Shattered (31 page)

For the rest of our lives, Christine and
I needed to have difficult conversations exclusively while we were naked. I was
waiting for her to mention her plans for tomorrow. When she did, I found that
the topic of her risking her life to save others was easier to discuss with
only a few rose petals between us.

“I already know,” I said. “I’m going with
you. I can’t get anyone out, but I’m immune to hunter powers and I can fight.”

“No. You’re not coming,” she said.

“I am. If you’re there, I’m there. You
won’t have much time and there will be hunters guarding the prisoners. I’m
going, Chris.” I kissed her and drew circles on her back. I couldn’t stop
touching her. I didn’t see myself ever wanting to stop touching her. Living a
normal life outside of this bed was going to be a problem. “We’ll go save some
lives, scrub out some hunters, and then we’ll come back here and spend a few
more hours being dangerous in the house with your parents.”

“Hours?” she asked. “You think it’s been
hours?”

I gasped, refusing to look at the clock and
confirm how little time had passed, and she cackled. “It’s been at least thirty
minutes,” I said.

“Aww, you can’t tell time,” she said.
“You know what, Nate? You’re right. We’ve been at it for ages. Goodness, what
day is it? Who’s the president now?”

I tickled her and tucked her head in a
loose headlock. I laughed hard because nothing had changed about us. We were
still wrestling and joking like we weren’t naked.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” she
asked.

“I don’t know that much. Gregory said he
would tell us–Paul and me–more about it tomorrow. He’s been out of
the house all day. Planning, I think.”

“Is Paul-”

“No,” I cut in. “He’s not going. No one
even asked me to go. I decided on my own. And now I’m even more decided. I
can’t let the girl who I will re-ask to marry me–in a decade when her dad
doesn’t hate me–go alone.”

“A decade? Please don’t wait that long!”

We laughed and huddled even closer. We’d
become a Nate and Chris burrito in the blanket, and I loved it. I’d stay here
forever if I could, but Chris thought it would be better to get dressed … just
in case one of her adoring parents made a late night visit to her room. I’d
hide under the bed or in the closet, but the getaway would be far less
complicated with clothes on.

I slept in increments, waking every time
I heard the slightest sound.

Emma popped in at 5:20 A.M. and cleared the
few remaining flowers we hadn’t wanted to toss out.

“Time to go,” she said.

I stuffed my feet into my shoes and
crawled back to Chris for another kiss. Emma threw her hand between our lips
and blocked me. “I’m not letting you two ruin my all access pass to this beach
house when her dad finds you here. Say goodbye.”

I barely got the word out before she
snapped and sent me whirling to my new room at Sophia’s.

Paul sat up on my bed and clicked on the
lamp. It was the dead of night in San Antonio, not even a whisper of morning
like there had been outside of Christine’s window. He started a slow clap like
we were in one of Christine’s awful movies.

“Dude, stop,” I said.

“Aww, he’s smiling!” he said. “So Em just
texted me.
She
said that
Chris
said that last night was the worst
night of her life.”

I snatched his phone out of his hands.
There was no such text message, so I proceeded to drag him out of my bed and wrestle
him down to the ground.

I’d planned to get in bed after my shower,
but the house smelled delicious. Eggs, waffles with rich maple syrup, bacon,
and some sort of fruit. I sniffed again. It was banana. I followed the scents to
the kitchen. I expected to find Sophia but found her husband instead.

“Does Sophia always cook this early?” I
asked. He tipped a mug into the sink and poured light brown coffee that mostly smelled
like sugar into the drain.

“No, son,” he said. “I made this. She’s
actually not here. She had a few stops to make before going to work.”

He chuckled like he was oversimplifying
what his wife did every day.

“I’ll be in my study,” he said. “Join me
in there when you get your food.”

He shuffled away and I closed my eyes.
The food smelled even better in the dark.

I navigated through the kitchen with only
my ears, listening for the way glass sounds when the air from an open cabinet
hit it. The dark also offered the perfect amount of quiet my brain needed to
process last night.

There were tons of things to think of,
infinite memories to spin in my head, but only one came to me. The best one.
There was a moment when she’d laughed, right after, because of something I’d
said that I couldn’t quite remember. It was more of a snort than anything. I will
remember that sound until I die.

I didn’t have enough space on my plate
for everything I wanted to eat so I just piled the food on top of each other
and made a waffle-bacon-sausage and egg tower. After, when I finally opened my
eyes, I realized I could’ve just used two plates.

I met Paul and his grandfather in his
study. They were reading out of a book as wide as them both.

“Yo,” I said.

“I was beginning to think you got lost in
the kitchen, little buddy,” Paul said.

Gregory laughed and closed the huge book.
He lifted it and shoved it into Paul’s hands. “Give me a moment alone with
Nathan. Go work on this upstairs.”

Paul left me alone with his grandfather.
There was a twinkle in his eye that said he was up to something. “Do you
understand how Kamon nearly lured you?” he asked, shuffling over to his globe.

“Not really,” I said, with a strip of
bacon hanging out of my mouth.

“Sophia told me you heard drums while you
were putting out a fire.”

“Yeah. Remi burned flowers in a trashcan.
They smelled familiar.” He nodded and stopped the globe from spinning with his
index finger.

“Burning flowers sounds like it could be
some kind of ritual, but the drums are definitely one,” he said. “If you
would’ve grown up here…” He pointed to the tip of Alaska. “…or here, as some
believe.” He spun the globe to Russia and tapped the dot near Siberia. “You
would’ve heard those drums and known to find your leader. You would’ve dropped
everything, shifted, and ran to him … or her. It would have been an order, and
even though you didn’t grow up around your elders, you still must follow their
laws. It’s a natural urge. Kamon suspected that.”

