Fate Fixed

by Bonnie Erina Wheeler

  “Patrol –” Lexie’s forehead creased. “What do you mean?”

  El a gave her a straight look. “Patrol, they go out every night after dark. Nick said when I’m older, I’l be going with him and Maxim wil take you.” El a folded her blanket and

  straightened the couch cushions. “You could be out there now if you would try a little harder to fit into this family...Mom too if she felt better.”

  Lexie felt goose bumps spread across her arms. She had no clue what they were doing out there, but she wanted no part of it. She certainly didn’t want El a or her mother out there either. What kind of thing could running patrol be?

  Were they playing war games in the woods? Maybe

  Dragos was the leader of some kind of militia or cult. Her mind raced as waves of panic spread through her. Do they have real weapons? Someone can get hurt.

  Lexie fol owed her sister up to bed. At the top of the stairs, she paused to listen for sounds coming from her mother’s room, but Ruby was silent. If the guys were out in the woods at this time of night, she didn’t think they were trying to earn any Eagle Scout badges. She stepped into her room and closed the

  door behind her. She needed space away from them and

  the insanity they brought to her life.

  Her stomach turned as her fingers ran along the smooth door frame. The sliding lock she had instal ed on her door was gone, leaving behind little holes in the molding where the screws once were. As tears pooled in her eyes, she crept across the floor and slid under her covers to weep in silence.

  TORIN

  In the pitch black darkness, Torin scaled the side of the house with ease and perched on Lexie’s balcony. From the moment he had awaken minutes before, he was fueled by a compulsion to see her and make sure she was okay. The dream was as lucid and vicious as always. He stil felt the influence it had over him – pul ing him to her.

  With a hurried scan of the house, Torin was able to hear her steady heartbeat with his sensitive hearing. As he looked through the window at her stil form, he longed to join her as she slept on the top of her covers. While he remained cool and comfortable, the heat must have been intolerable with her delicate skin. He touched the pane with his fingertips and pressed his forehead against the glass. Just her

  proximity soothed him.

  TORIN

  He could hear a cacophony of activity in the downstairs of the house. Pressing himself into the corner where the roof overhung, he remained stationary as the backdoor

  slammed open and Lexie’s two brothers emerged with a

  beefy older man leading the way. The three were shirtless as they ran at breakneck speeds up the trail into the woods.

  Torin’s nostrils flared, struck with the unusual odor they emitted. It wasn’t at al like most humans, but wasn’t like the larger animal smel s that blanketed the woods. It left a distasteful coating swirling over his tongue. His incisors burned in his gums at the thought of giving chase and

  hunting them down so he could tear into their thick hot flesh.

  He turned his head back to where Lexie slept unaware of his presence. Shame rippled through him as he looked at her.

  Despite what he thought of her stepfamily, he would never hurt them because he could never hurt her. He hated

  himself for even considering feeding in the first place. He knew it was an instinctive response. They weren’t animals, they were humans.

  He would lose Lexie if he did and she was his everything.

  He must always keep a tight hold on himself.

  He was thankful they were stil dreaming of each other.

  After her arrival in Erris and their subsequent meeting, he was uncertain if they would stil connect like that. Although the

  horrific endings stil troubled him, he was thankful for their moments of magic together.

  How else could it be described other than that? The ancient curse that afflicted his ancestors wasn’t based on science and biology, and neither was the connection his coven had with their partners. Indeed he had a physiological response to her, but there was much more to it than that.

  Before Lexie, he had planned on leaving. He didn’t want to be around his family when he went through the change. He wanted to spare them from the heartache and

  disappointment he would give them if he was cursed to

  darkness from feeding on a human. Now that he found

  Lexie, the thought of leaving was farthest from his mind. He wanted to be with her as much as he wanted to live in the light.

  When he was young and learned how he would dream of

  his fate-partner, he thought he had no say in his destiny and neither would his partner, but now he knew better. He could choose a life outside of hers, but never would.

  Why the dream’s ending? In the past, she would scream

  and he would awake, but this time, she was dying at his feet and he was powerless to help her. He couldn’t see what it was that was attacking Lexie – only feel paralyzed to help her. Could he be the one that was hurting her? Was the danger his presence in

  TORIN

  her life? As much as the possibility existed he couldn’t believe that he could harm her. It would be too painful.

  Could the others in his family? Could Braden give in to the temptation to feed on her blood even after withstanding the temptation he experienced when his own second heart began beating and the lust for blood was at its strongest?

  Torin shook his head. It wasn’t possible. His thoughts grasped elsewhere.

  What about Teagan or Cian, his cousins? Were they going to change soon and take her from him? He clenched his

  jaw just considering the scenario. If he had to hurt one of them to protect her he would. Maybe the endings meant

  she didn’t want him or what he was in her life. It would torture him inside if she demanded that he leave. But if she didn’t want him to be a part of her life, he would try to find a way to exist without interfering and making her unhappy.

