Shattered (10 page)

A sharp turn got William Yates off of my
tail, and I tried to breathe normally so Chris wouldn’t suspect anything. William
was the copy with the motorcycle. Even though they didn’t need vehicles to get
around, they all had them. Will drove the bike, Carter had a black Lamborghini,
and Owen was always spotted in a black Jeep splattered with mud.

All three of those vehicles had been
waiting for us in the parking lot at some point in the last month. They usually
just sat there. Once, Carter waved. Kamon and his sons hadn’t tried anything outside
of that yet, but the sixty days Lydia had requested were not up. We were only a
little over halfway there, and I’d left my harmony back in Lydia’s surveillance
room.

Edwin’s advice wasn’t just the ramblings
of a bankrupt wolf. Everyone knew, if they knew we still existed at all, that
shifters’ lives depended on control, and control came from within. When your
insides are all messed up, so are you. Remi Vaughn had messed up insides. And
other shifters with messed up insides usually found themselves in cages or in
the custody of agents.

During the war, unbalanced shifters gave
our kind the terrible reputation of hurting people–snatching children off
of swings and walking around with human bodies and animal heads. Because of our
tarnished past, we’d earned our own statute in the treaty. Statute Fourteen:

Any
shifter found out of control or having a suspected imbalance, shall be
imprisoned by an authorized hunter or agent. If deemed unable of
rehabilitation, the shifter faces a certain and legal death.

That treaty was signed and enforced by my
girlfriend’s mother, and even though we were on good terms and the treaty was
under negotiation, I doubted Statute Fourteen would change much, and I doubted
even more that she would wave it for me. So I hadn’t mentioned my erratic
shifting to anyone.

I stopped in front of Nan’s Homemade Jewelry
because Chris smelled interested and we were no longer being followed. Or so
I’d thought. I spotted William at the other end of the street, just waiting
there, so I lied to Chris about it being closed. Thankfully, there were no people
in front to prove me wrong.

I felt a shift coming on when she
suggested we go inside of Starbucks, but I weaseled out of that too. I took a
deep breath as I sped away from the jewelry store, stealing a technique Sophia
used to make Chris do all the time.
Just
breathe. Just breathe.

 
It was happening fast, now. I couldn’t
stop it.

Christine grabbed my hand and held on
tight. She reminded me of what it felt like to have fingers and what it meant to
be myself and how important it was for me to stay in my body and drive this
car.

And then, I was fine, because, although our
lives were crazy right now, Christine was my harmony, the one that existed
outside of myself. She was going to stop me from messing up my insides more
than they already were.

I lost William again and slowed the car
to a normal speed. I turned up the music, finding peace in the peace she got to
live in.

At the condo, she opened her midterm
grades while I sat in the car. I had a text to send that she shouldn’t see. Her
mother’s number was in my phone as WORK.

William
followed us but I lost him.

A minute later she replied:
Is she okay?

Yes.

Does
she know?

No.

Thank
you
.

 
I yawned. I couldn’t wait to go home, get
in a tub of cold water, and then a bed. I’d made it another day, through
another of their petty visits, without her knowing.

“Twenty-four days to go,” Nathan, I said
to myself. “You can do this.”

“Nathan,” Sophia said, motioning me to
get out of the car. “We have to go.”

I nodded and unhooked my seatbelt. We
never stayed at the condo long. This place was swarming with enough magic to
raise the hair on my arms, but it was frightening to think of how many hunters
could’ve followed us here by now.

Sophia snapped and took us to our real
house. We landed in the kitchen, and Sophia asked Chris tons of questions about
her midterm grades, like … if she was proud of herself and if she wanted to
hang it on the fridge. Chris smiled and nodded to them all.

“Can we get a copy for my dad?” she
asked. “He’s going to want one. Or he can have this one if Mom doesn’t want a
copy.”

“I’m sure she’ll want one,” Sophia said.
“I’ll handle it, and I’ll make a copy for myself and Gregory. We’re also
ecstatic.”

Sophia didn’t realize how much her sweet
and subtle comment had affected Christine. Her scent bloomed into the rich
smell of happiness. A cake right out of the oven. For someone like her, after
the life she’d lived, having people excited about grades was huge. This was why
I was a fan of Trenton, because of moments like this when she made every inch
of the room smell like life couldn’t get any better. In reality, it could get a
lot better. Kamon could be dead and she could actually be safe.

“Sophia,” Chris said. “What happens in a
Starbucks? I’ve never been in one.”

