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Morning came, and I felt the effects of being a third wheel, otherwise known as the bitterness of after-tears. My face felt stretched, as if someone had rung out my eyes and let the saltiness dry over my cheeks.
Feeling ill, I pulled myself up from the cushions of the living room couch and held the heel of my palm to my temple. I felt less like a princess, and was sure any attempt at gracefulness today would result in taking a tumble. Daylight was streaming through the windows, and the pure white gleam on the water caught my eye. It was still too cold to go swimming, though.
There were issues with the pounding in my head, but as it dissipated, the voices in the kitchen became clearer. I turned to find the divider between the kitchen and the living room had been closed.
"You don't have to stay here. I can take care of things." Mary's voice came through, hushed to keep from waking me and anyone else asleep in the house.
"I'd rather stay here. Bennet and I didn't exactly come to actually hunt," John said. I figured this was true, but they were still at it early in the morning and later in the day. There was a moment of quiet, but I could still pick up on their murmured voices merging into long conversations. "I'd like to get back as soon as possible, though."
"They won't be leaving anytime soon. We could pack up and move like we used to," she suggested.
"We can't leave Lily and Amaya like this, Mary," he insisted, his voice rising. I cringed, dropping my head back down onto the pillow Mary had given me from their room. She was trying to calm John down, to at least consider leaving the shop behind, perhaps finding a place in Montana, or maybe chancing it in a larger town farther east.
"Wherever we go, if they find us, it'll just cause more damage to the people we live by," he told her. Even though his voice was level, I knew there must have been something in his expression that willed Mary to keep from chasing after her husband when he left out the back door.
I waited a while, until it didn't seem convenient that I got up just when John left. I got up from the couch and shuffled my way to the kitchen, pretending I hadn't been up to hear that conversation. Truthfully, I didn't want them to pack up and ditch Amaya and I. Even if things were a bit strange and off about the Karstens, they made me feel safer than being home alone listening to the wolves in the distance.
Mary greeted me when I entered. "Where's Bennet and Amaya?"
"Sleeping. How do you feel?"
I wondered if my eyes were still red or if I was still shaking like a flag caught in a tough wind. "Fine."
"That's good to hear." Silence settled after that, but it was stiff and made it difficult for me to make myself feel comfortable. Eventually I settled on sitting on the bench nearby the window. "Something wrong?"
"Confused is all."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, sometimes I feel the same way," she said, giving a nervous laugh followed by a distressed sigh. She held a fork in her hand and was repeatedly beating the pancake batter with it. It sloshed about with thick slaps as it folded over itself.
I gave her a questioning look before she explained. "Oh, no, not the confused part. Though I do feel confused most of the time. I just want you to know that you weren't alone in that boat last night," she said. I didn't want to believe that cheerful Mary ever experienced that kind of agony before, but the sincerity in her voice told the truth.
"How did it happen? Was it a panic attack?" I questioned. I'd never experienced one of those, but they sounded down right horrifying. I could only imagine last night was exactly that.
But she shook her head. "No, dear, just empathy. Alpha females tend to feel more sympathy for their husband's crew--its easier to understand the dynamics of a pack as a whole that way," she explained, turning her eyes back to the batter, though her focus was always flickering back to me. "It's how I knew how John felt about me before he'd even decided for himself."
Was it possible for me to feel that amount of empathy without being the partner to an Alpha? There were still so much for me to learn, things I probably even didn't need to learn, and yet I still expected to be safe here at this cabin "away" from the threat. For all I knew they could be closing in on us now.
"Brad's a danger to you, Lily. You shouldn't let him get inside your head."
"I'm just trying to help. It's like John's been torturing him this past week and I can't stand it-"
"He's torturing himself, dear. It's natural for Brad to be acting this way. When Tyler's father was Alpha, I recall him capturing newly shifted werewolves to be brought into his pack. If they refused after the ritual, they'd be isolated just like Brad until they understood how great a privilege it was to be apart of a pack."
