“Because, baby,” Genna says and I can tell that Nathan can see her now because his gaze moves over to where it should be, “one hundred percent. I have to be careful.”
Genna nods towards Daisy. “Now her,” she demands.
Nathan and I both look at Daisy simultaneously.
“Praverian?” Daisy finally says with a little melody in the word and as though this whole thing is ridiculous.
“Good,” Genna says, “now to business—we have a serious problem and I never saw this coming, so let me get my thoughts together for a second.”
I may not know Genna Bishop, how she usually acts, or really much of anything about her, but the way she is right now, it doesn’t seem normal for someone like her. She appears nervous. I guess that’s what has me so confused because Praverians fear nothing except themselves and it’s obvious to all of us already that there is another Praverian around.
But why would that be our problem?
Genna rests one arm across her stomach and props the other at the elbow so that her fingers can probe her lips in thought. She paces alongside the rusted steel of the track.
Suddenly, as if she’s decided something last minute, Genna stops and looks over at us all and her hands drop back to her sides. “I guess we should get this out of the way first,” she says and then she looks to her left and a dark figure emerges from a patch of trees.
“Harry!” Daisy shouts and runs toward him.
I do a double-take and when I’m confident that I’m really seeing Harry walking toward us, I start to panic, wondering if Adria is with him, if she’s going to emerge from the trees, too. “Where’s Adria?” I say to Harry desperately. I can’t help it that I don’t ask about his well-being first; it’s obvious that Harry’s alright. I need to know about Adria and I need to know now.
“She’s not here, Isaac,” Harry says calmly and I immediately detect something very different about him.
He looks exactly the same. Perfectly healthy and unscathed, so I rule out a number of things that weren’t likely, but still could’ve been.
“Well, where is she?” I say, urging him to tell me something before a vein in my head explodes.
“My connection to Adria is still too weak,” Harry says and I’m growing more leery of him with every foreign word he speaks, “but I can tell you that she’s alive.”
I rush over to him and stand my ground, balling my fists at my sides. “Don’t do this shit to me, Harry! She’s been missing for almost two weeks! When she disappeared, you disappeared—where is she?”
Daisy steps between us, but what bothers me the most is that Harry never flinched. I don’t sense an ounce of fear or intimidation in him. And this only tells me that either he’s not Harry, or…he’s not human.
Nathan grabs me from behind and pulls me away from Harry. I don’t fight against him, but I never take my eyes off Harry’s eyes, which I’m starting to realize are different from the Harry I knew. Slowly, Harry is letting the true color of his eyes be revealed to me. They’re a deep, crimson red, sparkling around the irises just like Genna’s….
I look to and from them both, back and forth in a mystified daze.
Daisy notices Harry’s eyes now, too. She turns him around to face her; the backs of her fingers brush alongside his cheekbones. “What’s….Harry, what’s going on?”
Harry leans over and kisses Daisy, but he doesn’t answer.
“Let me start from the beginning,” Genna says. “It’s the only way any of it is going to make sense to any of you.” She looks lastly at me, waiting for me to relax and give her the floor.
I let my rigid shoulders ease and only now does Nathan let go of me.
“I’m listening,” I say, but I’m extremely impatient and as much as I want to know what’s going on, I’m still hell-bent on focusing on Adria.
Genna folds her hands behind her back and lets her breath out slowly. “When I came here, to Maine,” she begins, “I came because my Charge lived here and as you know our Charges are our most important duty.”
I glance coldly at Harry, but still nothing is making sense.
“Harry was—is—my Charge,” Genna says and I hear Daisy gasp. “I came here to see him through his transition into becoming one of us…again anyway. It’s why Adria often saw me in Harry’s presence, sitting next to him in Geometry class, at The Cove when you all decided to drag Harry along to a place packed with werewolves, which could’ve gotten him killed.” She stops for a second, gritting her teeth at this part as though still mad about it. “I was there, just in case things got too out of hand and I would need to protect him.” She takes another breath. “But something went so damn wrong and like I said, I never saw it coming.”
“What went wrong?” I say through my teeth, wanting her to hurry and get to the point.
“Harry was supposed to Become,” Genna says, “as in, go through his transition into understanding what he truly is, sometime on the night that you and Adria were attacked in that car. The night that you bonded her to you.
“But he didn’t Become and when the destiny of a Charge is altered like that, it means that another one like us, one gone Dark, was there to alter it.”
“But how do you know that anyone’s destiny was altered?” Nathan says. “I don’t believe in all that destiny and fate BS—how would you even know?”
Genna looks away from my eyes and only at Nathan now, but I can tell that it’s for more than just answering his question. She can’t force herself to look at me.
“A Charge’s destiny is always predetermined,” she starts out slowly, cautiously, which only makes me that much more apprehensive, “and we see the lives of our Charges from beginning to end. Harry’s destiny was to Become so that he could protect his own Charge…Adria.”
I can’t breathe. My chest suddenly feels like there’s something sitting on top of it, pressing down forcefully against my ribs. Nathan’s right behind me again, ready to grab me if he needs to, but right now I can’t even move. My legs feel like concrete.
