Whoever she was, she was amazing.
She smelled bitter, like nectar. Floral like boronia and jasmine. Her hair washed over her shoulders like satin, the color so inorganic, so unusually pale, she looked like a living fairy tail for each evanescent moment it billowed in the late September breeze. He wanted everything to do with her. Everything she was, he wanted it.
She didn't walk; the air carried her. She floated to him like an angel. She looked like one too, the way she wore white lace and silver jewelry that glinted and glared like starlight in her neck's hollow—flashed like treasure through all the negative space of her web-white hair. That hair, angelic enough on its own—down now, free from its braid and billowing, opalescent in the sunlight. But she was too young to be an angel, too youthful, too alive.
Jaylin wrinkled his nose at the smell in the air. It stung his sinuses like a chemical—something he'd smelled before but never so strongly. He'd slept on the drive, wherever they'd gone. A man had pricked his arm with a needle and he was asleep in seconds. It was mid-day now, and they'd been let out of the car at the edge of the clearing. Two men joined them, the other driving off with the van they'd arrived in.
It wasn't until they were outside that Jaylin noticed his hands—no longer swollen and black, but back to the pale fleshy color they'd always been. His legs too, no longer felt so heavy. No longer hurt to walk on.
"It's just a little mistletoe," she'd told him. "Just a tiny bit to help you get around."
It was mid-day now and the woman had taken him by the hand and led him from the field, down a trail between trees—a trail treaded so often the ground had been thinned and the shrubbery trimmed and groomed to keep passer-bys from being scratched by the foliage.
He saw a building in the distance, built in the center of military-grade fencing. It felt like a government operation, especially when the woman with pearl hair and russet skin tapped a key-card against a scanning device to pass through the electric gate.
"What is this place?" Jaylin asked, a chilly prickle on his neck. The building was large and uniform with wide open windows for walls, and person after person passing by in black uniforms. Each wore a pin on their lapel—the symbol of a glaring sun.
"It was a hospital," the girl said. "Now we use it for research."
"It stinks."
The girl laughed, her voice honey. The more Jaylin heard it, the less it echoed in his head. But it was still brilliant, still lovely. He loved the sound of it. He loved everything about her and he didn't much understand why.
"It's a calming agent. We run it through the ventilation system to keep our guests behaved. You'll get used to it, I promise."
"Guests?"
The woman smiled. She let his hand slip from her own, walked on ahead. Jaylin felt the urge to take it back, so he followed closely at her side.
They didn't enter any of the glass buildings that Jaylin thought they might. Instead they passed by the facilities, through another electronic gate with pass-card access. This fence existed within the first and wrapped itself around the vast green fields of a plantation house. It looked old, but built to last and structurally maintained. Even the front steps had been replaced within the last decade.
"How about we talk over fresh bread and roasted chicken?" she asked, stepping forward onto the veranda. "Maybe a little wine if you'd like. I want to know more about you, Jaylin. I'm so glad I've finally found you."
She didn't wait for him to find his words. He wouldn't know what to say if she had. Found me? was all he could think. Have I been missing? But where she went, he wanted to go. Where she looked, he wanted to be. He couldn't understand what he was feeling for this woman—this stranger. He'd narrowed it down to an obsession. One that baffled him, one he couldn't explain. He thought maybe he might love her. But that made even less sense.
"Okay. Dinner," he said, following her through the old cedarwood door. The light shifted inside, the sun sunk away and he was blinded for a moment by the darkness. "But first, you have to tell me—"
When his sights adjusted and the dark was burned away by dim fiery candle lighting, it was not one face, one set of eyes sticking into him like arrows, but thirteen. Skulking around her, burrowing their faces affectionately into the bare skin of her knees were twelve simpering wolves. She had selected the ones at her side, one hand on each head, fingers curling, dragging through the short, coarse fur of their skulls. The others paced at her feet, eager for her attention.
"Who are you?" Jaylin released.
The woman lifted her hands from the heads of the beasts and they sulked away, displeased to be excused from her presence. Some lingered by, lounging in doorways and beneath side tables. Others clomped off to retire in peace.
"I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?" The woman smiled again. She was always smiling. She reached forward to shake his hand and he took it like her mere touch was a drug to his skin. "I am Ziya. Ziya of the East."
-
Sadie found herself standing in the door of the Sigvard's private library. Libraries had become something like the gates of hell to her. She remembered the night she spent, watching Jaylin scan in the new donations. How she ended up cowering on a table, clinging to him for fear of her life. It was a question that floated to the surface no matter how many times she'd shove it back down: what would have happened that night if she hadn't escaped the wolf?
