13

our days passed without any arguments. Lori kept her distance from Nicholas, only leaving her room to visit Arden during the day. At night she locked herself in her bedroom, careful to avoid Nicholas altogether. This was a result of Arden’s doing. He had asked her, as kindly as he could, to keep herself scarce around him. She willingly agreed. Lori could see how easy it was to ruffle the werewolf’s fur. Messing with him further risked angering Arden, a loyalty she no longer wanted to jeopardize.
As each day ended with no sign from The Brotherhood, Lori felt the tension grow. She knew they would make a move, but how will the first strike occur? Up until this point, she relied on the information given to her by an ex-member of The Brotherhood. Figuring out their next move, however, was something she had no patience for, and contacting her source wasn’t an option. His paranoia was his lifeline. Anyone who decided or attempted to leave The Brotherhood forfeited their lives. Once someone was in, they stayed till death—a marriage without divorce—a choice many saw as a second chance in life. Lori’s source, on the other hand, was one of the few who managed to disappear after he escaped. Now living in fear of being found, his dealings with Lori were kept to a single visit every three months. Lori had another month before their next meeting.
She saw this as her deadline. If The Brotherhood didn’t make a move on Nicholas and Arden by then, she would cut her ties with them and seek out her source. His paranoia wouldn’t appreciate her visit if she were accompanied by someone in The Brotherhood’s crosshairs. But it would be a meeting she must attend. If she happened to miss any scheduled meeting, their arrangement would come to an abrupt end. Lori couldn’t risk it. He was her only connection to the leviathan at the center of her obsession.
Waiting and more waiting was a boring sentence for one such as Lori. But the game was a delicate one, and Arden served his place well, keeping the boredom to a manageable level as they squandered the days away.

Outside in the sun’s midday light, a blue Honda Civic crept down the driveway toward the quiet house. The car stopped before the porch, its engine turning off before a young woman in her early twenties stepped out. She squinted through the bright sunlight and surveyed the overgrown property. In her hand she held a small piece of paper with a scribbled address. The written numbers matched the metal ones on the house. This was her confirmation. There was no mailbox at the end of the driveway to make her search easier, but the verbal directions given to her were enough.
Stuffing the paper into her pocket, the woman climbed the steps to the porch, and with a quick straightening of her clothes, knocked on the door. She waited. Her eyes went from side to side, looking for any movements or signs of the homeowner. Knocking once more, the woman moved to the nearest window and found the curtains pulled tight. “Great,” she grumbled.
Continuing on, the woman headed off the porch to the inspect the garage. She wanted to be certain no one was home before calling the visit a bust. Whoever lived here had the answers she was looking for, and giving up this soon, while she was close to the finish line, would haunt her for the rest of her life.
No ‘what ifs’, she would tell herself. I need to know what happened.
The woman reached for the handle on the garage door.
“May I help you?” asked a man’s voice.
Whipping around, the woman brought her hand to her chest, catching the breath he startled from her. “You frightened me,” she said, exhaling. “I wasn’t sure if anyone was home.” The woman approached the man standing on the porch and extended her hand. “My name’s Tasha Daniels.”
The blond haired man kept his arms folded over his chest as he stared at her.
Tasha lowered her hand and continued speaking. “I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, but I have some questions about my father. He was friends with your father years ago, before I was born.”
“I can’t help you,” Nicholas replied.
“Please, I want to know more about him—my father. Everything I’ve learned about him has led me here.”
“My father died a few years ago. I won’t be able to help you.”
“He was the alpha, right?”
Nicholas remained stern. “There’s nothing here for you,” he said as he walked back to the front door.
Tasha followed him, pleading with him in an attempt to gain any foothold. “I have no family or pack. I was hoping to find something to cling to or learn from. From what I can see, we’re the same. A life alone isn’t really living for those like us.”
As Nicholas reached for the door it swung open, the blurred form of Lori ran out, her body colliding into Tasha and sending them both off the porch and onto the ground. Lori pinned the woman and began driving her fist into her face, each blow building in strength until the woman’s body gave in.