I notice Daisy step away from Harry a few inches; she looks at him with confusion and uncertainty.
“It was the thing about Adria that I couldn’t understand when I fed from her long ago,” Genna says softly. “It was why I felt she was connected to us in some way…because she is a Charge.”
Finally, Harry walks closer to me, but not out of disrespect. There’s something in his eyes, maybe benevolence and sympathy. “I’m not the one you should be pissed at, Isaac,” he says and then his voice becomes more urgent. “It was never supposed to happen, that night in the car. Isaac, the attack never should’ve taken place. Adria should be perfectly normal, perfectly human right now, not even bonded by your blood or anyone else’s. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“THEN WHY DID IT?” I’m shaking with anger, and already I can feel the beast within, the rage burning in my veins. But I have to hold out. I have to control myself at least until the full moon reveals itself. My fists are clenched even harder at my sides, my arms motionless and unbreakable; blood seeps from the palms of my hands as my claws protrude and pierce my skin.
I fall down into a crouching position, pulling both hands to the sides of my head. My eyes shift black and my blade-like teeth puncture through my gums. A low growl reverberates through my body, rattling all of my bones.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” It comes out in an echoing, infernal growl. I don’t know who it was that touched my shoulder, but I’m in no mood or position to be consoled.
“Isaac,” I hear Genna say, “no one here is your enemy. I protect Harry…for now…and he protects Adria.”
I jump to my feet. “I protect Adria! She’s no one’s Charge but mine!”
My ribs are starting to crack and I fight back the pain, my fists tightened, pulling my arms back to constrict my chest and hopefully delay my transformation. This time it’s Nathan’s hand on me, holding my body up and I don’t push him away. I need the comfort of my brother. I don’t want it, but I
need it.
“Not yet, bro,” he cups the back of my neck with the palm of his hand, patting it once. “Not yet.”
I notice Daisy’s hand grab Harry’s and she pulls him away from Genna.
“If the only thing a Praverian fears is another Praverian,” Daisy says with caution and warning in her voice, “then how can you two stand here together?”
“I can’t hurt Harry,” Genna says.
“At least not yet,” Harry adds. “Once my Becoming is complete, then I’m fair game just like the rest of us. She can’t hurt me while I’m her Charge.”
“I need you to tell me everything you can about Adria,” I say to Harry. I’m doing everything in my power to hold back, to keep the beast inside because I need to know. I need whatever information Harry or Genna can give me. I don’t care about their Praverian issues. I don’t care about anything right now except finding Adria alive and getting her the hell away from all of this.
Harry’s Charge? I think not….
“I don’t see it all yet,” Harry says, “what Adria’s destined to do or become or to fulfill. I see bits and pieces here and there. A small light-haired woman. Childlike. Surrounded by orderly women. Sometimes all I can see is death; bodies laid out in a field. Mountainous. The sky churning shades of white and black and gray. And I see Viktor Vargas. Just his face.” Harry raises his head from being deep in the memories and he looks at me. “I would never hurt her…you know that, Isaac. She’s my best friend. No matter what I am, my human experiences and emotions are exactly the same. Damn, man, I’m still skinny-ass Harry who wants to be a Pro skateboarder one day. Being what I am, it never takes away those feelings.”
I see both Daisy and Nathan’s faces hanging onto Harry’s words as if they’re seeping poison into the air. I know what they’re thinking, that they can’t wrap their heads around Harry mentioning Viktor’s name, revealing to them that Viktor must still be alive. They glance at each other, but neither of them says anything.
I need to pull my head together. I look down at the ground, letting the train track and the grass sprouting all around it become the focus of my attention. I need to think.
“Genna,” Nathan says, “let’s just say this destiny stuff is legit—I’m pretending here, alright?—why would one like you mess with it?”
“They aren’t like us,” Genna and Harry clarify offensively at the same time and then Genna adds, “they go Dark for endless reasons—pick anything that might make you want to betray your own kind and it could be a reason—and out of spite, or hatred or revenge, they go out of their way to tamper with the Balance, interfering in our Charge’s lives, disrupting events that weren’t meant to be disrupted. Adria and Harry’s case is one of them. It’s why Harry didn’t Become when he was supposed to. Everything that has happened since the night Isaac and Adria were attacked in that car wasn’t meant to be.”
Harry steps in, “And it wasn’t until the night that Adria was Sired by Isaac that the Balance found its way back on course somehow.”
“Yes,” Genna says, “it’s why Harry went missing the same night that Adria did. When Adria was Sired, Harry’s destiny of Becoming finally took place.”
“So you’re telling us that there’s a Dark Praverian running around Hallowell?” Nathan says.
“I’m telling you,” Genna says with a calm sort of intensity in her voice, “that someone you know, someone close to you isn’t who they appear to be….”
The air is fraught with mindful silence.
Someone in our midst is a traitor….
Nathan, Daisy and I all share The Look because if anything in any werewolf pack is unforgivable, it is disloyalty.