"But that's not what we're trying to do. We don't want Brad to go running back to Tyler, do we?" I insisted, trying so hard to make my point. I didn't want this man to suffer the way he was, alone in that garage.
"Either way he will. He's pack born and bred--no matter what he'll chose Tyler's side and no one elses'." I tightened my lips together and looked away. There were a series of crack!s outside the window, and when I looked, I found John swinging that axe again and carrying the stack of wood under the cover of the back porch. He stood up and pushed back his hair from his forehead, and almost immediate turned towards the window. I averted my gaze.
I stood up from the bench and walked over to the hooks on the wall by the back door. I retrieved my sweatshirt and started towards the front door. Mary only observed until I was out of sight and out the door.
Out front, the garage door was still wide open, and the sunlight poured in through the opening. Brad had maneuvered himself as close to the light as possible, laid out on his back with his eyes shut. He looked uncomfortable, but happier.
"Can you hand me my chew?" he ask, flopping a hand out in the direction of a crate where Brad's confiscated items sat. The can of chew was already opened, so I figured John had been doing this for Brad until now.
I picked it up and strode across the garage, hesitant at first, but once I set the can into his hand, he urged himself up into a sitting position and plucked out a packet to stuff into his bottom lip. He handed the can back. "Thanks."
Not sure what to say, I walked back to the crate and set it back down. I pulled up a crate to the entrance of the garage, which was a decent distance from Brad.
His chin and cheeks were layered in brunette fuzz. His eyes were weighed by purple bags, but he still smiled when he caught me observing. Flashes of last night flooded my mind, reminding me of the glow in his eyes and the shadows engulfing half his body. He had sat in the dark like a statue in the night.
Now the morning brought about a new Brad. I was relieved to see him this way, and so much more radiant than last night. All we did was stare at each other until he decided to speak up.
"Where's that girly of yours? Amaya?" he inquired as he picked up his empty water bottle and brought it to his lips. A river of brown slid down the edge, but it was only a sliver.
"Sleeping," I answered truthfully. "I want you to explain to me what happened last night."
He perked up, as if last night wasn't full of horrible memories that still sent a shiver down my spine. "Oh, yeah, it's the connection."
I'd only ever heard about the connection being with the Alpha. I blinked back, waiting for more. I didn't have to wait very long. "It was an SOS call. John knows it won't do any good, so he just lets it happen."
"Who was it to? Tyler? Your pack?"
He shrugged, a sly grin on his lips as he brought his knees up and circled his hands around in front of his shins. "I don't know. You seemed to answer to it pretty well."
I sat back and tried to ignore that smirk he was giving me. I felt ignorant and insignificantly small--as if sympathizing with Brad had been a mistake after all. When I saw him looking at me again, I realized he couldn't control the call his wolf sent out. He was making light of it, because perhaps he didn't remember the pain now, or he chose to ignore it.
I didn't know much about imprisonment, but there came a question in my mind that I couldn't answer. Do prisoners usually act like this?
"Don't look so down, honey. It's really quite simple," he cooed before spitting more brown goo into his water bottle. "You may have helped me more than just getting this garage unlocked. I've heard Alpha females have some sort of connection with their partners. Maybe Tyler heard you."
"They're right, you are crazy," I spat, bolting up from my seat at once. At first I hadn't pegged Brad as the type to lose his mind, but after observing the progression of his attitude over his time caged in a garage, anything was possible. His delusional idea was probably a side effect of that.
"Look, Lily, I'm not lying about that!"
I glared over my shoulder at him as I walked away. I tried not to trip over my feet while doing so, but after seeing the expression he was giving me, it was difficult not to. "What?" I blurted out without even thinking, pausing in the midst of marching to the cabin.
"Why, does that surprise you?" he perked up, instantly giving me a quizzical look that I brushed off with a hard stare.
"How are Alpha females decided? It's not random, is it?" He shook his head, as if the thought of actually being paired up unknowingly was completely normal.