“What are you doing?” Nicholas shouted.
“Following an order,” she replied. Sitting back, Lori’s studied the woman underneath her. “Not much of a fighter,” she added as she stood up and grabbed the woman’s ankles. She then drug the unconscious Tasha up the steps, her head striking each one with a thud.
Nicholas entered the house behind them and closed the door. Lori stopped dragging the woman to pick her up and carry her downstairs. At the bottom, Arden waited by the kitchen and ordered, “In here.”
Lori continued to follow his command as she sat Tasha in a chair pulled out from the small table. Nicholas waited by the doorway, watching as Arden bound the woman to the chair with duct tape, finishing as he secured her legs.
“What has you spooked?” Nicholas asked.
Tossing the roll of tape to the side, Arden answered, his eyes on the woman. “She’s hollow.”
“You’re gonna need to explain.”
“She has no emotions. No simple werewolf is that skilled in suppression.”
Lori reached into her back pocket and removed a coil of silver wire, rolled tight and constructed for this very occasion. She moved closer to the woman and wrapped it around her neck.
Another set of eyes found the group in the kitchen. Jayda heard the commotion from her room and snuck into the hallway to investigate. She was shocked to see a young woman bound to a chair and Lori standing before her with, what looked like piano wire, wrapped around the woman’s neck. The woman seemed to react to the wire and rolled her head to the side as she began to awake.
Tasha’s raspy voice passed through her sluggish lips. “What happened? What’s going on?”
Lori tightened the wire and demanded, “Who sent you?”
The sharp pain caused by the silver wire sent Tasha into a panic. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” She pulled tight on the wire before letting go, then looked at Arden and asked, “I need a knife.” Arden handed her the custom knife he carried and stood back to watch. Using her fingertips, Lori felt around the woman’s arms, pressing deep for any signs of a foreign object. This was the only evidence she needed to find. If this woman, Tasha, was sent here by The Brotherhood, then she would have some kind of tracking device inside her. Everyone working for them, subject and scientist, were fitted with such devices.
The woman called out on pain as Lori felt around her upper arms, fingers working through her muscle. A hard object moved within, sending Lori’s stomach to sink. Raising the knife, she drove it into Tasha’s upper arm.
Tasha screamed at the searing pain caused by the silver blade. The scream blended into a roar, then a vicious growl as she threw her weight forward, rocking the chair and aiming for Lori. Her mouth reopened, teeth sharp, and clamped onto Lori’s shoulder. As quick as the attack began, Arden already had a hold of the woman’s hair, yanking her away from Lori and taking the wire into his hands. He then pulled, the silver wire cutting through her skin and sending her wolf side into submission.
Lori ignored the damage to her shoulder as she returned to Tasha’s arm, delivering her own viciousness with the aid of the knife. She wiggled it within the muscle until she felt it strike the foreign object, then with her fingers, she fished it out. Lori faced Nicholas and held the tracking device up for him to see.
“She’s with The Brotherhood,” Lori confirmed. She handed the blood covered device to him and added, “Don’t smash this one.”
“Let me go!” Tasha begged.
Lori went back to the woman and grabbed her under the jaw, forcing her to look up. “Who sent you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Why are you here?”
Tasha’s body relaxed. She knew the answer to this question. “My brother, he told me I can find information about my father if I came here. He told me this before he died last month.”
Lori’s lips tightened into a sneer. “She’s been brainwashed.” Backing away, she asked Nicholas, “I can’t tell… Is she a pureblood?”
Nicholas gave a weak nod. “Yeah.”
Looking beyond him, Lori spoke to the girl watching in the hall. “Jayda, can you do a favor for me?”
She blinked at the mentioning of her name. Up until this point she was transfixed on the brutality she’d been witnessing. This, added with the constant weight of the house’s energy, numbed her other senses.
“Uh, sure,” Jayda answered as she broke through the stiffness that had filled her legs. Stepping into the kitchen, she stood near Lori and listened to her request.
“Can you see if you can get anything from her. Any feeling or thought?”
Jayda shook her head. “I told you it doesn’t work that way.”
