Instinct

19. The Hand that Fate Dealt You

“No,” Kim admitted, fiddling with a pen in her lap. “No, they’re not.”

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

Kim looked out the window at the city behind her. “Probably,” she replied, after a moment.

He shook his head, clenching his hands into fists. “Why are you telling me this? I can’t do anything about it. Laura or my parents deal with that side of things.”

Kim stood up, her normally harassed composure strangely calm. “This is getting bad, Liam, and there’s only so many condolences Laura Armstrong and your parents can offer before they become empty words.”

He only stared at her.

“The novelty is wearing out and legitimate concerns are coming up,” she explained. “I know that you can be trusted Liam, and that you wouldn’t hurt anyone. But can the same be said for the rest of your kind?”

Liam gaped at her. “My kind? Yeah, like we’re some kind of secret society,” he scoffed. “There are bad werewolves, just like there are bad humans. But we’re all just people.”

Kim sighed again and sat down, leaning over her desk toward him. “I know that, Liam. But not everyone accepts that. You guys are a threat to people: you’re faster, stronger – you can turn into wolves, for Christ’s sake! That scares people.”

“So what?” he snapped. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to understand it, Liam, because you can’t do anything unless you understand them. Alright?”

He looked at her, the conviction in her voice and the sharp edges to her words that allowed no room for maneuvering cutting down to his mind. “Okay,” he conceded, breathless with no reason for it. “Okay, I get it. But I still don’t know what you want me to do. I’m just some teen idol, one out of hundreds. Who’s going to listen to me?”

“There are more teenagers and young adults in the world than there ever have been before, and they do listen to teen idols because you are their idol. They don’t want to see this stuff anymore than you do,” she said.

“I’m not a world leader,” he replied. “Or even the mayor of anything, I’m just a nineteen-year-old kid who got famous because of his species.”

“You and Laura are the closest your kind have to leaders, but Laura’s always dealing with the bad news. You are who people look to for hope. You set the example for good.” She paused, letting that sink in. Liam was still as overwhelmed as he had been at the beginning of the conversation. “We’ve got to show people that you’re just like them.”

“Yeah?” He said, skepticism hiding behind his words. “And how’d you plan on doing that?”

She pointed the remote at the screen and flicked back to the original channel, where hosts were still talking about the blurred shots of Stephanie leaping the fence and being ushered into the car.

“Don’t think that I forgot about it. Who is this girl?” She asked, disregarding his question.

Liam had a feeling that this was payback for changing topics earlier, and he couldn’t really blame her for playing that game. It sucked to not have the answers you wanted. He stared at the screen; mind still ticking over all of the information he’d been given in such a short meeting. Shaking his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked in a deep breath.

“Stephanie,” he said.

“Stephanie Armstrong?”

“Yes,” he replied. “The one and only.”

Kim reached for her hair, letting it down and then bundling the frizzy curls back up into a bun perched perilously on top of her head. Liam knew that she was thinking, rapid, nervous thinking. She always messed with her hair when she got like that. It was why it was always so wild, or so he assumed.

“That could be good,” she muttered, biting her thumbnail in thought. “It could work.”

Liam sat up straighter, brow furrowing. “Wait a second,” he demanded. “What are you thinking about, Kim?”

Her eyes drifted from the screen to him a time or two more before she crossed her arms and sat back in her chair again, appraising him. “The one thing that young people can’t resist,” she said. “Is a good love story.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Think about it, Liam,” Kim insisted. “Best friends separated under traumatic circumstances four years ago, reunited again in New York. It’s a plot line straight from a best-selling book.”

Liam just stared. “Except that it’s my life, and we’re not, and were never, in love, despite what people think.”

“That’s the point,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be real, just let people think what they want. They’ve already tried to draw those conclusions about you two in the past. Why not just let it continue?”

Technically there was nothing wrong with it, if you ruled out the lie of omission and the fact that Stephanie was a person who should probably have a say in how she was seen too. She’d always been more low-key than Liam himself and he wasn’t entirely sure that she knew what she was getting herself into, coming to New York like this.

“I’d have to talk to her about it,” he conceded. “But she’s not ready for all of this.”

Kim gave him a funny look. “Then why is she in New York?”

Liam really didn’t have an answer for that. Why was she here, after so long? She could have come in the beginning. There were so many things that just didn’t add up. Liam had never been that great at math, but even he could tell that this equation was unfinished.

“I’ll talk to her,” he repeated as he stood and turned to leave.

“The people need something to focus on, Liam,” Kim said as he retreated. “It’s getting worse everywhere very quickly, and Laura Armstrong is only one person. Someone needs to step up with her eventually.”

He didn’t stop, but kept walking until he exited the building. The future had once been non-existent for him, and then very bright for a while, and what went up must eventually come down.