Sophia laughed, but I frowned. She was
still thinking about the awkward stunt I’d pulled earlier. “Nothing really,”
Sophia said. “It smells like coffee. There are lots of people on laptops and
eating muffins. They play weird music. But, when I think about it, you’d
probably like that music. Do you want to go to Starbucks?”

She nodded. “I think so. It doesn’t
really sound like a place Nate would like. Maybe Mom and I will go on our vacation.
In disguise.” She giggled, but I couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or not.
She still smelled happy, but it made sense for the Starbucks thing to get to
her.

Maybe I could do something about it.

I left them in the kitchen and walked to
my room. When we’d first moved here, Chris had requested a coffeemaker because
she’d seen one on TV and thought it was cool, but I didn’t remember her ever
using it. I could’ve sworn I’d seen it in my kitchen once–where junk
seemed to accumulate. My thought was to make her coffee and muffins and find
some weird music. Have our own Starbucks. She would like that.

Paul’s ringtone hummed in my pocket, and
I put it on speaker and continued my search.

“Yo.”

“Sparky. What’s
happenin
’?

“Nothing. Didn’t we have a coffeemaker?
One of the ones you put a little plastic thing in and it makes a cup?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Guess what.”

“What?” I said. I opened the cabinet
under the sink and scattered the contents. That coffeemaker had to be in here
somewhere.

“I told Em.”

“Told Em what?” I found the unopened box
behind a pack of paper towels I didn’t know I had. “Yes! Found it. Told Em
what?”

“I told her, man. You know. I just said
it. I almost died before I got the words out.”

I opened the box and plugged in the
contraption. I was right. It needed a little plastic cup to brew a single
serving of coffee. I emptied the box and didn’t find any.

“Hey, can you send me coffee?” I asked.
“Oh and muffins. I should’ve just asked you. Can you do that?”

“Dude, are you even listening to me?” he
said.

“I am. You said something about Emma.
Look, I have a lot going on right now, and I’m trying to do something for
Chris-”

He hung up. I guessed he was having a
temperamental day. Whatever. I opened the pantry to look for coffee packets. It
took me a minute of rummaging to realize what he’d said. He told Emma.

“He told Emma!” I yelled.

There was only one thing Paul was keeping
from Emma. It was a secret his entire family was keeping from everyone.
Everyone except me. He had no choice but to bring me into the loop. I’d caught
him saying affirmations to himself in his mirror one morning. I’d laughed at
him, and he’d turned around with watery eyes. He wasn’t Paul then, not funny
and carefree. He was a guy dealing with an addiction that was shaming his
saintly family.

He used to laugh about drinking and being
drunk all the time, but his parents–who’d put him out after he’d started
a fire when he was wasted–didn’t find it funny at all. At the time of the
fire, he’d told me, he hadn’t gone a single day without drinking since he was
seventeen. Paul graduated Salutatorian from his high school and missed
graduation because he was somewhere drinking. He’d pretended to have the flu.
Because he was doing well, like a Ewing kid was supposed to, no one knew he had
a problem until the fire.

Then his grandparents stepped in. From
what he’d said, detox with Sophia was the worst thing ever, and made him never
want to drink again. And he hadn’t, even when he moved in with us and started
going out with Emma every night. So while she was pretending to be drunk, Paul
was pretending to drink just so he didn’t have to explain why he couldn’t.

But now, he’d let his girlfriend in on
his family’s dirty secret, as he’d called it, and I’d just blown him off.

I called him back and sat on the floor in
the kitchen. He let it go to voicemail, and I called him again.

“What?” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“What did she say?”

“Like you care. Go make Chris coffee and
drive her to school. I hope they’re paying you. Freaking butler.” I sighed and
gave him a minute of silence to calm down. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. Tell me what she said.”

“She cried. She said it was her fault. I
did
drink a lot with her back then.
She’s sad she didn’t notice anything.” I was expecting something more dramatic.
We were talking about Emma after all. “Then she poured out all the alcohol in
their house and declared that she will never drink again. And any of our
friends, so let Chris know.”

I laughed. That was more like it. I could
see Emma running around and trashing the liquor, while wearing one too many
shades of pink.

“Now we really know I’ll never drink
again,” he said. “Em won’t let me.”

“Awesome. Then it’s good that you said
it.”

“Hell yeah. And I got pity sex, so it was
great all around.” I doubled over with laughter, and asked if he were kidding
with my broken voice. “Not kidding, dude. She was so overcome with emotion that
she couldn’t keep her-” He burst out laughing. He couldn’t even finish the
sentence. “Alright, I didn’t get any after. We just cried.”

