I’d intended to make up for what I’d done and now I had to leave a girl behind who was going to wake up all alone and still imprisoned. But others had died under Haldo’s hand. I’d never be able to make up for them either.
I nodded, my stomach roiling again. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go. I know a place.”
The safehouse was just a condemned old brick building on the fringes of town. It was the kind of place that would already have been riddled with squatters and teenage runaways like me, if it was in a bigger city and not a cute looking small town that didn’t at first appear to have an underbelly. But there was at least a magical underbelly. Or there was now.
The building ran cold but I found the cleanest warmest room in the place and we settled in there. I’d rolled up a couple blankets and attached them to my backpack and now I gave them out to the girls who had to huddle three to a blanket, and others were just out of luck but they didn’t complain. I had food too and I gave them everything I had. When I was done, I sat down on the ground next to Daisy and we shared a candybar.
“They all have places to go,” Daisy said gently, once she’d eaten. She sat back against the wall and blinked at me with tired eyes. “These girls? They all came from families or packs or prides. They can just go home. They’ll have people on the lookout for Haldo now. They’ll be okay.”
Except for Lara, I thought. Lara wouldn’t be okay. And now I finally heard what she’d said. “What about you?” I said softly. “Where will you go?”
Daisy’s mouth twitched and she just shrugged. She had dark brown hair that was thick and frizzy with little curls. She’d always complained about how it was “too big” but I’d always loved the way it fell around her head like a big, soft halo and now one tiny curl fell over her eye as she looked up at me with giant blue eyes.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Come with me,” I said simply. Immediately I felt like an idiot. “Sorry. Um… Fuck, of course not. Why would you? After what I did.” I couldn’t look at her suddenly. I held my hand over my eyes. After everything I’d done…
“Miguel,” Daisy whispered. She drew my hand down. “I know how bad you feel. I see it in your eyes. But I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have done something like that to get by. And you stopped it. You saved us. You made it stop.”
“Then come with me,” I said again. Daisy smiled softly and nodded.
We were together for just a couple of weeks before things intensified between us. The other girls found their people. Daisy and I remained at the safehouse until they were all accounted for. We were practically afraid to move, worried that Haldo would come looking for us, but every day that passed when he didn’t, we breathed a sigh of relief. When it was just down to the two of us, we left town.
For a while, it was just like the life I’d always fantasized about with Daisy. We ran and ran with no plan and it didn’t matter because we were together. Some days I was careful with the bit of money I’d saved up and other days I splurged a little, wanting to impress my girl who wasn’t really my girl. It was funny. I could be confident and cool with any girl other than Daisy. I suppose that was because she was my best friend.
One night in yet another town all the way out in Wisconsin, I took her to a decent sit-down restaurant and felt very fancy buying her a shrimp and steak dinner. I was a king and she was my queen. I could even pretend she was my mate. Afterward, we drank liquor from bottles in paper bags and sat on a stone bridge overlooking the river. I’d lost track of how far we’d traveled in a few days. There never seemed to be a reason to stop.
Daisy was leaning heavily against me and I wrapped my arm around her, ostensibly to warm her up. But I really just wanted to hold her.
“The first time I met you, I knew I’d know you my whole life,” Daisy whispered.
Most of the time we didn’t talk about “real” things like feelings and what we’d been through. We already knew that stuff about each other. Talking about it seemed excessive. We talked about movies and TV shows we watched when we happened to treat ourselves to a cheap motel room. We talked about books we’d both read and how strange humans were. I talked about how much I missed playing hockey. I kept meaning to buy myself a new pair of skates. My father had thrown away the last pair I’d had one night in a particularly bad fight a couple weeks before I’d run away. We talked about everything. But now Daisy was talking about us.
“Yeah, but is that a good thing?” I said, grinning at her. But Daisy looked too serious and my heart felt like it was in my throat. When she didn’t answer, my smile collapsed and she chuckled at me.
