"At least let me take you to a hospital," he says, and I back away at that, hating the fear that crawls up my spine.
"No, no hospitals. I hate hospitals. And doctors.” I say with vehemence. The anger helps clear my head and I shrug off his hand.
"Yeah. Don’t blame you," he says. "At least come back with me, so I can treat that ankle and look at those scrapes? I don’t live too far from here. Besides, your forehead is bleeding."
I touch my hand to my forehead and wince. I’m more banged up than I thought. Still, it doesn’t feel right going with him, and when I begin to protest, he touches my shoulder, his grip firm.
"It’s the least I can do after almost running you down." The touch of humour in his voice puts me more at ease. I follow him into the SUV that’s parked just ahead.
As he turns the vehicle around, I notice for the first time that he’s wearing the black uniform which marks him out as a Guardian. Unlike Jai, he wears a purple armband and sports purple stripes. He’s definitely more senior, up in the ranks of the hierarchy. He wears his authority like armour. In profile he looks even more like Jai.
"You are the Mayor of Bombay," I finally state the obvious and he nods. "Yes. I’m Vikram Roy, Jai’s father," he says and I redden. I’d been stalking Jai and now here I am with his Dad.
In the following silence he glances at me. "You feeling okay? Not dizzy or anything?"
I shake my head, not trusting my voice to speak. My ankle pings a burst of pain up my leg, and I try not to groan aloud. Instead I sit back, shut my eyes for the rest of the journey, till I sense the SUV slowing down. Through half-open eyes, I see us drive through imposing gates, which shut behind us, and up a driveway, green with trees that soar up on either side. The sounds of the city fall back as if refusing to follow us inside.
The vehicle comes to a stop in front of a sprawling sandstone-coloured home with detailed carvings and wood trimmings over the windows. The house harks back to an era I have only heard about from my Ma, and its simple beauty wraps around me. Welcoming. So this is what home is like for regular humans. A shiver runs down my back and I find myself shrinking further into the seat. He opens the car door, and I follow him into the cool interior.
Sandalwood and vanilla laced with jasmine. The scent cuts through me, stopping me in my tracks. And I hear a voice call out my name as if from a distance, hailing me, echoing in my head and making my head whirl. I’ve not been to this house before, have I? Fear grips me and I sway, unsteady on my feet.
"Hey!" Vikram puts his arm out and steadies me, guiding me to a chair. "Hang on. Let me get you a drink of water."
I barely hear him over the beat of my heart. It’s thumping so hard in my chest I am sure it is about to break through my ribs. The echoes thunder through me and I grip my fingers into fists, nails biting into my palm. Leave. Go. Go. Get out of here. I am half way up to my feet when he appears again and, dropping to his knees, his face furrowed in a frown, he hands me a glass of water. I take a sip. The cool liquid slides over the jagged edges of doubt in my throat, making it difficult to swallow. I hand back the glass and he disappears again saying, "Stay where you are, I am going to get some ice for your ankle and antiseptic to clean the wounds."
I shut my eyes and feel as if I’ve been dropped into the middle of a crazy storm that’s tearing me apart. I’d wanted to find out where I came from, but I had no idea I’d have to discard everything I had become to do that. I hear Vikram return, then the sound of a chair being pulled up as he sits down. The cool feel of the ice on my ankle instantly soothes the throbbing.
"Hold this," He says.
I keep the cold compress steady. When he touches the antiseptic to the torn skin on my forehead, it burns through me, making my eyes water. I shut my eyes, refusing to let the tears flow. I never want to open my eyes again. If I do, I’ll have to see his eyes, so like Jai’s, so like mine. I’ll have to see myself in them. Smell the essence of home on him. His scent, so like mine. Like Jai’s. And this I am not yet ready to accept. I am not ready to face my feelings for Jai and what it means. Why I felt so attracted to him. For it wasn’t really sexual, was it? I only saw myself reflected in him. When I met Jai, it was like meeting that lost part of me. And now I know. I know he is my brother. And this man, who is tending to me as if I was his child … well, he really is my father.