“Aww, that’s sweet.” That would be a
first. Em and Paul were usually at it like rabbits.

“I gotta go, Sparky. We just ate dinner
here. I gotta do the dishes.”

“Alright.” A cup of coffee and a plate of
muffins appeared on the counter as I hung up. Despite what he thought, he was a
saint like the rest of his family. I stashed the coffee and muffins in the
microwave and shifted.

Dammit.

Before I could even react, I was standing
in a pile of shredded clothes. This was exactly what I was afraid of. If Kamon
were around, Chris would be helpless as I ran away on four legs. And if this
happened at work, while I found myself in a cage waiting to be deemed worthy of
rehabilitation or killed because of my imbalance, the world would spin
completely out of control. I needed the next twenty-four days to speed by for
myself, Chris, and mankind.

 
I ran to the shower and twisted the knob with my mouth. I let the cold
water wash over me. The cold could make me shift in either direction. It seemed
to want to make me comfortable.

And comfortable, right now, was being
Nathan–not the cowardly dog that let his mother die. My paws faded into
hands and the rest of me followed. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” I chanted.

I stepped out of the shower as my bones
and muscles settled. I opened the door to let the air in, to make me colder,
more comfortable. Good thing I did. Or else I might not have heard Christine
scream.

I only had time to grab a towel before
bolting out of the pool house and into the kitchen. “Christine!” I yelled.

I was vaguely aware of the towel hanging
from my waist, barely covering pertinent parts, until Chris jumped out of the
guy’s arms she was in and revealed his face.

“Mr. Gavin,” I said. “Hi.” He looked like
he wanted to shoot me.

Nate hadn’t made the best first
impression with my dad. Or second or third. This would be his 40
^th
impression or so, and I would say he’d sufficiently ruined this one.
 

“Uh, Nate,” I said. “Your towel.”

“Shit. Crap. I mean…” He sighed and
finally wrapped the towel around his waist correctly. He was dripping wet. If
my father weren’t here, I wouldn’t trust myself to comply with his special
night rule.

“Seriously,” Mr. Gavin said. “What’s wrong
with you?”

“I thought … she was in trouble,” he
said. “I thought … I’m sorry.”

I got as close to Nate as I could without
pissing Dad off more. “I’m okay,” I said. “He just surprised me. That’s all.”

Dad had popped in out of nowhere. He’d been
working on the one power my mother had taught him when they were married. Until
two weeks ago, he’d sucked–fainting, having nosebleeds,
nearly
reactivating his stutter. But he’d refused to give
up, and now teleporting offered a solution to his dilemma of living two
thousand miles away from his daughter with an evil genius on the loose.

“Dad’s here to make dinner to celebrate
midterms,” I said. “Isn’t that awesome?”

“Yeah. It is,” Nate said. “Thanks for
coming over, Mr. Gavin. She gets really excited when you’re around.”

I smiled. I loved how hard he tried with
my father lately, but it still didn’t seem to be working. “Are you trying to
say I’m not around enough?” Dad asked.

“Um … no. I just…” Nate gave up on his
statement, and I squeezed his hand.

“Dad,” I groaned. “Nate is being really
nice. Don’t you think?”

“Whatever,” he said, and turned his back
to Nate. “I have one more surprise for you, kid. I was looking on Trenton’s
website and saw something very disappointing. When were you and
what’s her name
going to tell me about
the art show?”

He still refused to call Mom
Lydia
, but that was beside the point.

“Are you talking about the freshmen open
house?” He nodded. “That’s not a real show, Dad, and I didn’t even think about
going.”

“We’re going,” he said. “Surprise.”

“It’s for parents,” I said.

“Good thing I’m a parent, then.”

I sighed. “It’s for parents who can
actually be parents without putting their lives in jeopardy,” I said. I lifted
his left forearm to his eyes. He’d branded himself as my father in bold letters
covered in daffodils to symbolize our new beginning. “Someone may see my name
inked into your arm. I don’t want you to get hurt because of that. Mom wouldn’t
either.”

 
“The woman who you refer to as your
mother isn’t my boss,” he said. I sighed again. Sometimes Dad acted like he had
something to prove to her, and that was making him do a very stupid thing.
“What’s so wrong about wanting to go out in public with my kid?” he asked.

“The timing,” Nate said. “It’s just not a
good time. Lydia would be so against this.” Dad’s eye twitched, and I stepped
in front of my naked boyfriend who’d invited himself into this conversation.

