for far too long. Liam was right. I was just a pawn.
“Your grand plan,” I said. “I’m the bait, aren’t I?”
Liam looked at me, like really looked at me. The kind of “looked at me” which makes you feel like a bug under a microscope. “Not bait,” he said. “You’re the secret weapon.”
Chapter 11
Jase was no longer on the couch when I went back into the house. Instead, he was on the air mattress, his front to Talley's back. His arm was draped over her waist, and his fingers were once again entwined with hers.
Good grief, could they not go five whole seconds without holding hands? I mean, for the love of all things shiny, they were asleep.
“Everything okay?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at Jase’s voice. The heel of my hand pressed my chest to keep my heart from pounding through my ribcage.
“Fine. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah, me either.” He slowly worked his way into a sitting position. The process involved carefully unlacing his fingers from Talley’s and then reclaiming her hand once he was in position.
“Seriously, Jase, I don’t think she’s going to wander off.” His eyebrows knitted together, and I gestured to the hands-which-nothing-can-asunder.
“She’s been having nightmares,” he said as he brushed a piece of hair off her shoulder. It was really sweet, but I still felt like I wandered into some sort of alternate reality. Maybe in this world Sarvarna was a good guy and asparagus tasted better than ice cream. “She doesn’t have as many if she can See me, and this way I can wake her up when they start.”
“Isn’t this a bit much?” I asked. “I mean, weren’t you the guy having a hissy fit over the fear of Talley getting into your head just a month or two ago?”
Jase looked down at a sleeping Talley, a truly goofy smile on his face. “I was a coward.”
“You’re creeping me out.”
When he looked back up, his face was serious. It’s not like I’d never seen him serious before. It’s not his default frame of mind, but it’s happened. It’s just that usually his seriousness came with a large helping of righteous indignation. Not so much this time. This time, he looked more exhausted than angry. “You think I’m going to hurt her.”
“I know you are.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but it was the truth. And my new policy was a
ll truth, all the time.
“You used to have more faith in me than this. What happened?”
“You lied to me. You were a Shifter, and you never told me.” And really, this was the crux of our problems. Everything that had gone wrong between us over the past year came back to this single point.
“That isn’t lying. I never said, ‘Hey, Scout, I’m not a Shifter.’”
I sank onto his abandoned spot on the couch. “But you didn’t tell me you were. You didn’t trust me then, so I can’t trust you now. Not after everything.”
Jase clenched his jaw, preparing for an argument. I lay back on the pillows, suddenly too exhausted to keep my head up.
“It was an act. An act, Scout. I would have never done that to you, and I’m still more than a little pissed you think I would.”
He didn’t sound pissed. He sounded sad, and I couldn’t handle it.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“We haven’t talked about it yet!”
I threw an arm over my eyes. God, I really was tired. After a few minutes of silence I felt my muscles relaxing as my mind started to drift…
“You’re not fooling me.”
I made a conscious effort to keep my breaths slow and deep.
“Scout, we need to talk about this. Now. Talley and I have to go back to Lexington tomorrow, and I don’t know when we’ll see each other again. I’m not leaving it like this.”
“You know,” I said, still refusing to open my eyes, “if you would have asked, I would have said yes.”
“Asked what?”
“To go along with Liam’s plan.” I couldn’t decide if I was hurt or angry. Probably both. It seems that true anger is rooted in pain. “I would have gone along with it. Heck, if it would have helped, I would have turned myself into the Alphas. The truth of the matter is you didn’t trust me, yet again.” I finally opened my eyes. “How can you blame me for not trusting you when you obviously have never trusted me.”
Jase’s jaw tightened again, but before he could say anything, Talley stirred beside him. “Shhhhh…” she muttered, still about ninety percent asleep. “It’s okay. Shhh…” Jase once again brushed her hair back from her face and then leaned down to kiss her temple. Something passed between them, I could see it on his face, and I was forced to re-evaluate my entire stance on this new relationship. Because what I saw in that moment wasn’t the popular jock who changed girlfriends with the same frequency as a Hollywood heartthrob. Actually, I wasn’t completely sure who he was anymore, and maybe that was the problem. Maybe I never actually knew him.
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