by A. K. Morgen
“Any tenderness?”
“A little.”
“Headaches?”
“I’m still having them,” I admitted. Sometimes, my head hurt so badly I wanted to claw my eyes out. I didn’t tell anyone that, though. I lied to them, told them it wasn’t bad. So often, I lied to keep Dace from knowing how bad things really were. I knew it didn’t really work, that he felt everything, but I lied anyway. That hurt, too.
Dr. Guerin nodded again, and pulled my gown back down. “Any continued muscle weakness?” he asked, grabbing my chart to jot notes.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Is it any better?”
“Yeah. It’s a little better.” My legs cooperated more and more often, but I still felt weak. I still felt powerless. More and more, I began to understand why Dace gave in to the hatred he felt. Hatred was powerful, and, when you were terrified, haunted, and hunted by monsters larger than life, even corrosive power was better than no power at all.
“She’s fallen three times this week,” Dace said softly.
I didn’t know he kept count. He hadn’t told me.
Dr. Guerin stopped jotting and glanced up at me, one bushy brow arched.
“Three times,” I said, sitting back up on the bed and clutching the paper sheet around me.
“And how many last week?” he asked.
I looked to Dace.
“Six,” he said without looking up from the tiles at his feet.
Dr. Guerin nodded again. “Any bruising or tearing around your incisions from your falls? Any pain?”
“Nope.”
He arched that brow once more, surprise in his wise eyes. “None?”
“I trip more than fall,” I explained.
“Oh?”
“Dace catches her,” Dad said, shifting forward in his chair.
“Every time?” Dr. Guerin looked at Dace.
He still didn’t look at me when he answered. “Always.”
I wanted to cry all over again.
No matter how wide the chasm between us grew, when I stumbled, Dace caught me, every time. He was so complicated, so confusing, and so beautiful, my heart hurt.
Dad smiled at me weakly when Dace rose to his feet and crossed to the window, his back to us. Dad didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t blind. He knew things were different between us. Everyone did, though no one seemed willing to ask what happened. I wouldn’t have had an answer even if they did. I felt like a fraud, handing out fake smiles and false platitudes while my insides became brittle and began to crack and break.
In the course of days, my entire life became a lie, and it was killing me slowly.
I desperately wanted to take back our argument, and tell Dace I didn’t mean it. But I couldn’t. No matter how much his silence hurt, I refused to be the girl who backed down because she couldn’t deal with the alternative. The one too cowardly to stand up for what was right simply because it hurt. And no matter how much it hurt for Dace to agree to let me go, I was right.
I think Dace knew it too, even if he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, admit it.
“Well then.” Dr. Guerin shook his head, obviously not sure how to respond.
I wanted to welcome him to the club.
“You’re healing exceptionally well,” he said, glancing down at my chart again. “Your wounds look good, and your incisions have healed nicely. Let’s give things a few more days and see how it goes. If the falls or headaches continue, or get worse, we’ll get you in for another CT and talk about more physical therapy, but, for now, everything looks good physically. How’s that sound to you, Ari?”
“Fine with me.” I did not want to do more physical therapy unless there was no way around it. There weren’t enough hours in the day for me to waste even one with therapy, no matter if it helped or not.
“Good.” He looked up from my chart for a minute. “Emotionally, how do you feel?”
“Um…” The question caught me off guard, and I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t about to tell him the truth though, that the only thing holding me together was a hope and a prayer and those were both fading fast.
“Are you sleeping?” he prompted.
“Yeah.” Not so much.
“Nightmares?”
“Every night,” Dace whispered before I could lie.
“Ari?”
“Every night,” I muttered.
Dr. Guerin’s pen scratched across the paper in my file. “Any anxiety? Difficulty concentrating? Intrusive, upsetting memories or detachment from the people in your life?”
Dace shifted in his chair, his emotions pricking at me even with those damn walls in place.
Dr. Guerin ran down the list of questions that led to a shrink and little cups of pills if the answers weren’t satisfactory. I shook my head in response to each question. I was anxious. I did have painful memories. But not anything like Dr. Guerin was looking for. I didn’t need a shrink. I needed Dace.
I was no longer sure I had him though.
“Any thoughts of suicide or loss of interest in normal activities?”
“No.”
“Have you remembered anything from your attack?”
“Bits and pieces, but not much.”
Dr. Guerin nodded as if he expected the answer. “Well, I don’t think you’re suffering from any serious post-traumatic stress.”
I could have told him that.
“You did, however, experience a pretty severe trauma. It’s natural for your psyche to take some time to process that. As your memory of the trauma returns, you may begin to experience anxiety, flashbacks, and even depression. That’s not uncommon in animal attack cases like yours. If the nightmares continue, or the effects are bothersome or get worse, I’d like to get you in to talk to a trauma counselor.” He slid a brochure out of my file and handed it to Dad. “This is a list of signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress to look for. If she begins to experience any of these, it’s crucial you call me immediately so we can get her in to talk to someone.”
Were all men hardwired to talk about women as if they weren’t in the room?