"Sometimes it's just love at first sight, accidental, but not random. Tyler's dad and Mary were high school sweethearts, as far as I know. Alphas are attracted to powerful women, whether they know it or not." I stared back at him blankly, hoping he couldn't see how everything he just said smacked me straight in the face and refused to sink in. But as it did, I realized that Mary fit the mold. She was sympathetic and understood others before they even understood themselves, and despite the optimistic front she held up, she could tear it all away for a good scolding, or ordering her son around, shaking a finger at her husband, or making a deal with customers.
Mary was an Alpha female, but could their subtle indications mean that I was too?
The soreness in my throat instantly evaporated once the revelation became clear to me, and denial was the first clear thought that popped into my head. My shoulders bunched in fury, stepping beneath the garage entrance to jab a shaking finger at him.
"Don't you dare tell me that! I suggest you let your little leader know he's got it wrong, and if you all come after me, or Mary's family, you'll fucking regret it!" The snarling of my shouts stunned him into silence, but he reeled himself back before he could let me get much farther than a step back from the shadows.
"But you feel it, don't you? The sickness--it crawls up on you, don't it?" he inquired, tilting his head like a puppy might, but I could see past the innocence to the truth behind his words. He'd seen it plenty of times before, and he could probably tell from the time I came to the Square ill with a beating head. "It's not just your imagination, huh?"
I sneered hatefully at him, a hand clasped tight around my throat. "Stay the hell away from us," I hissed through gritted teeth, voice shaking as I took off at a sprint back to the cabin. The door shuttered closed behind me, the sound startling me out of my furious stupor.
Unable to move any farther, I halted in the hallway with a hand on the wall to keep myself from falling or possibly hurting myself from the intense anger coursing through me like a tornado yearning to tear the house away from me. The thought of being bound to Tyler like Mary was to her ex-husband left me feeling hollow.
What felt like hours later was merely just a minute spent standing there in the hallway. At last I forced myself to walk towards the kitchen, already noting Mary's eyes on me as I walked with heavy feet to the bench by the window.
"So you already knew?" I gasped out, feeling like my chest was been continually shoved with every beat of my heart. I peered up at her from beneath my eyelashes, and found her licking her lips nervously before nodding.
"I didn't want to worry you because Tyler won't travel this far north without knowing for certain where we are. We're safe here as long as he doesn't know," she explained, and I wasn't entirely sure if that was supposed to make me feel better or just put a billowing cloud over my head that threatened to strike lightning at any moment.
"Does John know?"
"Yes. He fears that if we let Brad loose, he might not run back to Tyler without trying to take you or I first," she told me. Her hands were fretting with a dish towel that she promptly left draped over the sink and proceeded towards the plate of fresh pancakes. "Hungry?"
"Not anymore." I didn't have time to worry about eating when all this commotion was inside my head. "I should talk to him. He must have something wrong--love at first sight doesn't exist."
"Love at first sight is unlikely, yes, but it's unfortunate how lucky some of us are," she said with a heavy sigh that swelled the air with her pitying despair. "Talking to Tyler is out of the question, dear. Once he finds out that you understand the werewolf culture, he'll be forced to bring you with them unwillingly. I'm sure he was hoping you never would have learned about the powers female Alphas have."
"I can act like I don't know. He'll leave me alone, right?" She seemed to struggle with this answer, unsure of whether or not she should tell the flat out truth or skirt around it.
"Well... he's done a fairly decent job of that so far, hasn't he? Since that first day?" she inquired. I nearly forgot I'd mentioned the rooftop incident with her on one of our walks. If I knew all this before, would he have left me just the same? No. He would have kidnapped me, I thought bitterly.
"Something isn't right. I'm no werewolf--I lived in the suburbs with my parents. They'd have to be werewolves, right?" I tried to rationalize, but Mary didn't seem convinced. I groaned a little too loudly and leant my head back against the window glass.
"It's not always the case. It's complicated, Lily," she said, most likely as an excuse to keep from thinking too hard about it. When she saw the annoyed look I was giving her, she tsked her tongue and stepped closer to rest her hand on my shoulder. She gave it a tight squeeze and said, "You can share anything with me, dear."
We ended the conversation there and kept to ourselves for the majority of the morning.