“I can help you,” Lori said, taking her hand. Guiding her to kneel before the woman, she began with her instructions. “You have to close your eyes and calm your mind.” She waited until she saw Jayda’s eyes close before continuing. “Visualize a single point between your eyes. See this point begin to lengthen. It divides your body into two perfect halves. This is your center. Let the line vanish.” She waited, counting the moments with the beating of her heart. “Now, with your hand, touch hers.”
Jayda, with eyes still closed, extended her hand. As her skin touched Tasha’s, the flash of white heat surrounded her. She felt her head splitting open under the crushing thunder of metal and fire. Her sight took on Tasha’s last moments as she saw the sea of red roll away from her and toward the shoes of three men. Their voices were muffled by the pressure in her head and the life fading away. The scene closed in around her, sealing everything in a blanket of darkness.
Jayda’s eyes flew open. She stumbled away from Tasha and the vision, scrambling back until she was met with Nicholas’ legs. “I saw—I saw,” she stammered between shallow gasps. “It was her death.”
“What all did you see?” Lori asked.
Jayda held her head as she fought through the phantom pain. “They shot her in the head. I could see their shoes—black, shiny shoes. I think they were wearing suits. They were talking. I couldn’t make out the words.”
Lori’s stomach sank further as she realized the truth. “We took the bait.” Looking from Arden to Nicholas she began to explain, her words almost sounding like a rambling mess. “So stupid, so stupid! They wanted us to question her, they were betting on this. And I can’t believe we fell for it. She’s not going to tell us anything. She has no idea what happened to her. She’s like a robot. They programmed her with this story. They needed conformation. And we just gave it to them.”
“Do we let her go?” asked Nicholas.
“They’ll kill her if we do,” Jayda said, pulling herself to stand beside him.
Tasha began to scream once more. Lori, Nicholas, and Jayda looked to see Arden pulling the wire tight, the thin silver slicing further into her. The pressure closed off her windpipe, ending her screams. Increasing the tension, Arden twisted the wire, the thin metal cutting through tissue and muscle, stopping as it met her spine. Arden then held the wire in one and used the other to push her head forward as he yanked the wire back, ripping through the fragile spine. Tasha’s head rolled free and landed on the floor.
Jayda’s screams replaced Tasha’s as she buried her head into Nicholas’ chest. He held her close, his hand to her head.
“No vision of the future is permanent,” Arden remarked, dropping the wire to the floor.
“Of course not,” agreed Lori, “especially when you know what to change.”
“You didn’t have to kill her!” Nicholas fumed.
Arden remained calm in the face of his anger. “If we had let her leave, her death would have been by their hands. Only the cause had changed.”
“You’re cleaning this up,” he growled.
Lori gestured to the bloodied remains of Tasha with the knife. “This seals it. They needed to know if your were on to them. As you said, the ball was in their court. And now we just spiked it right back to them.”
The werewolf glared at Lori. “I’m not running.”
“What’s the point in staying?” she asked.
“This is my home.”
“This is your father’s home. That’s the real reason you won’t leave. You still feel guilty for what he did.”
Nicholas shot Arden a dangerous look, knowing he told Lori more than he should. “You’re beginning to talk too much.” He glanced at the mess. “Both of you, clean this up.” He then left the kitchen, still holding onto Jayda.
Lori followed them into the hall. “I can’t stress to you how stupid your choice is to stay here.”
He stopped to look at her. “You are a guest here. Do as I say or leave!”
“So you’re just going to sit around and wait for the cosmos to decide your fate. What are you going to do when Arden finally leaves?”
“That will be years after the dust settles from this mess,” he said as he saw Arden stand in the doorway.
Lori glance at him as well. “What about when he takes Jayda away from here?”
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed at Arden. “What is she talking about?”
The vampire didn’t answer.
Lori’s eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. “You’re going to give her to Gysai as a peace offering from Nauvia.” She turned to Nicholas. “Gysai likes to collect human oddities and awaken their full potential with her blood.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because my husband was the first in her collection. His special sight gave birth to her obsession.”