“You look so cute,” she muttered, before kissing me.
We’d kissed a couple of times before. It had been awkward and sloppy. It was different this time. This time I felt like I was on fire and once we’d kissed, we couldn’t seem to stop.
That night we got a motel room and made love.
But that night I also dreamed of Haldo.
I dreamed he was coming for me. I was the culprit after all. He would surely know I’d let all the girls go. It was dangerous to be with me, and anyway, I didn’t deserve Daisy on any level even if she didn’t know it. Every dark thought I’d ever had seemed to be thundering in my head that night as Daisy slept beside me. The guilt hadn’t gone anywhere. I’d only briefly numbed it by running, but once I stopped, it always caught up with me.
It was about four o’clock in the morning when I left half the cash I had left with Daisy. It was more than enough for a capable shifter like her to work with before she settled down somewhere. She was sleeping peacefully, naked under the sheets. I kissed her forehead softly, before walking out the door, my backpack on my shoulder.
I ran and didn’t look back.
Eventually, I ended up in St. Dominic, where I met Luca.
Chapter Four: Daisy
I felt as if my entire life, I’d been waiting for Miguel to stop running from me. I felt like a total fool. I knew somewhere deep inside me that the way he was reacting was just because of his own fear. But that didn’t help me much. It didn’t mean he would ever come around. I’d waited so long for this moment and it had all collapsed around me. He’d broken my heart again. Of course, he had. How had I expected anything more than that?
I was running blindly through the woods. If I’d been in human form, I would have been weeping. Lions didn’t weep. That was another great thing about being a lion.
I could hear Miguel giving chase behind me and I ran faster. Even if I couldn’t hear him, there was no mistaking his scent. I knew this wasn’t over. This wasn’t close to over. I hadn’t taken the trouble of tracking Miguel down and summed up the courage to talk to him to let it lie like this. Even if he didn’t want to be a part of Andy’s life, he was still Andy’s father. I wouldn’t demand money or anything like that, if only because of my own sense of pride. But he should at least know a little bit about his son. He should have emergency contact information or something. Those business-like details needed to be worked out. I just didn’t want to think about them now.
Eventually, I lost Miguel’s scent and I didn’t hear the distant beat of his run anymore. He could have easily overtaken me but he’d stopped. If my heart could break anymore, it did. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to know… That was all I could think as I circled and made my way back to Middlesmark, to my shabby little apartment where Andy was waiting for me across the hall.
Andy as good as didn’t have a father. That bond I’d always felt with Miguel was real. I knew it was. But that had never been a guarantee of happiness.
By the time I got back to my building, I was human again. That also meant I was crying. Better to be a lion. I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath before knocking on Alyssa’s door. When she answered, her face fell. Andy and Alyssa’s daughter, Katie, appeared to be having “tea” and there was a cartoon playing on a tablet propped up on the coffee table.
“Sweetie!” Alyssa said. She glanced behind her
at the kids before closing the door a little on the two of us so we could talk privately. “What’s the matter?”
I hadn’t told Alyssa about any of this. I’d mentioned before that Andy’s father had run off before I could tell him I was pregnant and that I’d never seen him again. But the rest had just been too anxiety-inducing to talk about.
“You know how I’ve been going to hockey games?” I said quietly, sniffing. “It was because...because Andy’s father plays for The Cougars in St. Dominic.”
Alyssa’s eyebrows shot up and she nodded. “Aah.”
“Yeah. I finally got up the nerve to talk to him, to tell him about Andy.” I glared down at my hands. I’d dug a Kleenex out of my purse and now it was in shreds in my fist. “Didn’t go great.”
“Okay,” Alyssa said, nodding decisively. “I’m going to send the kids to Katie’s room and then we’re gonna talk.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. It was something I’d forgotten the importance of: friendship. I’d had acquaintances here and there as Andy and I had floated around before settling down in Middlesmark. But I hadn’t gotten very close to anyone and that had not been easy. I’d had no one to talk to and I hadn’t even realized how much easier it might have been if I had.