“I take it you believe I’m a ghost,” I
said.

He chuckled and walked around to my back.
Of course I didn’t have on the worst invention ever: a t-shirt. “Absolutely,”
he said. “The pack must’ve been attacked a year after you were born. You were
too young to heal. Your wounds were closed by not-so-elegant magic. I’d say a
witch found you.”

I’d bet her name was Nicola. Christine
had heard that name in my mother’s head–the witch who sold me to her.

“The ghosts were fierce warriors, son,” he
said. “Peaceful, mostly, but when they needed to be, they were deadly. They
were very protective of our kind. I laughed about this when you joined the
Peace Group with Paul and Emma. Back then, I was the only one who believed you
were a ghost. The last ghost. I told my wife you were following your destiny
without even knowing it.”

“Then how were they attacked?” I asked.
“If they were so fierce?”

He lifted his hand to my eyes and curled
four of his fingers in the shape of claws. He placed each finger into one of
the scratches on my back. “Something was fiercer. Wolves. Don’t worry. Most
wolves with claws this vicious don’t exist anymore. They met their match after
the war ended. Her name was Lydia.”

My heart jumped because Chris was
currently stronger than her mother. I was in love with someone stronger than
the things that killed my pack and put these scars on my back.

“Do you believe in fate, son?” he asked.
I nodded. I believed in everything now. This world was too wonderful to be this
coincidental, logical place. Especially after last night. “I do as well. I
think fate kept you alive after that attack, kept you sane in that house with
your parents, all to meet us. And her.”

He gave me a blue velvet bag. I peeked
inside. Rubies, real freaking rubies, sparkled at the bottom.

“Since you’re a believer in fate,” he
said. “…you must know what it has in store for you next. I didn’t think I would
have to ask you to go with her.” I nodded and smiled. No one would ever have to
ask me to do something like that. I wouldn’t dream of letting her go alone.
“Great. We don’t have much time. Kamon’s headquarters is in Sydney, Australia.
They’re well ahead of us. Temple will be starting soon.”

He tapped the velvet bag, and the rings
jingled inside.

“What are these for?” I asked.

“You’ll see. Put them on,” he said. “One
on each finger. Not your thumbs.”

After turning me into a vampire, he gave
me a map of Kamon’s headquarters to study, and he showed me gory pictures of
broken spines and necks–the bones I would be targeting. I needed to beat
Christine to the punch when we encountered the hunters who would try to stop us
from freeing the captives. Lydia and Sophia would never forgive us for letting
her kill anyone.

For me, he said, killing would be
natural. I would feel compelled to protect Christine and the innocent and
destroy everything else.

God, I hoped he was right.

In a perfect world, we’d storm into his
headquarters and free the captives without being noticed. Once we were safely
out, Lydia’s agents would light the place up. In a perfect world, the rest of
the hunters would die. In a perfect world, Remi, Kamon, and his sons wouldn’t
make it out alive.

Today, we needed perfection in a very
imperfect world.

****

Christine

It was like saying I love you, but
feeling the words throughout your body, across every inch of your skin.

As I fastened his mother’s ring around my
neck, memories of the night before were on a constant loop in my head. His
hands on me, his arms around me, how nervous he looked, the feeling of complete
safety mixed with the danger of being in the house with my parents. My pulsed
quickened at the thought of it.

Emma and I squealed through my story, an
overly romantic rendition of our first time. Talking to my best friend in our
pajamas, props that made it seem like we’d spent the night together, was
amazing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to run to my mother’s room
and tell her everything.

Of course I didn’t. That would be stupid.
Maybe if Nate and I still lived in California and my mom lived on the other
side of the world, I would tell her. But since it had happened here, under the
same roof, it felt like blabbing would get me grounded and I’d see Nate
sometime after we made forty.

“Well, I also had an interesting night,”
she said. “Gregory came to my house after the party to ask for my help today.
With you.”

She smiled at me with sad eyes. “You
know?” I asked.

She nodded. “You’re being really brave.
Thank you. I’d do that for my family. You included.”

I stared at my best friend for a moment,
imagining her years and years older, with kids and a free life. A life where
war wasn’t a threat and Kamon Yates couldn’t throw her into a cell.

Of course, being Emma, she ruined the
moment. “It’s a wonder Nate did anything with you looking like a bush person
like you do,” she said, frowning at my eyebrows. I covered them and laughed. “I
swear I plucked those a few days ago. Are you part bear?”

I kicked her leg. “Shut up, witch.”

We laughed for a moment until her face
turned serious again. “I’m your assistant today. I’m supposed to help you
prepare.”

I did my best to remain serious as she whispered
spells while holding my hands. They seemed like protective charms and were as
powerful as anything Sophia could do. I felt the magic sweeping over me. It
felt like hundreds of little sparks zapping my skin. The nuns at St. Catalina
would toss me into a vat of holy water today. I was breaking all of their
rules–sleeping with boys, dabbling in magic.

She snapped and a chocolate muffin
appeared in her hand. The black antidote dusting the top was barely perceivable.
I scarfed it down and turned my home into a very loud place.

Sophia was here. I sensed her. It felt
like she was arguing with my mother about–gross–getting out of bed
with my father. And there was a terrible amount of anxiety in our home. It was
coming from Em and the three people downstairs. None of it, however, was coming
from me. I knew what I had to do, and I wouldn’t be alone.

Emma led me through a few more charms
until the doorbell rang. “Are you ready?” she asked.

I nodded.

Emma walked me downstairs, obviously in
on a plan I hadn’t been told about. Pop and Paul appeared in the living room,
and the doorbell rang again.