Fate Succumbs

by Tammy Blackwell

  “His spinal cord is messed up,” Jase answered. “The bullet wound was bad, but it was never the real danger. One of those assholes broke his back.”

  “Is he paralyzed?” On the phone he said something about walking again. In the information bombardment that occurred afterwards I hadn’t thought to ask about it.

  Liam, obviously bored with this conversation, went back to preparing breakfast.

  I plopped down in the chair beside Jase. I felt a teensy bit embarrassed over my outburst with Liam, especially after our heart-to-heart the night before, but there was only so much space in my body for emotions to go, and most of that space was reserved for Charlie-related concerns at the moment.

  “He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have risked himself like that.”

  Liam sat a plate in front of me. “He made a choice, knowing the risks. All of us have. We think it’s worth it. The question is, do you?”

  Was it? Was overthrowing the Alphas worth putting our lives on the line?

  If it was a faceless horde we would be liberating, I would have said no. But it wasn’t an anonymous population on the line. This revolution or coup or whatever had Talley’s fearful tear-stained face from when she thought she would have to go back to the Matthews Pack because of the way the Alphas encourage Shifters to treat Seers like property. It had the face of Nicole, who died just because she would one day Change. It had the faces of Alex and Liam’s parents, and Alex and Liam, who had to suffer so much loss simply so a select few could hold on to their positions of power.

  “I do,” I said. “I’m in. All the way.”

  ***

  I tried to be good throughout breakfast. Really, truly I did, but Liam seemed intent on pushing my buttons.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Jase said, squirting ketchup on his eggs because he’s weird like that. “Scout really doesn’t submit to you.”

  Liam reached across the table and stabbed a stack of pancakes with his fork. “Took you this long to figure that out?”

  “Isn’t this whole idea of submission really archaic?”

  “No,” three voices answered me in unison. “Every Pack needs a Pack Leader,” Talley added on to the end of hers.

  A little light bulb, like maybe the size of a Christmas light, went off over my head. “That’s because we’re not a Pack.” Oh yes. This was making sense. “We’re like two lone wolves peacefully coexisting with one another.”

  Liam nodded in agreement. “We’re both perfectly accepting of the fact that we’re equally Dominant, so there’s no reason to force the issue.”

  “Except, you know, we’re not really equally Dominant.” I snagged my glass of milk, frowning at its pale blue tint. “What we both equally accept is that he’s Super-Shifter, and I can’t be bothered to care.”

  “I was wrong,” Liam said for perhaps the first time in his life. “We apparently don’t agree on anything.”

  I looked at him over the top of my glass. “Seriously? You do realize you can Shift any time you darn well please and I can barely push myself through it under a full moon, right?”

  “Only because you’re not trying hard enough.”

  “Good grief, not this again.”

  “Well, if you would just put some effort--”

  “I am putting effort--”

  “I’m new. It hurts. I can’t do it. Don’t make me try.” Liam’s voice went beyond mocking and into antagonistic. I didn’t realize just how much he pissed me off until the glass in my hand shattered. I jumped back, but my jeans, the only pair I had, were covered in milk.

  “I’m blaming you for this,” I said between my teeth.

  Jase looked at Talley. “They need to spar.”

  “They definitely need to spar,” she agreed.

  ***

  Someone may put our first fight down in the annals of Shifter history someday, but hopefully they’ll leave out the part where I slipped on a patch of grass covered in chicken poop and Talley almost went into an asthma attack because of a stray long-haired cat who didn’t have brains enough to be scared of a bunch of Shifters.

  “Liam hasn’t had much training, so he fights street.” Jase stood behind me, rubbing my shoulders as if I was Rocky Balboa. I was only half listening to him. My body was buzzing with anticipation. I started taking martial arts when I was a kid, and it’s one of the few activities I’ve kept up with over the years. There is something both relaxing and empowering about having the control over your body it takes to execute a perfect move. I hadn’t realized it before, but now that it was happening, I needed this. Not to prove which of us was stronger, but just the simple act of fighting. It could have been Jase or anyone else standing in front of me and I would have still felt the same.