A few minutes later, Alyssa had practically forced me to kick off my shoes and I was sitting back on her worn out but plush couch with a glass of cheap wine in my hand.
I started from the very beginning because Alyssa let me. She didn’t know we were shifters. It was amazing how blind humans were to the population of magical folk living right there among them, but they tended to see what they wanted to see. I just told her Miguel and I were from the same neighborhood and had grown up together. The wizard was harder to explain and I was vague. I told her he’d betrayed me and then ended up rescuing me but I said it was difficult to talk about which wasn’t untrue. When I got up to Miguel’s reaction in the coffee shop, I had to finish my glass of wine.
When I was done, Alyssa thought for a minute, stroking her chin. “He’s scared,” she said simply. “I mean you’re talking about a guy who grew up with an abusive father, he’s probably scared of even being a dad and it’s only just been sprung on him.”
“Oh…” Somehow the angle that Miguel might be afraid of being a father because his own example had been so shitty had never occurred to me. I rubbed my eyes, feeling naive. “That makes a lot of sense.” It really didn’t mean he’d come around and want to be involved in Andy’s life but his reaction in context was pretty logical.
“Listen,” Alyssa said. She sat forward and clasped her hands, looking at me steadily. I had a feeling she was often the friend who gave good advice. I might have lucked out with neighbors, I thought. “He may never come around. Or he might. But it does seem like you two keep finding each other. And you’re both still young. How old are you?”
I blushed a little. I’d always felt a little older than I was. “Twenty-two.”
“You’re still evolving and so is he,” Alyssa said. “I did a lot of dumb shit at twenty-two, personally. But here you are being a responsible mom, taking care of your kid. Maybe he’s not there yet but he might get there. I’d give him another chance.”
I nodded, sniffing. We sat around a little longer, sipping our wine and chatting about nothing. I complained about customers at work. Alyssa was a freelance masseuse and she had a million stories about weird clients. Soon enough I was laughing and feeling much more relaxed. When I finally collected Andy, I thought he wouldn’t be able to tell I’d ever been upset.
“Are you okay, mommy?” He asked, when I picked him up in my arms. I’d hugged him extra tight. I always did that when I was worried or afraid. Or maybe he just knew somehow.”
“I’m okay, baby,” I said, kissing his dark haired head. “Don’t worry about me, Andy cub. You never have to worry about me.” I blew a raspberry into his neck and he laughed and I breathed a sigh of relief. I never wanted Andy to be one of those kids who had anxiety over their parent’s issues. He didn’t deserve anything like that.
That night I made a taco casserole and we ate and played Candyland before bed. I read him his current favorite story, Corduroy, when I tucked him in. He curled up on his side with his hands under his head and like always, it made me chuckle. It was such a posed way of sleeping, as if he’d learned it from a storybook. But for a while, I just remained there on the little cushioned ottoman I sat on when I read him stories, staring at him sleeping.
It was hard not to picture what Miguel would be like reading him stories and tucking him into bed. When we were kids, he used to do funny voices for me. He’d always gotten a kick out of making me laugh even when he was otherwise a little dark and broody. I wondered if he could still be like that. It wasn’t as if I could tell from this terrible day.
I leaned on my hand, watching Andy as he slept. He snored softly and it made me smile.
The question was, would I give Miguel another chance? Alyssa was a good ten years older than me. She didn’t have much more money than I did but she had always seemed responsible and kind of wise and she thought I should give him another chance. If I did, I’d need to seek Miguel out myself. I hadn’t given him any contact information.
I figured I’d give it a couple weeks maybe and then go to a game. I’d linger and if he wanted to talk to me, he could talk to me. I wished now I’d given him my number so I could put the ball in his court, but oh well. I kissed Andy softly on his hair and finally got up to go to bed, feeling a little more settled about things.