“Christine,” Dad whispered, his leg
shaking so hard it made his whole body tremble. “I’m going to hit him. I know
it. I feel it.”

Nate stuttered for a moment, and Sophia
rested her hand on my dad’s shoulder. It didn’t seem to calm him down.

“He has a point, Christopher,” she said.
“Going to Trenton could be dangerous.”

“You let her go there everyday!” he
yelled. “What’s one more night?”

“It’s not her we’re worried about,” Nate
said. “It’s you.”

“Who was talking to you?!” Dad yelled.
Nate backed away from my dad and walked to the door. I didn’t know who to hug
first–my father who was fighting for the right to be that or my boyfriend
who was trying to look out for us.

“Nathan,” Sophia said. “…let’s go, dear.
Let’s give them some time together. Christopher, we can talk more about the
open house later, okay?” Dad nodded, and Sophia and Nate left us alone in the
kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t even sure
what I was apologizing for.

“I hate that boy.”

“You can’t hate him. No one hates Nate.
It’s impossible. Give him a break. He’s just nervous around you.”

“I’m trying. I really am. Something’s
just not right with him. He’s such a weird guy. And combative. And really
stupid.”

I begged him to keep his voice down. Nate
could hear everything, whether he was in the house or not, and I didn’t want
the other man in my life to make him feel unwanted in his own home.

When I calmed Dad down, I called Emma to
see if it wasn’t too late for her and Paul to come over for dinner. She
answered with her nasally voice.

“Are you crying?” I asked.

“I was. Not anymore. What’s up?”

“My dad is cooking tonight. I got my
grades today. Are you too tired to come over? Or sad?”

“Sad, yes. Tired no,” she said. I hung up
the phone. She was standing behind me now.

“You left without Paul?” I asked.

She nodded. “I need to talk to you
without him. Conference! Right now!” She yanked my arm and dragged me out of the
room. “Hi, Dad. Bye, Dad.”

“Hi, Emma. Bye, Emma.”

I yelled an apology to my dad as she
hauled me into the pillow room. “This must be serious,” I said. She plopped
down on the pillows, face down. Whoa. “If you’re pregnant…”

“Christine! Stop with that!”

“Okay. You’re not pregnant. What is it?”

It took her a while to start speaking,
and when she did, my heart melted out of my chest. Poor Paul. I think I knew on
some level, but I never would’ve guessed how serious his problem was. If he
were here, I would’ve hugged him, but I only had my friend who couldn’t stop
herself from crying.

“How could I not know?” she said.

“He hid it, Em.”

“So what? I’ve known him since I was two
years old. I thought I knew everything about him. When he was seventeen and in
trouble, he used to sleep at my house, in
my
bed, at least once a week.
How
did I not
know?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I went with
silence. I lay next to her and let her cry without interruption.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know you’re on this
think happy … be happy
kick. I don’t
want to bring you down.”

“Stop. You can’t bring me down. You’re my
friend. We’ll get through this together. If you want my advice, I think it’s
best to take it one day at a time. That’s what I’m doing. I mean … Kamon could
walk right into my class and kidnap me every day, but I’m not freaking out
about it. One day at a time.”

She rolled into my arms and sighed.

“Kamon-
spamon
,”
she said. “At least you don’t have a boyfriend with a secret life.” We burst
out laughing. “How is he by the way? Your boyfriend?” I shrugged.

“Same ‘ole Nate. Just a little stressed
about Kamon at times, but he’s fine. Considering…”

She pulled me up, and we walked to my
room. As usual, our conversation was nonstop, jumping from topic to topic and
barely taking breaths. We talked about my classes, the tension with my parents,
and her mother’s new obsession with salsa music all before making it to my
room.

“But Nate’s okay?” she said, bringing the
conversation full circle.

“Yeah. Overall, he’s fine. My dad is still
not his biggest fan, but I’m sure he’ll come around.”

 
“I hope so. I’m asking because he’s a
shifter. Your man isn’t built to handle stress. Poor thing could turn into your
pet.” She laughed as she traded her shirt for one of mine. That was how she was
slowly stealing all of my clothes, by wearing them home, one article of
clothing at a time.

“You’re joking, right?” I asked.

“Not at all. You’re constantly at risk of
having to take him for walks for the rest of your life.”
 
I shoved her shoulder. Nate permanently
turning into a dog was nothing to joke about. Outside of Kamon slaughtering my
whole family, nothing would be worse. “Oh, don’t be sensitive, Chris. He’s a
shifter like Remi. I know what I’m talking about. I watched her almost become
completely a panther. All because she couldn’t handle stress.”