“Of course,” Dad said, glancing down at the brochure in his hands. The grim expression on his face made me feel guilty. He hated telling lies as much as I did, but, like me, he’d tell a thousand more if it kept anyone from looking too deeply. I think his concerns were a little more standard than mine, though. He didn’t want me sold to science or hunted down as some mutant monster.
Me? I just didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I wanted the people around me to go on living their lives in complete oblivion of the clock counting down in the background, unaware the end of the world loomed over their heads. Unaware a giant wolf lived chained to a rock beneath their feet, ready to unleash hell upon the world. If Dace and I couldn’t live in happy oblivion, at least the people around us could.
“I’ll let you get dressed,” Dr. Guerin said. “I’d like to see you back in a month unless you have any concerns before then, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Dr. Guerin.”
He patted me on the hand, a grandfatherly smile on his face. “I wish half my patients had your recovery time.”
I gave him a tight smile.
Dad and Dace turned, exiting the room behind him so I could dress. I sat where I was for a minute, staring at the poster on the far wall. It advertised some kind of surgical procedure I knew nothing about and had that generic image of a man and his intestines printed on it, with an oversimplified explanation of what the procedure entailed.
Would a doctor approach saving someone’s soul the same way he would surgery? If Dr. Guerin was in my shoes, if he had to find a way to save Dace’s life, what would he do?
I dressed slowly as I mulled the question.
When surgeons had a chill that wouldn’t go away, a new sense of urgency brushing up their spines… what did they do?
They operated, before they lost the patient.
Is that what I was doing wrong then? Stalling? Waiting fo
r some other option to appear on the horizon when there wasn’t one? No matter how much Dace rejected my nightmare vision of him, hatred and fear pushed him a little closer to that ledge every day. As much as I couldn’t accept that nightmare, he couldn’t accept that saving me no matter the cost wasn’t right.
How could it be wrong to risk your life to save someone you love?
Because we weren’t normal, that’s why. Because we were broken, and we couldn’t duct tape ourselves back together, hold hands, and then skip off into the sunset like normal couples when destiny had other things in store for us. We were fading, and I was so determined our bond would be enough to save us regardless of how broken we were that I deluded myself.
Dace would never back down.
Wanting something badly enough didn’t make it happen, and people didn’t get to slay dragons and live happily ever after when they were broken. I was so stupid for believing that about Dace and me when nothing about any of this was that easy.
Did I really expect reality to change just because I wanted it to?
I spent hours poring over Norse mythology, and very few of those myths ended happily ever after. Why did I expect Dace and me to be the exception to that rule?
We weren’t the exception. How could we be when all we did was hurt one another?
Sometimes, no matter how much you wished things could be different, they couldn’t.
Maybe we were cursed after all.
Dace and I didn’t talk on the drive home, and I stopped hoping he’d open his mouth and say something, say anything, to me. He didn’t. There was nothing left to say anyway. He’d already made his choice… and it wasn’t me.
The first exit sign for Beebe appeared in the distance.
“You guys hungry?” Dad asked.
I shook my head. The thought of food made me want to vomit.
“Dace?”
“No.”
Dad caught my gaze in the rearview mirror and gave me a tight smile.
I tried to smile back, but couldn’t. I moved my gaze along instead, choosing to stare out the window as we exited the freeway. The snow had melted over the last few days, leaving the town a sodden, dirty mess. I always forgot that part of snowfall. When it was over, and the blanket of soft white disappeared again, the world looked dirtier, as if reality stained everything below in stark, vivid detail. Tree branches and grass drooped and withered. The slush remaining in spots alongside the roadways, in driveways, parking lots, and yards were uninviting black and brown lumps.
The world was tainted.
Don’t go alone.
Dace’s voice in my head when there’d been nothing but silence for two agonizing days shattered me. I bit the inside of my cheek hard to keep from sobbing.
I know…. He sighed. I know this is my fault. I pushed you into this, and I won’t ask you to stay now. I won’t put you in that position. Just, please, don’t go alone.
I took a deep breath and nodded my head, trying desperately to hold the tears at bay. Once they started this time, they wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t deal with that. Ronan was right. I had to go, and Dace and I both knew I did. He would never be able to find his way again with me here.
But maybe… maybe if I wasn’t here, he could let go of some of the damaging emotions that threatened to drag him under. I couldn’t promise him I would be any safer out there than I was here, and we both knew that, too. It was entirely possible Sköll and Hati would follow me wherever I went. Dace’s biggest fear was that they would find me no matter how far I ran. But that was a chance we both had to take because I couldn’t stay here when staying meant watching Dace tear himself apart.
I’d been stupid to think I could. To think that being destined to love one another meant we could do this thing together and everything would work out fine. Sköll and Hati were stronger than us. They were more powerful than us. And Odin never meant for us to hold them off forever. We might have wanted to believe our destiny was to defeat them and save the world, but our real destiny was to lose. Our destiny had always been to lose.
We were weak. Held back by fear and love and all those human emotions that damned us little by little for millennia until now. Until I couldn’t shift, and Dace would rather watch me leave than face watching me die.
Knowing that didn’t make going any easier.
