“So, to clarify, you know about…?”
“Nicole. Your parents. The role the Alpha Pack played in their deaths.” Nicole whimpered. “I know about Liam’s Army and what they expect of me.”
Alex soothed his sister with a kiss on the forehead. “Liam’s Army?” he asked as he continued to nuzzle her. The sight reminded me of the way Wolf Scout and Wolf Liam comforted one another.
“Yeah, it’s like Dumbledore’s Army, but instead of going against an evil witch cum temporary headmaster, we oppose an evil Seer cum temporary Alpha.”
“Temporary Alpha?”
“No matter what, she’s not going to hold that spot for long.” I knew the position itself was corrupt, but I couldn’t image a more vile person than Sarvarna in the spot. She had to be removed from power, even if it meant I was going to have to kill her. I might not be ready to do it now, but Liam would get me there. Of that I had no doubt.
“You know, I’m not really sold on ‘Liam’s Army’. How about ‘The Jedi’ since it’s this whole rebellion against an evil Empire thing?”
I snorted. “That’s what Jase wanted to call it.”
“The guy has good taste.”
“Well, he certainly chose a good mate,” I said. “Couldn’t have chosen a better one for him if I had accidentally made him declare himself to her myself. Oh wait. I did do that, didn’t I?”
I got to see Alex’s completely shocked expression yet again. “Jase and Talley? Seriously?”
“They seemed pretty serious to me.”
Alex leaned down to talk to Nicole. “You’re right. All the really interesting stuff happens after you die.”
His words were light, but they sat heavy in my heart all the same. True, these dream meetings were better than nothing, but I missed him. I wanted him with me in the real world. What would this have been like if he had been by my side? Would he have been the one to save me from the Alphas? Would he be the one absconding with me? Would it be his job to teach and train me? Or would all those responsibilities still have fallen to Liam? And if so, would Alex have come along for the ride?
Of course, if Alex hadn’t died, there was a good chance none of this would have happened. The exact cause of my ability to Change was still very much up in the air, much to my chagrin, but most every theory centered around the night Alex died. If he was still alive, I would probably still be a normal, boring human, and the Alphas would have never known I existed.
And they would have gone on terrorizing the Shifters of the world for God knows how long.
That’s when I had a revelation. I was already beginning to accept my life as a Shifter, but at that moment, I was happy I Changed. I might not be looking forward to the battle ahead, but it was one that needed to happen. Some things are worth fighting for. For me, this was it.
“I’m going to do it, Alex,” I said. “I’m going to Challenge Sarvarna.”
His hand froze on Nicole’s neck. “Now?”
“No, your brother has made it abundantly clear I’m not ready yet, but once I am…” In my head I saw myself on a field with tall evergreen trees and a winding stream. The ground was littered with the wounded and the dead, and in the middle I stood in front of Sarvarna, her knife lodged in my stomach.
No, I told myself. It’s not happening. Talley said it was a future not set in stone. Or maybe that was The Terminator. Either way, I had to believe that. I had to believe there was a way I could come out of this in one piece. And if there wasn’t… well, I had to ensure there was a back-up plan, someone else to swoop in and save the day.
“You don’t have to do this,” Alex said, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I looked into the grey eyes I would never forget no matter how long I lived. “Don’t I? Isn’t this the destiny you’ve been pushing me towards?”
***
I was jerked out of my dream. You know those times when you wake up from an accidental Sunday afternoon nap by a ringing phone, and because you’re so confused and discombobulated, your heart beats so hard it literally makes your chest hurt? Imagine how much worse it would be if instead of the familiar ring of your cell phone it’s the sound of a horn and some random stranger’s scream that wakes you.
“What the Hades?” I asked, my fingers digging into the first thing they could reach.
“Some idiot on a motorcycle cut in front of us,” Liam said. He motioned towards his thigh. “You know, that kind of hurts.”
I looked down to see my fingernails embedded in the denim of his jeans. “Oh, sorry!” I jerked my hand away as if his leg was scalding hot. “So sorry. I was…ummm…”
“Asleep and awoken suddenly by a potentially deadly near-accident? Yeah, I get it. It’s not a problem.”
Of course it wasn’t. There was no need for me to be embarrassed, which is exactly what I tried to explain to all the blood rushing up to the surface of my face and neck.
I leaned back and waited for the color in my cheeks to return to normal. According to the road signs, we were getting close to Indianapolis, our next stop. That meant I had been asleep for at least two hours. I took a moment to marvel at how time turned into a wibbly-wobbly ball when you were asleep. I could’ve sworn I was only on that beach with Alex for a brief period of time, twenty minutes max, but in the waking world hours had passed. Timey-wimey stuff, indeed.
“I sometimes dream about him, too.” It wasn’t even a whisper, just a breath of words I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard. Nothing about Liam’s body or face said he'd spoken, they were still in the relaxed-and-bored-bus-passenger mode, but still I waited for more. It wasn’t until I turned away he continued. “Most of the time it’s nothing. We’ll be doing something really normal and lame, like sitting around watching television and then I’ll start noticing that something is wrong. Off. And then I’ll remember.”
Still no change in position or expression, but the knuckles on the hand resting on the thigh I had just molested were turning a startling color of white. “Once I remember he’s dead, the dream is over. I never get to talk to him.” Finally he turned, and I really wish he hadn’t. I wasn’t prepared to deal with the pain in his eyes. “Not like you.”
“I have dreams like that, too.” Of course, my dreams like that weren’t about Alex but the man I killed, but Liam didn’t need to know that part. “I think Freud would tell us they represent unfinished business, a need to communicate that one last thing we never will be able.” Not that I gave it much thought, unless you count hundreds of hours of obsession as “much”.