  Torin’s hearing picked up the sound of a woman’s sobbing coming from behind the wal s of Lexie’s room just moments before she did. He sat stil as he watched her tiptoe across her room and slip through her door into the unlit hal way.

  He leaned against the side of the house and closed his eyes, imagining her gentle expression while she asked her mother if she was feeling okay. Although the woman

  dismissed her, Torin could hear Lexie pausing as she

  decided what she should do. He

  found her compassion endearing. Her mother was

  obviously very important to her.

  He wondered what happened to her biological father and if he was stil a part of her life. He knew from Braden’s experience that growing up without your father around was difficult. Torin knew he was fortunate to have his father as a central part of his life. Although Endel ion inspired him to be creative and to care for the ones he loved, Donovan taught him how to be a man.

  As he listened in, he heard Lexie’s gentle footfal s as she descended the stairs. He smiled at the thought of her

  softness.

  She was everything he wasn’t.

  Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, Torin heard a swift movement from the downstairs as a younger boy

  emerged from the house. With the same light blonde hair as his brothers, he must have only been fifteen or sixteen years old. Like the other three males, he was heavily

  muscled for his age and had the same intense smel . Dead fish?

  Torin observed the younger male walk towards the

  perimeter of the woods. After removing his shirt, he tipped his head back and sniffed the air. Torin wondered what aroma had the younger Serov intrigued. As soon as the

  idea crossed his mind, the boy turned and stared straight at him.

  TORIN

  Alarmed, Torin could feel his own powerful senses kick in.

  Reacting to instincts, his muscles flexed and he crouched in anticipation of attack. In the darkness, Torin could see
the teens penetrating steel gray eyes as he remained stil

  without moving.

  Torin knew that a normal human would not have been able to locate him with just a sense of smel , nor be able to see clearly in the darkness the way he and the elders could.

  With al of his strength, Torin pushed off the side of the house and glided into the tree line. With growing speed, he put distance between himself and Lexie’s home. He didn’t want to trigger a confrontation with the boy by sticking around and holding his ground unless he had to.

  Torin knew that there was something going on with the

  males in that family and he wondered if Lexie knew just what that was. One thing was for sure, he needed to warn his family there were humans roaming the woods at night.

  Lexie stumbled through her first few classes after a tense drive in with Maxim behind the wheel. He was snappish and Alik was withdrawn. The three of them seemed fixed in the same dysfunctional routine each morning.

  Her sleep the night before had been fitful once she settled down enough to drift off. She had no clue what happened to her lock, but noticed the one in the bathroom was missing also. With her mother’s peculiar behavior, it was possible Ruby removed them. Lexie noticed her laptop no longer

  had internet service either. It seemed al of her privileges were disappearing one at a time without prior notification or cause.

  As she sat in study hal , she tried to focus on her calculus problems while listening to her new friends joke back and forth about Officer Barry. The work in front of her was a blur.

  Her

  mind kept wandering to Torin. Alik had said that Torin was responsible for someone’s death, but the same could be said for her. If everyone in Erris learned that she had been driving the car when her dad got kil ed, would they snub her? She wasn’t sure if it was the same kind of situation with Torin, but after giving it a great deal of thought, she decided to learn the truth before making rash judgments.

  She wished she could talk to Liz, but with her phone taken away and no internet, she would have to settle with snail mail.

  As she glanced around the room, she noted the easy

  camaraderie her peers shared with one another. A sudden wave of homesickness fil ed her. She yearned for her old school and Liz. She missed her life and the way it was before her mom married Dragos and everything changed.

  Mainly, she missed her Dad and the way he was so gentle and kind.

  For the first time in her life, she felt like she didn’t have a place in her family. Her mother and sister seemed further away than ever. Hot tears trickled down her cheeks – she never thought she could be surrounded by people but feel so alone.

  Discretely as possible, Lexie excused herself from the library in order to get ahold of misery. She didn’t want to come across as a basket case. She was usual y strong and carefree but the last week had been a rol ercoaster of emotions. Leaving

  home and making a place among her new stepfamily was

  difficult. The only positive thing going for her was meeting her new friends and finding Torin. Just thinking of him helped her smile a little.

  At the end of the corridor, she slipped into the girl’s bathroom so she could freshen up. As she rounded the

  corner by the row of sinks, Lexie spotted someone sitting on the floor with her head down. The platinum hair was unmistakable.

  Lexie considered slipping back out until she heard

  Courtney’s whimpering snivel. As much as Lexie couldn’t stand the sarcasm that emanated from the girl, Alik’s friend looked like a complete disaster. She froze, not sure if Courtney would want comforting.

  With reluctance, she stepped further into the damp room that smel ed like nicotine and generic toilet bowl cleanser.

  Courtney’s head darted up, and Lexie could see that she wasn’t the only one whose makeup ran. Her face was red and blotchy, mascara smeared across both eyes.

