She waited on the back porch for him, standing by the railing with her fingers pulling at the hem of her shirt.
And she waited.
And waited.
The moon grew tall in the sky, the stars multiplied and dispersed, and Charlotte waited. Inside, something was clawing to the surface, made her skin itch. She wanted to run off the porch, run into the woods, find Gabe and tell him-- tell him what?
You couldn't see by looking at her, not with her face set in such a strict mask and her back as straight as it was, but Charlotte was tearing apart inside. She was forgetting everything at the same rate her mind was making things up. She couldn't remember where her house was in this town, yet somehow she'd sworn she spent hours this afternoon with Gabe despite the fact he physically couldn't enter the town during the day.
Yet it was as though her mind had forgotten something incredibly important, so important it had left a carbon copy behind so that as she stood on the porch waiting for her beast to come back to her, she fought her own mental decay to remember. Runes. She remembered runes, but her grandma had been using runes to help her all day long.
But there was something else. Something more. Without knowing it, Charlotte raised her hand and rubbed her scar where it ached straight down to the organ beating beneath her chest. Where the hell was Gabe?
Like a bullet, an image of her on the ground, aching and losing her mind in a prison of runes blinded her. She stumbled to the side, catching herself on the porch when it felt like her legs would give out. God, oh god, oh god. She straightened herself, suddenly begging for Gabe to arrive more than ever. Her grandma was killing her. Her god damn grandma was god damn killing her.
Heaving, trying to catch a breath, Charlotte took a step as though to run when the sound of the back door had her pausing.
And just like that, like the breeze her memories represented inside her fragile mind, the thought of her grandma killing her blew away. The woman stepping out onto the porch with her was not a murderer, but a friend, a second mother, someone Charlotte loved dearly.
She offered a smile and relaxed, wondering when she had gotten so tense. "Grandma." she greeted. "What are you still doing up?"
Her grandma came to her side and then passed her, dropping into the chair by the back porch corner. "I don't sleep much anymore sweetheart." she admitted, peeking up at the sky. "Where's your beast tonight Charlie?"
Reminded of her purpose out here, so late, so desperate, came back like a sobering punch. "I don't know." she shrugged, and turned back to face the forest off her grandmas porch just in case Gabe decided to show up at that moment. "Grandma why--" Charlotte winced, feeling foolish for being unable to ask a simple question.
"Why didn't I tell you about the beasts? About us?" her grandma supplied for her, saving Charlotte from her moment of weakness.
Charlotte winced again, but nodded. "I could have handled it. I just-- I don't understand. Why lie? Why tell everyone the beasts are terrible, that they're, well, beasts? Why can I leave, but no one else can? Nothing makes sense."
Silence met Charlotte, but she waited. Her grandma taught her patience and stubbornness in equal parts. "Take a seat, Charlie."
She didn't move at first, instead staring harder into the darkness around her. When Gabe didn't show in a flurry of perfect timing, she turned and sat beside her grandma. Another bout of silence. Her grandma was always one for theatrics, for burning the minutes until anticipation was almost deadly.
"You and I are extraordinary creatures." Her grandma sighed. She lifted an aged and wrinkled hand, examined the effects of time catching up. "What we do is the finest of arts. We discover and manipulate that thin line between miracle and madness."
Charlotte nodded, itching at her scar absently when it burned. She'd heard this a thousand times as a kid. In every lesson, the same speech was given. "Why keep the beasts so secret though? Why did you have to make us fear them?"
"Because they need their mates, Charlotte, and a family isn't giving their child over to a bunch of beasts willingly."
"You don't know that."
"I do. We tried. For the first few decades we tried until the townspeople stormed the beasts for their loved ones. It was a near massacre of our people. There was no other way."
"Charlotte closed her eyes, tried to stop imagining that. "But fault lines?" she pressed for more information. "Energy fault lines? And-and only us can leave? Grandma did you sign a - a contract? A long time ago? Something to trap everyone here?"
Her grandma grinned suddenly, a giggle escaping. "Trapped?" she looked at Charlotte with an eyebrow raised. "Oh, Charlotte, they're not trapped."
Charlotte knew better than to question her grandma further, that she'd tell her more only when she felt like it. But Charlotte also knew that her mind was burning to the ground and this small moment of sanity wouldn't last. She didn't have time for patience anymore.
"Grandma, please-"
"We need a fault line to survive." She cut in, voice sharper than it has been. "When it is in our nature to consistently pour energy out of ourselves every time we use a rune, there is no other way to live than by a source. Outside of one, we can survive maybe a week. Inside, we can survive for much longer."
"How much longer?"
To that her grandma pursed her lips and gazed out to the shadows Charlotte had spent hours looking in. "Until that energy fault breaks, Charlie. Until we've stayed so long that there's no more energy left to use."
"And then what? What happens to us, to all of the people afterwards? To my mom and dad and brother? They're not like us, they're not like you or the elders. Why are they wrapped up in all of this too?"