What would she be remembered by? Taking up photography last year? The love poems she wrote as a teen, banished to darkness of her Lisa Frank spiral notebook? She remembered those days, spent fawning over Sarah J. In algebra class. Admiring the way the sun melted through her ember hair, kissed the sandy freckles on her cheeks. Sarah broke her heart that summer, those poems, dedicated to her sun-soaked eyes, now banished to the darkest corner of a bedroom closet. God, if someone found them now, she'd wish that wolf had gotten her.
But then, Sadie had grown, developed intuitively, spiritually. She wasn't the same Sadie who spent all of Freshman year crushing on that scheming bitch, Sarah J. No, this Sadie didn't waste time on heartbreak. This Sadie didn't fall for girls like that anymore—she didn't melt for icy women.
But even still, if she were to die today, she would have nothing to contribute but a few garbage poems about a romance that never sparked beyond its making—a sloppy, tipsy kiss at her first high school smasher.
This Bronx guy had saved them then, but she had that same sick pit in her stomach. Like something was watching her, climbing the walls and prowling the ceiling, following her as she tiptoed through the halls of the Sigvard's home.
Maybe she was just frightened because she'd been singled out, but why had she? Why had Quentin ordered her to meet with Alex? Why couldn't she go with him like Tisper had? Quentin wasn't unusually built; he was fit, but no more athletic than any gym rat she'd seen before. And yet, there was a comfort when he was around. A feeling of natural protection. An order.
Oh, Jaylin, she thought, breathing in the realization. No wonder. No wonder you like him so much. It was no secret that more than anything, Jaylin needed protecting. He'd spent his whole life doing it for others. He'd done it for her.
No, it wasn't Quentin that had saved her life. It was Jaylin. It was the sound of that book snapping shut against the wolf's skull that had whisked her away from its deadly jaws. It was Jaylin that had protected her. But who was here to protect Jaylin?
He put his trust in Quentin and he'd gone missing. Dropped from the face of the earth. People don't just do that. But Jaylin had, twice now. Was there any good reason at all to trust someone?
"There you are."
The voice behind her made her jump and clutch at her hard-beating heart. "Jesus H. Christ, you about scared the piss out of me."
Alexander was standing at the bend of the hall, long, ragged shirt draped down to his thighs and jeans so tight, she swore he was nothing but a skeleton beneath. He was cute, she considered. Style savvy, soft in the face. Not bad for a boy. "Seriously, you're lucky I'm not shaking in a puddle right now."
"Didn't Quen send you to me?" Alex asked. "We need to talk."
"I was looking for the bathroom," she lied.
"It's down there. I'll wait for you."
Sadie turned, started to make for the bathroom, but she didn't really have to go at all. She'd only been procrastinating for fear of what Alex might show her. "I could smell it on you", Quentin had said. Smell it on me? God, Christ, please don't let me be a werewolf too.
She could feel Alex still behind her, waiting. She could feel him like mist on the wind.
"Okay fine," she said halfway to the bathroom and whipped around. "Let's just get this over with."
"I thought you had to go?"
"Changed my mind. Can we just hurry up please?"
"I know this sounds weird, but we have to do this in my room," Alex said. He turned and started off the way he came.
Sadie twisted her brows at him but followed along despite herself, down the darkest hall where lamps didn't light much but the walls they were mounted to. Maybe the Sigvard's place was this dark on purpose. Maybe this was all some kind of macabre tribute. Maybe werewolves don't like the light, or maybe all this darkness was hiding something.
Jesus Sadie, stop thinking so much.
Alexander led her to a door with a "knock please" sign on the outside, the scent of something burning in the air.
"Are those candles?" She hesitated at the threshold. "Can I just clear the air? I'm not into guys. Like talk about playing for the other team—I don't even play the game anymore. Consider me re-ti-red."
Alex scratched awkwardly at his fluffy locks. "I—No, just come in." He was holding the door open, back pressed against it almost gentlemanly. Weren't rich people supposed to be total asshats? Giant entitled clods? Alex didn't seem like much of an asshat. Or very clod-y.
"So...this is weird, right?" Sadie said as she wandered in. "You and I have never really talked before, have we?" It was weird. It was an awkward feeling, being in the vicinity of Alexander Sigvard. But Sadie was never one for silence. "Please tell me this isn't our meet cute. Cause like I said, you're good looking, but I don't do"—she gestured to all of him with the wave of her hand—"this."
"No," Alex sighed deeply. A this-is-gonna-be-a-lot-of-work kinda sigh. "Just wait a second, alright?"
Sadie took a seat on the edge of his bed and let her eyes venture. His room was strangely normal for someone so wealthy. Clean, but not too clean—like he'd done a rushed job of it. The biggest eyesore was his closet—a large walk-in room, filled waist-high with things. So many things, Alex was shoving this and that from his path to reach the shelves on the far side.
"So uhm. As far as girls go—"
"I get it, you're gay," Alex said as he tossed a heavy box aside. "I wasn't hitting on you."