I rolled my eyes. “Remi didn’t turn into
a panther because she was stressed. My mother took me to her house. She was
nuts, Em. She wanted to be human. She wanted to be with Kamon, which is very
gross.”

“Kamon is very handsome,” she said.

“And you are very ridiculous. About him
and
Nate. Trust me. He’s fine.”

When it was time for dinner, Dad yelled
for the hundredth time for us to come downstairs. I rushed Emma and her
semi-wet nails out of the door. I spotted Paul at the base of the stairs and
ran to him.

“Don’t get all Christine on me,” he said.
Too late. I was already squeezing him hard, as if I could love his troubles
away. “I have a drinking problem, not a terminal illness.”

He laughed because he was Paul, and I
just kept hugging him because I was Chris. Dad asked permission to ask Paul
questions about his issue. I wished he would use that thoughtful tone when
talking to or about Nathan. His voice oozed with concern as he asked how long
he’d been sober. After, he patted Paul on the back and said, “I usually have a
glass of wine with my dinner, but I won’t tonight.”

“Oh please,” Sophia said, walking into
the room with us. “That won’t be necessary. Paully could bathe in a fountain of
alcohol and not take a sip. Couldn’t you, Paully?”

He nodded, and I cringed. I didn’t really
want to know what Sophia had done to him to make him so alcohol resistant. By
the look on his face, I assumed it was brutal. But I guessed that explained why
she would let him move to New Orleans with us in the first place. She wasn’t
worried about him drinking.

Dad made salmon with a side of potatoes,
drizzled in a sauce that smelled divine. I helped him make all of our plates,
including two for Paul and Em who’d eaten already. Once they’d smelled Dad’s
cooking, they were suddenly hungry again. It took me an embarrassing amount of
time to notice I hadn’t seen Nate in hours.

“Paul,” I said. “Were you hanging out
with Nate earlier?”

“No,” he said. “I was talking with your
dad about becoming independently wealthy. Apparently, it doesn’t exist without
hard work.”

As they laughed, I excused myself to
check on Nathan.

Maybe because Emma had mentioned her, I thought
about Remi as I walked to the pool house. Back then, she would shift without
warning and was slowly turning into a panther for good. She was the last person
in the world I would have compassion for, seeing as she’d stabbed me and all,
but I understood how slowly losing yourself could be one of the most agonizing
things in the world.

I walked into the pool house, and a
relieved sigh pushed out of my chest. He wasn’t like Remi. There was no need to
worry. He was knocked out on his bed, his face on my pillow, still naked.

I giggled. The towel was on the floor and
his cute butt was showing.

“Nate,” I said. I tapped his shoulder,
and he snored louder. I decided to let him sleep. Unlike the rest of us, Nate
had a real job that required him to be up and alert at seven in the morning.
Lately, he yawned all day. His job took a lot out of him, I guessed.

He was lying on the comforter, so I
flipped the other end over him to cover his butt. “Sleep tight, baby,” I said,
and kissed his sleeping lips.

Dad spoke first when I made it back to
the dining room. “What’s his excuse?”

“He’s sleeping,” I said.

“Lies, he just doesn’t want to eat with
us.”

“Dad, Please. He’s tired. He works all
day. He didn’t even wake up when I went in there just now. He’s dead to the
world.”

I took the seat across from my father and
next to Sophia. I was the only one to bow my head for grace. Some habits
die hard
.

 
“So, Mr. Gavin,” Paul said.

“Call me Chris or Gavin,” he said. “The
Mr. is only for Nathan.” Everyone laughed but me.

“Okay, Chris. You have to teach me how to
make this. I’m sure women fall all over you because you know how to cook.”

Emma smacked his shoulder. “Why do you
need someone falling all over you?”

“I meant you, dear,” he said, sounding
like his grandfather. That, I laughed at.

“It’s a simple recipe,” Dad said. “But I
don’t know how many women you’d get. It’s never really worked for me.”

“Not true,” I said, with my mouth full of
potatoes. “Mom loved it. She said, and I quote, that it made you the perfect
husband.”

Sophia smiled at me, and Emma crooned,
“Awww.”

“Obviously, that’s not true,” he said.

“It is, Dad. I know you don’t think so,
but she loved you. She loves you. I know, I know, I know … nothing will come of
me saying that, but she does. You’re her
person
,
Dad. If she could be with anyone, it would be you.” He huffed and rolled his
eyes. “I’m serious. She’s never even thought of being with anyone else. You’re
the only person she’s even ever kissed.”