Chapter Five: Miguel
If there was ever a chance of screwing up, I was going to find it. That was how I felt in the snowy woods, finally coming to a stop and watching Daisy run off into the darkness.
Let her go, the angry voice in my head said. You’ve done enough.
I wished I could say that when Daisy had told me I had a son, that all that time ago that one night together had produced a child that was half of her and half of me, I’d thought anything other than: Oh no. But I hadn’t. It was bad news to my mind. It wasn’t because I didn’t want a kid or the responsibility or monetary duty of it, or anything like that. I just couldn’t fathom that I could be a good dad. I’d considered it before and it always brought to mind bad memories of my own father who was nothing more than a wanna-be alpha and so insecure and angry about his failings as a shifter in his pride that he took it out on me. It wasn’t as if I’d ever intended to be that kind of dad, but I’d already done some terrible things. Who was to say I wouldn’t be that guy even if I didn’t want to?
That evening, after the disastrous conversation with Daisy, I went out and got drunk. The truth was, I’d been happy to see Daisy at first. In that first moment of recognition, I’d forgotten about what I’d done to those girls and the nightmares about Haldo and all the times I’d failed my first best friend. There was just Daisy standing in front of me; the most beautiful girl in the world who I had missed every day we’d been apart. I’d managed to fuck all that up yet again. If she was smart, she’d stay away from me. At the same time, even given everything, I couldn’t help but want to see her again.
I was a mess.
I brooded all night in my favorite dive and when the guys tried to get a hold of me, I didn’t answer. I’m not great at talking through problems on a good day and I certainly didn’t feel like it now. Instead, I drank whiskey alone in a bar where I kept getting hit on by Cougars fans. I told more than one woman to fuck off which probably wouldn’t do much for my reputation around town as “bad boy” or, on the wrong day, a “dick head.”
That night I stumbled home. My head was full of mournful memories of Daisy when we were young. I’d fantasized plenty of times about her being my mate. I pictured us running away together but my fantasies had always included a better version of me. Because when it comes right down to it, if I were still Daisy’s best friend, I would tell her to avoid me like the plague.
In the morning, I woke up in the clothes I’d worn the day b
efore , but I was mercifully not hung over. It takes a lot of booze to get a shifter hung over, probably more than would ever be enjoyable to drink. I rolled out of bed and dressed in my most worn out jeans and a thermal with a sweatshirt. I stuck a beanie on my head and put on my boots before grabbing my skates and heading outside.
I passed Dylan in the hall and when he asked me where the hell I’d been all night, I only mumbled a vague response. I knew I’d cave eventually and tell the guys what was going on, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. I just wanted to skate and feel ice under my blades, and the chill air on my face. After that I’d shift and go for a run and then I could get on with my day and forget that I’d pushed away the best thing in my life I’d ever known for what felt like the millionth time.
I was skating badly that morning, or rather I was skating like I was pissed off at the ice rather than myself, turning in circle after circle as my blades scraped along making sharp, deep grooves in the frozen pond out back behind the house.
“What’d that ice ever do to you?” Dylan’s
I guess Dylan had not been satisfied with my answer downstairs and he was now standing in the snow, on the edge of the pond, squinting at me. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there which meant, I must have been crazy distracted not to notice his scent.
I rubbed my eyes and skated to a stop in front of him. “Warm up?” I said, nodding at the ice.
“No, I just wanted to check in.” Dylan scratched his neck, looking horribly uncomfortable. He also looked like some Nordic god in the snow. He’s very tall and leanly muscled, with white blonde hair and light, pale gray-blue eyes. In his thick blue sweater with his long hair in a ponytail, he looked like he was modeling for some Viking vacation brochure. I shrugged at him and he sighed. “Something’s wrong,” he muttered. “C’mon, man. You know I don’t even do this.”
Miguel's Secret Cub Page 4