  Maybe.

  “Don’t expect him to follow the same rules we’re used to,” Jase continued. “And remember, this isn’t a real Challenge, so if your wolf instincts start to take over, back off.”

  “Yep. Got it.” Whatever it was he said. I just needed him to get out of the way so I could go.

  “I’ll try not to hurt you,” Liam called to me from across the patch of grass we had chosen as our arena.

  I flexed my fingers. “Same here.”

  Jase stepped back.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  Liam stuck out his hand, palm up, and then flicked his fingers a la Neo from The Matrix.

  “Oh, please,” I said. “That is so cliché. Do you really--” And then he was right in front of me, his way-too-freaking-huge fist barreling towards my face so fast I really didn’t have time to dwell on how he got there.

  In a move that was both an attempt to show off and an effort to get some space between the two of us, I dove forward, tucking my body in for a summersault once I hit the ground. When I bounced back onto my feet I was at the other side of the grassy area, and he was already coming back at me.

  He punched. I blocked. He kicked. I blocked. Punch, punch, punch. Block, block, block. Then, just when I was expecting a kick, his arms clasped around me, pinning my elbows to my side, and he tossed me. I’m pretty sure his plan involved me being on the ground with him towering above, but it didn’t work out quite that way. I hooked my foot behind his ankle as I went, which caused us both to tumble.

  I could feel the shift as I rolled; my senses got sharper as my mind was overtaken. The human part of me remembered Jase’s advice to pull back, but I couldn’t. Wolf Scout was already in control, and, if the snarls were anything to go by, Liam wasn’t thinking with his human half either.

  We rolled on the ground like animals. After over a decade of martial arts training, I knew at least a dozen different moves I could execute from the ground, but I didn’t use any of them. Instead, teeth and fingernails came into play. I could smell Liam’s blood on the air as well as my own.

  I wasn’t aware of the screaming until someone ripped me off Liam. I tried to lash out at the arms around me, but that’s when Talley’s shouts of “Stop!” and Jase’s assurances of “I’ve got you” started clicking in my brain.

  “It’s okay, Scout. I’ve got you,” Jase cooed into my ear. “I’ve got you.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, pushing myself back and only accomplishing landing on my butt.

  Jase looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was. “You were crying.”

  Crying…?

  “I was laughing, you idiot.” I caught sight of Liam behind Jase. He was grinning like he just found out he was getting an extra Christmas this year. “We were having fun.”

  “Fun? You’ve got blood gushing from your lip!”

  “And you broke something when you hit the tree,” Talley said. “I heard it.”

  “The only thing broken is the tree, and it shouldn’t have gotten in my way.” I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe off my mouth. “New demand,” I called over Jase’s shoulder. “We’re going to start doing this on a regular basis, or I walk, deal?”

  Liam’s smile was blood-tinted. “Deal.�
��

  Chapter 13

  Less than twenty-four hours after trying to kill my brother, I found myself fighting back tears as I told him goodbye.

  “Do you still consider me your Pack Leader?” We were alone in the bedroom, the television blaring to cover our voices.

  “As long as I live,” he said without a hint of irony.

  “Good. Then consider this an order. Do what you can to aide Liam’s rebellion, but when it comes down to it, your loyalty is to our family. Protect them and yourself, even if it means turning your back on everything else.” I didn’t have to explain how I was including Charlie and Talley in my definition of “family”. Jase knew.

  He ducked his head and offered his throat in the Shifter’s sign of submission. “Understood.”

  I wasn’t sure how Shifter custom dictated I respond - amazingly, Liam hadn’t covered that aspect of our world yet - but after a few seconds of Jase standing in such an awkward pose I had to do something, so I grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

  “I’m lost without you,” I muttered into his shoulder.