Annoyed now, completely lacking her cool and calm exterior, her grandma turned her head to the side and fixed Charlotte with a withering glare. "When you settle on a fault lie, you lock it. No external energy recycling happens. If we can't die, then we need to feel the line from somewhere."
"You settled those people here with you just so they could die? Just so they could give their energy, their souls, to the fault line and let you live?"
Appalled, Charlotte stood up. Her heart was being fast and now, just as before, certain memories came to the forefront, sprinkled with fear and panic and a different kind of pain.
Her grandma stood with her, looking older and more fragile than ever under the moonlight. "The world isn't roses and sunshine, sweetheart. The world's about surviving. This is what we do. This is who we are."
"Then- then why are you killing me too?" Charlotte asked, even as the memories flickered like a bad light, reminding her and making her forget in seconds of who her grandma really was. It was exhausting standing there, fighting madness even though it was like fighting a brush fire with a water gun.
"Charlie." Her grandma said, more herself, more calm, more sincere. She took a step towards Charlotte, who countered it with one of her own. She was powerful, more powerful than Charlotte, and she had no idea what kind of runes and tricks her grandma had lying around. She needed out. Get away, her mind screamed. Get away. Get away. Get away-
"Your beast isn't here, honey." She said, almost sadly, with a shake of her head. "He's preoccupied someplace else, and will be for a while. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming for you at all. This is just the way it has to be."
Her grandma took another step, and Charlotte stumbled back once more. "The energy fault is breaking, isn't it?" she asked, blinking, trying desperately to fight a losing battle. Stay sane, she told herself. Stay sane. Get out. Find Gabe. Stan sane. "And you're dying."
Her grandma paused, tilted her head to the side so old, graying strawberry blonde hair fell to the side. "I'm not dead yet, Charlotte."
Her next step forward Charlotte didn't remember, not when despite her best efforts her mind slipped once more and she faded away into nothing.
.
.
Gabe lifted his head and stared at the sun high in the sky until his eyes burned. That damn thing seemed to be stuck at its highest point. He itched, ached, to find Charlotte. The human knew he had nothing left to offer, no way to help her. The beast didn't care.
Gabe needed her.
It's what she needed, he told himself. It's what she needed.
He was on his roof, leaning back on the black tiles. The sun was high, yet the roof felt cool to the touch, almost pleasant to lean on. His eyes skirted over the sky, passed over each cloud, followed every bird. Why did Charlotte always stare up when she was up here? It was . . . boring. He's been here since sunrise and after the burst and swirl of color, it's been absolutely dull.
Would he ever find out what she watched when she came up to the roof and watched the sky? Why she did it?
Gabe knew several things about Charlotte. He knew she was brilliant, but that was obvious. You could tell in the ways he looked at things like it was all a puzzle and her only goal was to put it together. She could spend hours staring at the tree tops and pulling Gabe to her side with something akin to childlike excitement just to tell him how photosynthesis works.
He also knew Charlotte wasn't perfect. For him she was the most perfect thing in the world but reality would disagree. She had allergies and when her nose ran after sneezing seventeen times, she'd rub it on her sleeve then do some sort of chunky sniffle thing.
There was also this thing she did when she woke up in the morning, without fail, every single day. She sat up, blinked like she was drugged, then stretched. But it wasn't a normal stretch, that Gabe wouldn't mind. It was break her spine, reach for the sun, go into a split sort of stretch. And not even that, he would mind. It was the screech she did while stretching that made his ears bleed. She was perfect, he swore it, but Charlotte could hit pitches not even his beast could hear.
Charlotte was naturally compassionate, though. She didn't have to try, she didn't have to put in a single ounce of effort. It was just in her blood. The small things she did, like open the windows when she woke before him because she knew he liked the smell of morning dew, or speaking to the kids in town because she knew they looked up to her, couldn't go unnoticed. Perfect. She was perfect.
There was plenty of things he still didn't know about her, too, and that was an awful thought. With a whole life having Charlotte beside him, he would have made it a challenge to discover every little thing.
But now, he might never find out what she looked at up on this roof.
She was also miles away, and the day was dragging on and on and on.
"Gabriel." Odin called from the front yard, head craned back to gaze up at his king. "Jason's gone."
"Did you check the shed again?" he sighed. The boy had fled there hours earlier, upset to tears again. The town had been in a flurry finding him until someone heard the sniffles from the shed in the backyard.
"We've checked everywhere." Odin said. Gabe noticed the twinge of unease in his voice for the first time. "And his scent fades into the forest."
Gabe swore, leaping from the roof and landing feet beside his friend. "No one went after him?"
Odin paused. "We thought with Charlotte's granddad out-"
"He's after Charlotte, not us."
"And Charlotte fell in love with a beast." Odin was quick to argue. "What better way to get to her than through us?"
Gabe grunted, started walking past Odin. "She doesn't love me." He sure as hell wished she did.
"Grab three others, meet me out there." He called back over his shoulder to his friend before meandering his way through town. He met the edge of the forest, inhaled deeply, let the beast within taste the air and catch Jason's scent.