I’ll have everyone meet us.
He pulled out his phone and began to text, but he didn’t say anything else to me while Dad navigated through town.
I didn’t speak again either.
When Dad pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, Chelle, Gage, Ronan, Professor Edwards and Naomi all waited on the porch. They watched us approach silently. Dad didn’t ask why they were all there, and I didn’t tell him. He’d find out soon enough.
I took a deep breath and dragged myself from the car to face them.
Dace offered me his arm, but I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t touch him and then turn around and walk away from him. I made my way up the walkway carefully, keeping my eyes on the ground. My legs didn’t betray me. Neither did my tears.
Gage held out a hand to help me climb the steps to the front door. I took it gratefully, allowing him to support some of my weight.
Chelle reached out and squeezed my arm.
I lifted my head to look at her, only to find Naomi and Professor Edwards staring at me with matching, sympathetic frowns on their faces. I think they all knew what was coming. I think, maybe, they’d been expecting it.
Knowing that didn’t make it any easier, either.
“Where will you go?” Chelle asked.
No one else said a word since I opened my mouth and told them I was leaving. I didn’t tell them why. I couldn’t sit beside Dace and tell everyone I feared what he might do if I stayed. No one needed to know that, and I didn’t want them looking at Dace differently over any of this. Despite everything, I didn’t blame him. He didn’t have a choice in loving me anymore than he had a choice in being a shapeshifter. Sometimes, well, sometimes love simply didn’t conquer all.
Instead I told them Ronan was right, and we needed to find a way to draw Sköll and Hati out once and for all. If one of us left, they might take the bait and follow behind instead of setting fires in the dark. I didn’t have any intention of letting them find me, but if they followed, at least we’d know where to start looking for them. If nothing else, maybe leaving would catch them off guard. They might slip up and say or do the wrong thing. Either way, the faster we found them, the faster we could figure out how to kill them without risking everything.
Maybe the army would let us borrow a rocket launcher or two.
Or Arkansas would magically sprout a volcano we could toss them into.
“To Smyrna,” Dad said.
I glanced up to find him looking at me, his eyes brimming with sympathy and… pride?
“Go to Smyrna,” he said. “To your mom’s.”
“I can’t. The house isn’t ours anymore.” Saying that out loud hurt. If I had to leave here, that’s where I wanted to go, but I couldn’t. Just like Dace, I didn’t have a home anymore.
“It is.” Dad shrugged when I stared blankly at him, confused. “I haven’t put it up for sale yet.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Knowing he couldn’t let the house go hurt as much as it helped. He couldn’t afford to keep making the mortgage payments on it, but still he held on to it. Held on to Mom.
God, I missed her so much.
“She can’t go back there.” Ronan looked over at me from his place by the windows on the far wall. He didn’t smile or look at me with sympathy or anything of that nature. He merely looked at me, the same way he always looked at me. But I think maybe he did feel sympathy for me. If anyone understood how this felt, he did. He lost the girl he loved to Sköll and Hati already.
“Why not?” Dad frowned at him. “She grew up there.”
“That’s why she can’t go,” Dace said. He stared down at his hands, his expression bleak. �
��That’s the first place they’ll look for her.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. Fear and pain rippled through me in tandem. I wanted to crawl into his lap and wrap my arms around him. It hurt to have home within my grasp, only to have it taken away again so quickly. It hurt more to sit beside Dace and feel as if he were a million miles away.
I glanced away from him, picking a random spot on the wall to focus on. It didn’t really help. I had to leave Dace, and I couldn’t go home. I wasn’t sure anything would help my heart at this point.
“Damn.” Dad sighed heavily.
Everyone sat quietly for a long moment, trying to figure out where I could go, I guess. Now that I knew I couldn’t go to Smyrna, I didn’t really care where I ended up. One place would suck as much as another.
“She’ll go to Indiana,” Dace said, his voice quiet, remote.
I fought the urge to look at him, keeping my gaze trained on the wall instead.
“Indiana?” Naomi asked. “What’s in Indiana?”
“Indiana University,” he answered. He shifted beside me, leaning forward.
And I couldn’t pretend not to see him any longer. I watched from the corner of my eye as he rested his arms on his knees, clasping his hands together. He glanced at Naomi and then over at my dad. His expression was stark, as if the planes of his face were carved from regret.
“Dr. Michel teaches at the Folklore Institute there. He’s the world’s leading expert on Norse mythology. Maybe he can help answer a few of the question we’ve not been able to answer yet.” Dace shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a chance.” He paused before looking at me. “If you’re okay with going to see him.”
“If he can help, I think I need to go.” I steeled myself and then turned my head to look at Dace fully. He looked exactly as broken as I felt. “How will I get in to see him?”
“Tell him I sent you,” Dace said. He reached out as if to touch me and then thought better of it. He let his hand fall.
Sorrow twisted through me, cutting like a knife. I couldn’t tell if it belonged to me, to Dace, to Geri, or to all three of us. I glanced away from him, unable to deal with the emotion. How the hell was I supposed to get in my car and drive out of town, knowing I might never see him again?