  “I don’t care what our blood says,” he responded. “You’re my sister. My twin. My other half.” My rib cage threatened to collapse from the pressure his arms. “I would die without you, so please stay the hell alive.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He released his hold enough that he could pull back and see my face. “Pinkie promise?”

  My eyes pricked, but I blinked the tears back. “Pinkie promise,” I said, as my little finger slipped around his.

  ***

  Like most families, our vacations always included cars and planes, although we once rode a train to New Orleans. Traveling via Greyhound was new to me, but I've traveled on charter buses for long school trips, and the bus Liam and I boarded in Lexington three hours later was much the same. The floor was a little stickier, the seats a bit more worn and stained, and the smell just a hair on the wrong side of pleasant, but if you’ve seen one big bus, you’ve seen them all: High-back seats covered with loud, patterned fabric were arranged in two rows of two. Long, tinted windows stretched the entire length. A small closet-type thing occupied the back corner and was the source of the odor.

  Liam led me straight to the back and motioned for me to take the window seat. There were plenty of empty seats available, but he parked himself in the one beside me. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking picking the seats closest to the bathroom when we both had super-smelling abilities, but then I noticed how the other passengers would get near the back, notice the smell, and then head closer to the front.

  As we pulled out of the city and onto the Interstate, neither of us spoke. We were both perfectly happy being lost in our own head space. I would have also enjoyed being lost in my own physical space, but even though Liam in no way spilled over onto my seat, his size and power made me feel dwarfed as I pressed as tightly to the window as possible.

  We were already leaving Cincinnati, the first of a million stops, when Liam asked, “What are you thinking about?”

  My eyebrows shot up. Liam was starting a conversation? One that wasn’t a lecture? And he was doing so by expressing interest in what I was thinking?

  Since I was sitting down with a seat back behind me, knocking me over with a feather would have been impossible, but you could’ve stabbed me with the pointy end without me noticing.

  “I was actually thinking about you,” I answered honestly. When Liam pulled back a smidgen, his eyes full of unease, I rushed to clarify. “I was thinking about your ultimate betrayal.”

  “My ultimate betrayal?” His shoulders slumped. “Listen, Scout, I--”

  “I mean, Canadian, Liam? You’re a freaking Canadian? How am I supposed to deal with that?” I had to work at not breaking into a grin at his startled response. “Do you secretly listen to Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne? Do you douse all your food with maple syrup when I’m not looking? Do you have a poster of Alex Trebeck stowed away in your overnight bag?”

  Liam smiled, one of his real folded-cheeks smiles, and I fastidiously ignored what the sight did to me. “You are impossible.”

  “Although, this could work to my advantage,” I mused. “Do you happen to know Ryan Reynolds? Because it would be kind of cool to meet him. And talk to him. And maybe touch him…”

  “Yes. Of course I do. You know, all Canadians know each other. I’ve got Estella Warren on speed dial.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Americans,” Liam sighed dramatically.

  “And Bryce? Really?”

  That wasn’t met with even a hint of humor. “Bryce is dead.”

  “I’m just trying to imagine the person he was,” I railroaded on. “Bryce. Bryyyyyyce. That’s the name of a Mustang-driving, cheerleader-dating, popular quarterback if I’ve ever heard one.”

  At first I thought he wasn’t going to relent, that I had gone too far with bringing up his past, but then he said, “Americans are quarterbacks. Bryce played center.”

  “Basketball?” That I could understand. We Kentuckians are all about some hoops, and my family is particularly enamored since Jase is pretty much a basketball rock star.

  “Ice hockey. It’s Canada, remember? Try to keep up.”

  I leaned into his personal space, putting my face mere inches from his.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking at your teeth,” I said. “You have all of them. I don’t buy this hockey story.”

  He flashed his teeth, something between smiling and baring them, and I saw my assessment was right. They were all there.