Nicholas looked at Arden once more. “Is this what you’ve been planning this whole time?”
Arden finally answered. “She will be a gift to Gysai. Her life will find meaning in her care.”
Jayda’s eyes darted between the three discussing her fate. “Don’t I have a say in what I want?”
Arden’s cold eyes met hers. “Your life was spared by me. I will decide your fate.”
“Spoken like a true vampire,” muttered Lori. She raised her voice as she continued. “Listen, you all can discuss this later. We have a bigger issue to deal with.”
Nicholas bypassed the attempt to change the conversation. His focus lingered on Arden. “You’re not taking her anywhere, least not to some vampire queen who wants her for some collection.”
“In this matter,” Arden snapped back, “you cannot command me.”
“It should be her decision.”
Jayda remained nestled against Nicholas as she spoke up. “I’m staying here.”
Seeing no reason to argue further, Arden walked past them, glancing at Lori as he ordered, “Get rid of the body.”
They waited in the hall until they heard the door to his room close. Nicholas eased his hold on Jayda, reassuring his promise to her. “You’re not going anywhere with him,” he said, his eyes dropping to hers.
Lori shook her head at the foolhardy vow. “He has it in his mind what he’s going to do, and that’s not going to change.”
“How did you become an expert on him so fast?” Nicholas asked.
She shrugged as her lips tightened on themselves.
Jayda answered for her. “She sneaks into his room during the day.”
“And your point?” Lori shot back. “I have no issue with what you think of me, but the fact is clear; The Brotherhood now knows beyond all doubt that you’re aware of their surveillance on you. They will act again. But the real question is when.” She could see the wheels turning in Nicholas stubborn brain. His reply shocked her and Jayda.
“We’ll leave tonight,” he said, calmly.
Lori let her relief show through as she sighed. “Thank you.”
Nicholas looked at the tiny tracking device in his hand, then handed it to her. Without another word, he led Jayda down the hall and to her room, then closed the door behind them.
The terrified girl sat on her bed, her hands under her legs in an attempt to quiet everything within. Nicholas sat beside her and placed a comforting hand to her back.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
She stared at the floor, eyes wide as she replayed the horror she just witnessed. “I keep seeing her face. She honestly didn’t know what was happening. It’s like that part of her mind no longer existed.”
“It’ll be alright.”
Tears began to roll over her cheeks in the presence of another thought. “He’s going to take me to her.”
“Listen to me,” he said, forcing her to look at him. “I won’t let him take you.”
“I know my death,” she said as her lungs shuddered amidst the words. “I saw it. I die by the hand of something extremely old and powerful. It’s going to be her. I know that now.”
His eyes locked on hers. “You just now saw that your visions can be changed. You don’t have to let this happen.”
“But she still died.”
He lowered his voice, reaffirming his stance on the matter. “I won’t let that happen. If I have to, I’ll kill him.”
“You can’t make a promise like that. What’s my life really worth?”
“A minute ago you wanted to stay here, and now you’re going to give up?”
“I’ve learned not to expect much from anything. I know what I want but I know it will never happen.”
“You have to try and fight it. You don’t belong to anyone. You have a say in your own life.”
Jayda heard the honest compassion in his voice. No one had ever spoken to her like this before. Others may have said similar things, but to believe them, to know that they truly care for her, was something their words lacked.
Brushing the hair from his forehead, Jayda allowed his words to comfort her. She leaned in closer to him and placed her lips to his in a soft kiss. Nicholas felt himself give in for a moment before pulling away.
“Get some rest,” he said, leaving the bed.
Stunned by the change in his actions, Jayda watched as he left the room. Usually after she shown any interest in any guy, they proceeded to take what she offered. But Nicholas spurned her at every turn. He didn’t want her. But did this mean that he only wanted her around for her ability?
That’s all she was to anyone—a dumb human with a rare gift. No one cared about the girl, just the gift she carried. If she stayed with them, she knew Arden would deliver her to this vampire queen. But if she could find some way to leave everyone behind, there was a chance she could erase her vision altogether.
No more relying on others. She had to create her own fate.