Genetic sexual attraction, or sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings or half-siblings, a parent and offspring, is presumed to occur as a consequence of genetic relatives first meeting as adults. Valid explanation, but it doesn’t make me feel better. Besides, we are never attracted sexually to those we know with too much familiarity. And I had no idea Jai was my brother.
I did sense something. A kinship. A feeling of familiarity, like looking into a mirror and seeing parts of myself but in the opposite form. And now, when the parts all come together, they don't fit. The image they form is so unexpected and I don't see myself in it. I bite my lips as something shatters inside me. My hands and legs are shaking, breath coming out in soft, uneven, gasps. It feels as if I have been cut loose of everything I knew so far. And below it all guilt, guilt that I could find my brother attractive. Just thinking about it sets off a new bout of trembling.
"Hey! You're not going into shock are you?" Vikram grips my palms in his larger hands. "Your hands are like ice." Then, he does something that makes me almost burst into tears. He rubs my hands, trying to warm me, trying to transfer some of his heat, his strength to me. And just for a moment I let myself pretend that it was my father taking care of me, soothing me. But he's not. He's not my father, not any more. My eyes fly open as the realisation sinks in, and pulling my hands from his I jump to my feet. Ignoring the jerk of my hurt ankle, I half walk- half limp to the window on the other side of the room. Clutching the bars, I look out at the stormy sea. At the monsoon clouds gathering in the distance.
Vikram’s worried voice follows me "Everything okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?"
I swallow the tears, the bitterness churning inside. I should be happy about this. About having found my father, my brother, and yet it doesn’t feel enough. Doesn’t feel right. As if I don’t belong here, as if I am intruding on a future that is no longer mine.
I turn my head and my eyes fall on a picture on the bookshelf. The same picture I’d seen in Jai’s home. Following my gaze, he walks up to the picture and touches it. "She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Ruby. Jai’s Ma." His voice is soft, as if he doesn’t want to awaken the dead.
I nod numbly. Jai’s Ma. My Ma.
"She's ... she's ... " I can’t bring myself to say it and he nods, without looking up. "Yes. She's gone. Far too young to die she was." He pauses his face expressionless, as if he's been over all the arguments, all the rationalisation of what took her away from him and now all that is left is silence. A blank silence where no words are necessary.
"And the girl?" I push myself to ask aloud. My voice comes out soft, hesitant. But I want to know. I must know. I've come this far, if I don't ask him now, I'll never know. I wait and this time his throat moves as he swallows, his lips tighten and he looks up at me as if seeing me properly for the first time. His eyebrows furrow as he says, "we lost her too. She was taken, kidnapped, and we never found her. It was the shock of losing her that killed Ruby. She died of a broken heart."
Kidnapped? Me? By the hybrids? That doesn’t make sense. Ma ... my hybrid ma had said she’d found me wandering in the forest hurt, and had rescued me. Unless … unless she hadn’t? Unless she had taken me from my human family. But, why? Why would she do that? My head is whirling now, heart racing and breath coming in short gasps. You know why she'd do it. Your hybrid ma. No doubt her gods pointed you out as their saviour, the one who’s going to bridge the gap between the hybrids and the humans. That's why she took you, why she brought you up, so you can help create a new life for the pack. Even as I am thinking this I want to deny it is the truth. But I just know inside that it is. It's that feeling you get when e
verything comes together and there is a second of complete clarity and you know you just see the reality of everything in you and around you. So, I know I've stumbled across the truth. But that doesn't make it any easier for me to accept it. I don't want to accept it. How could she do this to me?
I turn away, putting distance between me and Vikram and walking to the window, lean out into the warm, muggy, late evening sea-scented air and take great gulps. I should tell him now that she is my mother. Let him know who I really am. And yet I can’t. Just like how I was stuck, unable to speak, unable to move as I spied on Jai, now I am rooted to the spot here. Staring at the picture from my past. The picture that holds the key to my origins, to who I really am. And now I know. But I wish I'd never found out. Jai had been right. I should have let things be. Stayed where I was. No, that wasn't an option either. Best to find out now. Now, before it's too late. Before I do something I will regret.