  “This one, this one, and this one,” he said, pointing at three different teeth, “have all been broken.”

  “Ah-ha. The old Shifter thing worked to your dental advantage.”

  “Yeah. Thank God I didn’t knock any out, or they would still be gone.”

  I thought about that. “Because the Change repairs damage but can’t regrow something that’s gone?”

  “Exactly. Matter can’t be created or destroyed, only changed. Or Changed. Or something like that.”

  We sat there for a bit, me watching the world whip by while Liam tried to derive meaning from the stains on the upholstery.

  “So,” I said, once my curiosity could no longer be contained, “I need you to say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “It.” I nodded my head slowly, giving him a come-on-you-know-what-I’m-talking-about look. “You might as well get it over with.”

  “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Say it, Liam. Say ‘out and about’.”

  His laughter was so abrupt and loud many people turned their heads in our direction.

  He never did say it, but it was okay. I made him laugh, and not by ineptitude. It was a small victory, but it felt more like winning the war.

  ***

  We had to change buses in Columbus. There was enough time to grab something to eat before we hit the road again, so we found a little run-down place selling barbecue and filled our bellies. Liam is a pie man, and since I honestly can’t think of anything to say against them, we ended up splitting a homemade coconut cream pie that tasted like it was made by a blue-haired granny who loved butter like a grandchild. We didn’t chat the entire way through the meal the way I would have if it had been Talley, Jase, or Charlie keeping me company, but it wasn’t the absolute silence of meals past either. We remarked on our food and fellow diners. Liam asked why Western Kentucky barbecue was so superior, and I explained something about dry rubs, smoking processes, and sauces that may or may not have been one hundred percent true. It was, for lack of a better word, nice.

  There was a three hour ride until our next stop, and during that time I drifted off to sleep. I was somewhat surprised to find myself back on a familiar stretch of beach.

  “Alex Cole,” I said, making my way to where he lounged on his favorite rock. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes, well, it seems I’m not quite as truste
d as I once was.” Nicole scampered up behind him. “My comings and goings are more guarded these days, and all extraneous visits are nipped in the bud.”

  I sat down beside him and greeted Nicole with a scratch behind her ears. “So what you’re saying is you need something and that’s the only reason you’re here?”

  Alex lifted a shoulder. “Apparently, not that anyone will tell me what that might be.” He directed his last words to the clouds.

  “Are you talking to God or the angels?”

  He turned, dropping one leg to the ground to brace his weight. I readjusted ever so slightly so we would be face-to-face. “You know I can’t answer that, right?”

  “I know,” I said. “But you know I can’t keep myself from asking.”

  His dimples showed. “I know.”

  Nicole, not liking her place in our new seating arrangement, got up and moved around until she could drape herself over both our legs. I stroked a hand through her multi-toned fur, marveling at the softness. She was even fluffier than I remembered Alex being, probably because she was still a puppy.

  “Her coloring is almost exactly like yours,” I said to Alex. “I really should have figured out she was your sister sooner.”

  Alex’s eyes flew wide. I didn’t realize he was holding a breath until it came rushing out in something between a sigh and laugh. “And that, I assume, is why I’m here.”

  I continued stroking Nicole’s fur. “Liam and I talked.”

  “About…?”

  “Everything.” I was still coming to terms with it all. I thought my story was a sad one, but Liam and Alex experienced more tragedy in a few short years than most people are forced to endure over their entire lives. Then there was the whole anti-Alpha movement, and the fact they wanted me to be their champion or sacrifice, depending on how you looked at it. “It was a long talk,” I said.

  “So, to clarify, you know about…?”

  “Nicole. Your parents. The role the Alpha Pack played in their deaths.” Nicole whimpered. “I know about Liam’s Army and what they expect of me.”

  Alex soothed his sister with a kiss on the forehead. “Liam’s Army?” he asked as he continued to nuzzle her. The sight reminded me of the way Wolf Scout and Wolf Liam comforted one another.