Sadie raised her voice, "I was talking about my friend, Tisper. I saw the basket you picked for her. Tell me that wasn't some saucy flirting."
"She's nice," she heard Alex say from somewhere deep in the closet.
"Single, too. What about you? Never seen you with a girl. Not that I've really seen you much at all. Well, I kind of have. I've come to your parties every year since I was a Freshman. Never seen you with a girl. Never seen you with anyone, actually." Sadie knew she was digging too deep, but Alex only responded with silence and the sound of shuffling. "I'm not trying to pry, really. It's just strange. You're cute, rich, smart from what I hear. Girls from high school ogled you—I remember that."
"We went to different schools," she heard Alex say.
"That's my whole damn point. How can someone so popular never seem to really bearoundpeople."
"Girls like money," his words stumbled with him as Alex tripped and teetered his way out of the closet with a box in his arms. "I'm too short, too skinny. Trust me, it's only the money."
"Some girls like short and skinny."
Alex blew out a labored breath. "Doesn't matter anyway."
"Ohh," Sadie crooned, watching him take a candle from his night stand and place it up-right on the floor. "So you're gay too?"
Alex laughed for once—actually laughed. He cracked a big grin, and shook his head, the curls orbiting around him. "Not everyone's gay."
"They should be."
"Maybe they should. But I'm not." He dropped to his knees in front of the candle and took something from the box. A smaller box—tiny and wooden. Carved by hand. "I have my own reasons for wanting to be alone."
Sadie joined him on the floor, seated cross-legged on the other side of the candle. He hadn't asked her to, but it felt like the right thing to do. "I don't think anyone really wants to be alone all the time. I've been through heartbreaks before but I think loneliness is the worst part of it all. Loneliness is like the after taste of every bad thing that can happen to a person. Don't you feel lonely?"
Alex seemed to think to himself for a moment. Then he reached across the candle. "Can I have your hands?"
Sadie hesitated and placed her hands in his palms. "Well, alright. But you know... still gay."
"Still gay," Alex said and shut his eyes
He stayed like that a while. Eyes closed, like he was drawing in all the sounds around him. Searching for just the right one. Then he said, "Cat."
"Cat?" Sadie lifted a skeptic brow. "What cat?"
"No, Kat," he enunciated again. "She was the one that showed you all that loneliness. Wasn't she?"
Sadie jerked her hand away, and Alexander's eyes blinked open.
"Don't freak out."
"I'm freaking out!" Sadie yelped.
"Don't freak out."
"How did you know that?"
Alex's face turned a soft shade of red, and for a moment he looked ashamed. "This is stupid. This is—I'm going to go tell Quentin that I'm not doing this."
He'd started to get up but Sadie had him by the shirt. "Stop, I'm sorry. Just tell me how you knew that. Tell me what this is."
"This," Alex said, "is the reason I like to be alone."
"I don't understand. How'd you know that? Were you on my Facebook or something?"
"You like photography," Alex said softly. "But you stopped after Kat. Because you see her face in photographs she's not even in. You hear her voice in the sound of the shudder and your case smells like the cigarettes she smoked. Everything about cameras and film remind you of her. You don't hate her like you say you do; you miss her. But she doesn't miss you."
Sadie sat in astounded silence, her eyes sheening with tears. She didn't move fast enough to wipe it away when one fell and took her mascara with it.
"Was that on your Facebook?" Alex asked quietly. He looks like he wanted to hide away in himself. A turtle without a shell.
She shook her head. It was unbelievable, but undeniable. Alexander had an ability. He looked into her and she was shaken by what he saw.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Can you do that for anyone?" Sadie whispered, clearing all the sadness from her voice and the tears from her eyes. "How—how does it work?"
"That's the thing. I don't know. It happens sometimes. Others it doesn't. Usually the times when it happens are the times I don't want it to. And when I hear what someone's thinking, I can't get it to stop." He tapped two fingers to his temple, once, then twice more. "Sometimes this helps. Sometimes I can get out of someone's head when I do this. Other times I can't shut it off, no matter how badly I want to." He gestured to his desk where his computer rig was running, blurry blue lights glaring on the processor fan. "I have friends all over the world. You just haven't seen them because they're not here. They're in South America, Russia, the Czech Republic. We talk every day, I hear their voices through my speakers. Only their voices. I don't have to hear their thoughts, you know. I don't have to deal with that."
"Couldn't you use it?" Sadie's tears had dried. She shifted, pulled her ankles in closer. "Couldn't you find Jaylin?"
"I've tried. It doesn't always work when I want it to, but I think Jaylin's just out of my reach. And besides," he said, removing two candles from the box. "We already know who has him."
"'Who has him'? Someone took Jaylin?"
Alex nodded. He set the candles in a triangular formation and lit the wicks, one after another.