The next moment, the shadows swallowed him up and he was surrounded by the thick, heady scent of nature. The only sound around him was the crunch of the leaves and sticks, snapping like gunshots in the still air.
For a moment, a sense of unease settled into Gabe's chest. Most animals fell silent around a beasts approach, it was instinct to do so upon a predator's arrival. But Gabe had incredible senses, and he could hear every animal before they heard Gabe.
If they were silent now . . . well, Gabe could only assume there was an even bigger predator around.
Instinct allowed his beast to take control of Gabe's actions. Let his eyes see things differently in the foggy sunlight coming from the forest canopy. Let that other sense taste the air for something bigger, something more dangerous, than the king of beasts himself.
Jason's scent intensified, signaling he was closer, but Gabe nearly accidentally ripped the boys head off when he stepped from around a tree, facing Gabe with trembling hands.
"Jesus, Jason." Gabe growled, tugging a hand through his hair. "You can't run off like this, kid, you've got the entire town out looking for you again."
Jason blinked slow, stared at Gabe for long moment. He blinked again before a spark of recognition flared life into the boys eyes. "Gabe?" he asked, voice trembling.
Something wasn't right. Something really, really wasn't right.
"Jason-"
"It is you." He breathed, smiling, stepping forwards and reaching a hand out for Gabe. "I was so scared it was someone else."
"Someone else? Who?"
Jason smiled, blinked slow, lifted a trembling hand and Gabe didn't see the symbol painted on his palm until it was too late, until Jason's hand was touching Gabe's exposed arm.
A jolt shot through Gabe's body, like an extra thousand pounds was added to Gabe's build. Jason dropped almost instantly, a lifeless pile on the forest floor. If it weren't for the sound of his steady heartbeat Gabe would have thought he was dead.
And he would have kneeled beside him, too, picked him up and darted back to town for help and backup, if he could move at all. His limbs were stuck, frozen, limp beneath a terrible weight on every limb in his body.
"The boy's fine, I can assure you." Came a deep, tired voice from the shadows. Gabe's head jerked up just as a figure emerged from the protruding darkness of the forest, grey hair hanging around his old, aging face. "He's just a bit worn. Beasts shouldn't use runes, after all, but I need all the energy I can."
"Jerimiah." Gabe hissed, a rage burning him up.
The old man grinned. It wasn't maniacal, it wasn't cruel, it was just a warm smile in greeting. "Gabe. How great it is to finally meet you. I've been waiting a while for the right time, but seeing as your mate seems to be running out of time, I'm running low on it also."
Gabe tugged against the frozen state of his body to no avail, his efforts going unnoticed. "What have you done to her?" he snarled, seeing red.
"Me?" Jerimiah laughed, threw his head back and just laughed to the sky. "I've done nothing. Yet. You, though, you've been fooled to the upmost degree Gabriel."
He pulled a pocket knife from his khakis and strolled to a pine tree. If Jeremiah hadn't reached for it, Gabe would never have noticed the symbol carved into the bark. Jeremiah ran his knife through it, marring its perfection, and like a light switch the day turned to night.
Gabe glanced around at the pitch black, his beast allowing him sight through the dark. Not even the moon seemed to be alive on this night. "What the hell is this?" Gabe hissed.
"It's night, Gabe. Since you've dropped Charlotte off, it's been night, it's been day, and it's been night again. And you've sat around like an idiot the entire time, caught in a time loop." Jerimiah sighed and shook his head. "Barbara was always one for the intricate tricks."
Days? It's been days? "Barbara did this?"
"Oh, yes, and much more. But that's not what I need to talk to you about right now."
"Release me." Gabe demanded. "Release me, and we'll talk."
"Yes, I assume it'd be quite easy for you to talk to my mangled, deformed body." The old man laughed. "You'd kill me in an instance, no matter how much I insist you're going to have to hear what I'm going to say."
And damn it, he was right. Gabe knew a thousand different ways he wanted to kill the man, could feel the need burning his blood hot.
"And what do you have to say." Gabe bit out, forced himself to ask. Charlotte was in danger. Charlotte could be dead, right this very second, and he was trapped in his own prison, unable to help. Unable to move.
Jerimiah leveled Gabe with an even stare, one that demanded attention, one that didn't leave room for a haughty argument. "You're mate's going to die, Gabriel, there's no getting around it."
Gabe snarled, the sound tearing through the still night. Profanities spewed from his mouth at a rate even Charlotte would be in awe of as he fought his own body to get his hands on the horrific man in front of him.
"Gabriel." Jerimiah snapped, and for a brief moment the king of beasts paused, surprised by his own obedience. "Enough. Charlotte is going to die, there's no way around it, so you need to stop snarling like a wounded puppy and listen up."
"Why tell me this?" Gabe growled, his own rage burning him alive. "What purpose does this have?"
Jerimiah placed another one of his withering stares upon Gabe, pinned the beast in place.
"Because I'm going to kill your mate." He declared, vOice strong and firm and so sure. "And you're going to let me.'