“You can’t do anything yet,” Genna warns, realizing what vengeful emotions are passing between my brother and sister and I. “We have to play this off quietly, Isaac. If the traitor finds out that we’re onto him or her, and you have no plan in place to trap it, it will kill every last one of you. When we go Dark, our powers are unrestrained and limitless. We abuse them in every sense of the meaning.”
I turn my back to them all and walk a few paces down the tracks, stopping about ten feet away and looking up at the sky.
This isn’t happening! I thought that Adria being bonded by my blood and losing her mind too early was unforgivable. I thought that giving in to her and infecting her was unbearable. I thought that Adria not living through the transformation would be the ultimate nail in my coffin…but this? Adria, the only girl I’ve ever truly fucking loved is a Charge? Her life has been predetermined for her? She was meant to fulfill some asinine destiny, which we all learned almost always ends in some premature death. I want to ask how it can get any worse, but I’m afraid it will.
I march back over.
“Harry,” I say, stepping closer to him as my claws and teeth sink back into my skin and the black of my eyes fades, “where is Adria now? You have to know something, anything—Harry, it’s killing me….”
Harry looks away from me and out at the falling night. Another fifteen minutes or so and it will be completely dark, the moon will come to life somewhere behind those thick clouds and all of us will become something different. He lowers his eyes and seems to be looking down at his hands.
“Please, man…anything at all….”
I hear his breath catch and his head raises so that we can see his face again, but his crimson eyes are closed. He appears to be concentrating and I don’t dare break his attempts. Hard lines start to form at the corners of his eyes as if he’s trying to force a vision that refuses to give in to him. Then his eyes lock open and the crimson churns brighter, more furiously. He looks at no one; it’s like he can’t even see us anymore.
Daisy steps away from him.
And then finally, Harry’s concentration snaps, forcing him to slump over, bracing his hands on his thighs. “All I see is a field,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “Just a field…I’m sorry.”
My heart feels like it’s going to explode.
I know where she is…
I don’t say another word. I take off running toward Vaughan Woods as fast as my inhuman speed will take me, leaving everyone else behind.
28
I FEEL THE SWAY of the moon in my muscles, like its reaching down through the darkening clouds and wrenching them to their core, nearly folding my body into an unmoving mass. My sight is becoming sharper, giving me full view into the darkness as it gradually consumes me. My ribs…always excruciating is the pain that inundates me when they start to break one by one in fast succession. But I’m holding the Change back, forcing the last part of my humanity to the surface, spreading it thin like dying soldiers on a battlefield. I don’t stop running no matter how hard it is to run and force back the beast at the same time.
I have to get to her.
At a speed no human can match, I sprint through small pockets of night traffic and neighborhoods and old buildings, always dodging objects with ease that might otherwise crush me. I graze a tall wooden fence and leap onto the roof of a two-story house as if my body is air and I cannot be touched.
I weave my way in and out, street after street, the buildings and churches blurring into one another until I can’t make anything out at all.
Vaughan Woods comes into view and I feel like I can’t get there fast enough, no matter how hard my heart pumps this hot blood through my veins. I panic inside, feeling that every second that goes by is a second too long and it might be too late. I push myself harder, letting my mind filter its focus to the power of my legs, which only unleashes more of the beast.
I crash to my knees as two more ribs break and my hands come up, gripping my head as I arch my back, raising my burning chest to the sky. Pain rips through my spine and into the top of my head. I scream out in agony, my wails traveling through the night air as distinctly as thunder ripping through the atmosphere. I lunge forward, slamming my arms on the ground and fight the beast further, letting my need force it down for just a little longer. My heart beats in
my fingers swift and abrasively; every ounce of breath forced from my lungs puts more pressure on my insides.
I can taste the blood in my mouth, seeping in-between my teeth and moving down into the back of my throat. I swallow it down, push myself to my feet and keep running over the wooden bridge and through the water, down the embankment and toward the field.
I can smell her…I can sense her so close.
A hundred branches whip my face as I move at lightning speed past them, weaving through the black forest that only makes the night seem darker.
I can hear her heart beating…so unexpectedly…calm.
A terrifying thought hammers at my mind: Is she dying? Is that why her heartbeat is so unnaturally still? Tears are burning my eyes and my chest; searing tears that I don’t have the power to hold back.
I crash through the trees and stumble out onto the edge of the field.
I can barely walk. I hardly have the strength anymore to drag myself across the hot grass and I fall again, having less control over the power of my transformation. I scream out, raising my hands to the sky, letting the pain torture me from the inside as I fall against my chest on the ground. My breath comes out in rapid pants. I roll my body over and lay on my back against the grass and I gaze up at the stars peeking through pockets in the clouds as the pain filters through my body like hot wax, hardening in my veins.
But as I stare upward, fixating my daze-like gaze on one star in particular, I suddenly feel calmer. The weight of the pain recedes just enough to allow me to see again, to realize where I’m at and to understand what I came here for. That I need to get up from this ground and push myself forward if it’s the last thing I do.
My head falls to one side; brittle grass prickles the side of my face. The landscape is visible at an angle, causing the night sky to lay awkwardly on the horizon.