I turn around, and my eyes are drawn back to the picture on the bookshelf. It’s burnt into my brain now, that picture, those figures frozen in time. But I’ve moved on. I’m no longer the little girl held up in that woman’s arms. I am not the child who reached out to her brother even as her father’s arms embraced the family. It's as if I am watching scenes from someone else's life. Once more, I am on the outside looking in.
What are you doing here? When you have a family of your own? The one you left behind? And your hybrid ma may have taken you from your real family, but she never let you feel unloved. Never. She’d do anything for you. Protect you with her life. Yes, that much I know. Her love was … is real. It's the only true thing I can hold onto even as I realize I don’t belong here. And I don't belong with the wolf pack. I'll never be one of them, but at least I know their rules. And while I am 100% human, I still don't get this human world. Don't understand their rules, their self-made restraints. Their love for structure and discipline for doing the right thing.
You should speak. The rational scientific one. The one who values logic above all else? The one who's cold, clinical, calculating even, is able to plot things to get her own way in the end. And now, when I am with my kind, I realize I don't want to be like them. That this is not who I am. This world is far more unforgiving, harsher than the one I left behind. Too many rules. Too restrained. Here, in the world of humans, you're punished for following your heart, for following your emotions. At least with the hybrids I feel free. Am able to live my life unrestrained. For life is what you discover outside the walls we set for ourselves.
It took finding out who I really am to realize my future lies in the place I grew up in, with the people that I came of age with. The mother and father who took me in and defined my existence, my character, the me now standing here and looking at her birth father, in the home of her birth. I am grateful to my blood parents for conceiving me, and having brought me into this world, but that’s all. I don't belong with these humans. Not here.
"I have to go," I say in a low voice.
Vikram’s eyes gleam with understanding, "You want to go home, don’t you?"
I nod. If only I knew where that might be. Home—I am filled with longing, and a sadness. Home—this isn’t home. It's not with my blood family. I may be of them. But I am not like them. It took meeting them to realize I am more like the hybrids. Like my half-human, half-wolf pack. I may not look like them, may never transform, but I am far more like them in what I want from life. In my love for freedom, my impulsiveness, my being wanting to be close to nature. Close enough to feel the jagged earth below my feet as I run through the forest. Fast enough to feel the wind rustle past my cheek. Away from the greys and browns of the city. Yes, I am much more like my hybrid Ma. I'll never forgive her for what she did, for taking me from my real family. And now there’s only one thing left to do.
11
I walk into the little apartment, knowing exactly where I’d find her. By the little altar in the kitchen. The altar that she’s carried with her through all the cities we’ve lived in. The altar that’s been with her before even I was born. Made of teak and sandalwood with intricate lattice work through which the setting sun now shines. It highlights the grey at her temples as she bows her head, touching her forehead on the ground in front of her various deities. Apparently it’s easier for humans to focus on a physical manifestation of a god than try to imagine something that has no shape. But beasts are different. Animals can sense the unseen, can hear the unspoken. And hybrids communicate with each other through body language, through the chemistry of scent.
"For someone who is hybrid, you sure have embraced the human gods in a big way."
My voice cuts through the serenity in the little prayer room and I regret it almost as soon as I say it. I sound so bitter, so vengeful, when I am not. No, I just want to understand why, why she did it? I should be more angry with her, furious at what she’d done to me, changing my life in an instant, just like that. And yet, yet all I feel is this confusion, this burning need to just figure out why.
"You know then?" she says without turning around, not moving from her kneeling pose, her hands still folded in prayer, head bowed. Her tone is matter of fact and, at that, anger burst to life inside, frustration licking my nerve endings. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped to be wrong, that I’d had held out one tiny thread of possibility that she had not really separated me from my family. I lick my lips gone dry.