  “Wel , isn’t this perfect,” Courtney mumbled. With a wad of toilet paper, she blotted her eyes. “I suppose you are going to run and tel that bitch Theo and your little Bible thumper friend Brooke that you found me in here crying like this…”

  “No –” Lexie went to the sink and checked her own facial situation. Good thing for waterproof makeup. After a pause, “Is everything okay? Do you need me to get anyone for

  you?”

  “Other than your brother so you I can kick him in his junk?”

  she whined through hiccups. “When we are around

  everyone, he acts cool and aloof, but when I get him alone – he has his paws al over me. Tel ing me how much he wants me...”

  She ran the back of her hand across her snotty nose.

  Lexie surmised she was talking about Maxim, although cool and aloof weren’t two adjectives she would use to describe him – maybe social y awkward and intimidating as hel .

  “So, I final y gave him what he wanted – snuck him into the music room where the band keeps their instruments. I

  thought it would be romantic, you know?”

  Romantic is one word for it. Trashy is another. Lexie chastised herself, a part of her felt sorry for Courtney’s naive play for attention.

  “Wel , he wasn’t romantic at al , he was rough and when he was done doing his thing, the bastard spit on me.” Courtney picked herself up off the floor. “I’ve been texting him al day and he’s ignoring me.”

  She eyed Lexie speculatively. “What is it about you?

  Everyone around here talks about you like you’re God’s gift to

  Erris. Even your brothers have a walking boner for you…

  and now Torin does too.”

  Courtney’s words stung. Lexie fixed her hands on her hips and gave the girl a level stare. “I’m sorry Maxim treated you like that – he was a total loser. Maybe next time you won’t rush into anything with some guy you don’t even know.”

  Anger made the tone of her voice climb. “Another thing, I like Torin and as far as I heard, the two of you were never a thing so don’t take your disappointment out on me.”

  Courtney glared back at her in disgust. “Try Alik smart one.”

  “Whatever,” Lexie turned her back. She wasn’t going to waste any more time with these head games. “I doubt he would even touch, but if he did, I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you. I suggest you get over yourself.” She heaved the heavy door open and escaped into the hal way just as the bel rang. As it swung closed, she could hear Courtney’s piercing scream.

  The rest of the school day blew by without another

  confrontation. Theo and Julie invited Lexie to hang out, but she made up an excuse that she promised El a she would help her fix up her room after school. She wanted time to herself so she could write Liz and get some rest.

  The afternoon was pleasantly cooler than it had been the days before, with the heat wave final y breaking. The

  balcony

  outside of her room’s window was the perfect haven for chil ing after a long day. After stacking her throw pil ows into a little makeshift bed, she put in her ear buds and found her favorite playlist to zone out with.

  Enjoying the warmth that spread over her legs and arms, Lexie let the sunbathe her skin. She couldn’t understand why she al owed people like Courtney to have the power to irritate her. The chick needed some serious help.

  Of al members of her step family to make accusations

  about, Alik was the one person she trusted in. She even enjoyed the time they had to talk each evening when the two of them cleaned up the kitchen after the others left the table. Despite his clingy behavior when they were out with friends, she found him funny and quirky.

  For Courtney to suggest that he would hurt her in any way was upsetting. He was the nice brother. Now if it were Maxim, she wouldn’t be as shocked because he didn’t

  seem to like Courtney much either, but that was just the way he was. He didn’t like anyone.

  From her vantage spot, she observed Alik heading up the trail behind the h
ouse, the one from her dream. She knew if she hustled, she could catch up with him before he made it too far.

  Other than after dinner, the two of them never had much time

  alone to talk. When he was around the others, he was quiet and distant . He should know what that sleaze is saying.

  She pul ed on her blue Chuck Taylor’s and headed out of the house. She hadn’t explored much of the trail since she discovered it in the backyard, but it felt familiar under her feet.

  The smel of the foliage and pine needles on the path were al the same. As she headed into the deep cedars, she

  passed the old stonewal she had spotted days before.

  Further in the trail sloped up and the large rock from her dream sat ahead where the bend in the trail always was.

  She couldn’t resist the temptation to run like she did in her dreams. The image of Torin waiting for her prompted her to pick up speed. As she flew around the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks.

  dead in her tracks.

  The area where Torin always awaited her was different.

  She recognized the sweeping branches and the

  underbrush, but the shady clearing held a smal metal shed, only large enough to stand in. Her heart worked to slow down from running and she just stood looking at the

  misplaced structure in awe. It only made sense that it wouldn’t be exactly like her dream, but she was confused. A dawning realization occurred to her that if the dream were exactly true, more than Torin would be waiting for her, death would be too.

  As if in slow motion, she walked to the shed and pressed against the hot door.

  The door swung open and her stepfather stared down at

  her. “What are you doing here?” His tone was clipped as he gave her a hard look. Blocking her view of the interior, his outsized body fil ed the doorway, as he ducked his head to exit.

  “I was looking for Alik. I thought I saw him enter the forest from my window.” Her cheeks inflamed, she felt guilty but wasn’t quite sure why.