"You knew I was going to find out, knew I would run into my blood family and d discover the truth of what you did … and yet …" I struggle to find the words, to say something coherent through the churning in my gut. "All you can do is still pray to the gods, the very gods who no doubt told you take me in the first place?"
She gets to her feet in one fluid motion in that animalistic grace so common to the pack members. Unlike me.
When she turns, the sunlight halos her for a second before she moves forward, her hands loose by her side, her forehead unlined. But her lips are tight around the edges, her cheekbones prominent as if she's lost weight since I last saw her. The worry in her reaches out to me, an unsaid plea, and I push it aside, refuse to acknowledge the concern I read on her. Instead I hold onto that tight ball of anger inside, the one that has been growing since I saw the picture in Jai's room. I walk up to her and slap her. I am breathing hard, panting almost, the sound of my heart pumping loud in my ears drowning out the sound of the slap echoing around the little room. And she does something that shatters me then.
She takes one, two, steps forward, closer, puts her arms around me and hugs me. Tight. So tight. I can’t breathe. Can’t talk. Can’t think. I just stand there, stiff. Unyielding. Different, I am different from her. I am not like her, I remind myself. I'll never be like her. And then, her familiar rose-lavender perfume, the one her human form uses and traces of which always linger on her wolf too, wraps itself around me, soothing, soft, caressing. She pats my head, her scent settling around my shoulders like a comforting blanket. And that is my undoing. I take a deep breath, then another, take that essence of her deep inside. This is it, isn’t it? I can run away from her. Deny that she is my mother. Hate her for what she had done. But when I think of a Mom, a mother, it is this. This feeling, this smell is what I remember. My tongue flicks out to catch the salty tears running down my cheek. And she goes up on tiptoe to kiss the edge of my forehead, and her cheeks are wet too. My hands creep around her, and before I know it I am holding her to me, head buried in the comforting nook of where her neck meets her shoulder and I am sobbing.
"I’m sorry, Maya. I had no right to do what I did. I took you, and I won’t blame it on the gods. Yes, I do believe they pointed me to you, and the moment I saw you, I knew my life would never be the same again. And then … then I couldn’t let you go. You became part of me and I couldn’t cut you off. I love you more than myself, completely … " Her voice ends on a jerk while her fingers run through my long hair, trying to smooth out the knots, just as she’d done when I was a girl. This I remember. This is more real to me than tha
t family picture on that bookshelf in Vikram’s room.
I nod into her skin, breathing the comfort, that security that has me chained to her.
Her arms tighten around me just for a second before she steps back, and when she smiles I stare. Her face is lighter, features relaxed as if it's the first time she is able to show all of herself, to me.
“Now go,” she says, “He's in the clearing."
Luke.
My eyes widen.
Luke. I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. My heartbeat picks up; anticipation washes over me and everything else fades into the background. That I was taken from my human family, that I am not human or hybrid. This is me isn't it? I am here now and Luke - he's here too. And he's waiting for me. And suddenly I just want to see him, touch him, hold him. Just be with him. Be in the moment and feel his skin, his hair, smell him. Caress him. Just want to go to him. I run past her, out of the house and towards the forest.
Epilogue
I walk through the pouring rain, the soft mud squishing, squashing, giving way under my feet. I make my way up through the outskirts of the city. Up, up, up the slope of the hill. Making my way through the forest, and into the clearing. It's only been a few weeks since I last saw him. Such a short period of time and in many ways still so long.
Brain time is intrinsically subjective. When you are doing something new, you're paying greater attention, and this leads to the perception of a longer period of time.
True. For once I agree. Everything I've done in the past month has been new, brand new. Surprises upon surprises, the kinds that fill a lifetime. The kind of memories you want to forget as soon as they are created, as soon as you felt the truth in them. The kind you know you couldn’t embrace, for if you did, then you became them and there would be no running away from them anymore.
Feral - Many Lives Book 1 Page 5
