Lily stepped away from the Supernova, her heels brushing the edge of the pier. She gripped the banister to ground herself as he cocked his head to the side, dark eyes following her movements.
"It wasn't that hard putting two together." He said, slowly walking onto the pier towards her. "Your abilities manifesting when they did, the mystery of the glowing grey eyes haunting my school. I knew who you were before you ever did."
"I don't understand." Lily stammered, her eyes melting back to their normal dark shade. "Who are you? What are you?"
He smiled slowly, his white teeth almost blinding compared to his dark skin. "My name is Jacob. I'm a shade."
"A shade?" Lily tried to comprehend what and who was standing in front of her.
"Would you like the full story?" Jacob asked. "Or the short snappy version?"
Lily blinked. "Which one doesn't get me killed?"
"None of them."
"Then the long one, please."
Jacob frowned at her. "I'm not here to kill you, little river. I'm here to inform you, guide you. You have no knowledge of who you are and what your place is in our world - I'm here to change that."
"Little river..." Lily clenched her jaw. "Why does everyone call me that?"
"Because that is what you are." Jacob now stood beside her on the pier, one push from him and she'd tumble into the lake. "My predecessor Freida could see it a mile off. I can sense your power, it cannot hide itself from me. And the rogue, Yuric, knows power when he smells it."
"I'm a little river? That's my creature?!"
"Of course not," Jacob shook his head. "Shall we sit?"
Lily, left with no other option than to hear out the Supernova, sat down next to him, their feet dangling over the water. "I have a lot of questions."
"I'm sure you do."
"Are you going to answer them?"
"Not all of them," Jacob stared her down. "There are some things you need to learn on your own."
"Do you know what my creature is?" Lily asked anyway, knowing she might not get an answer.
"Let's start with my story first, and I'll tell you what you need to know." Jacob waved her question aside and stared at the fish swimming beneath their feet.
"I was born in Kenya." Jacob recounted. "I was a hunter for my tribe, spearing fish and taking them to our tables. I was loved by my village until the raid.
"My people ran or fought, but I was a coward. I hid, prayed to whatever gods were above my head or beneath my feet that I'd be hidden. Safe. I only realised I was using my shade abilities when my friends came looking for me and walked right past me.
"Your abilities didn't arrive when you were born?" Lily frowned. "Like with werewolves?"
"A shade doesn't use his abilities from birth like werewolves or vampires. Ours is a choice that begins when we first need to hide." Jacob's eyes glazed over as he drowned in a memory Lily couldn't see.
"I was shunned from my village. I fled, and as I grew older I grew stronger, more powerful. It's amazing how much you can learn about the world when the world is blind to you, and what people do when they think no one is looking." A haunted expression filled his face for a moment, remembering the horrors he'd seen, but he drew up his smiling facade for the young Lily. "I met many supernaturals from all walks of life throughout my journey. I found my place some years ago, when I realised that I could not be beaten by those who could not see me."
Lily leaned back against the fence. "You became the Supernova."
"When I came across this town, Freida invited me to tea by leaving a note in the newspaper. A clever trick I hadn't expected of her. She knew my name but couldn't see me coming. She knew her title of the supernova was no longer hers. She gave me her blessing that day, in her home. Her daughter was only a young child. I could hear her playing in the other room."
"Jack." Lily suddenly realised something. "How long have you been watching me? I swear someone was watching me when I stayed in that house."
"I've been watching you carefully these past weeks, when your life suddenly became quite entertaining, but I've seen you for years. Only now, do you see me." Jacob circled his wrist, brushing a jagged scar on his flesh. "You are the first person to see me when I'm invisible."
Lily chose to ignore what he was implying. "These two weeks have been when my creature has surfaced. Did...did you sense that being a shade?"
"A shade only has the ability to hide." Jacob had a gleam in his eyes and the corners of his mouth tucked up, like he was telling a little joke to himself. "But you should know something about yourself, Lily, about the so-called creature you are desperate to name."
Lily held her breath, bracing herself for the news she'd spent years waiting to hear. She could only imagine the words he'd say. What was her creature? Was she like a witch, a creature who could turn on her magic like a switch? A vampire, a being with an unnatural strength and speed? Could she shift into another form like a werewolf? Was she similar to a fairy in that she could use her abilities for good? Maybe she was like Jacob; someone destined to never be seen, to forever walk alone.
"You do not have a creature, little river."
"Excuse me?" Lily blurted out. "I'm definitely a supernatural!"
"I never said you weren't." Jacob smiled. "Your creature is not another side of you like a werewolf or a vampire. You do not have abilities you can turn on or off like a witch. You are your creature. You are not two different people but you are one and the same. Not two sides of the same coin, but one thing, and one thing alone."
Lily took in what he was saying. Somehow it made sense, somewhere deep down she knew that it something else. It was always her. "What am I Jacob?" Lily whispered, gripping her wrists tightly, her mothers bracelets still around her arms, trying to find some of the strength and wisdom she once had.
"My reference to 'little river' isn't one to your creature, but your abilities. Your kind's abilities begin first like a trickle of water, and they slowly build. From a drop to a leak, to a puddle to a stream, then a river, a lake, an ocean. Your power only grows with age."
"You've met others like me?" Lily gasped.
"Only one, eight years ago." Jacob swung his legs gently. "She was running to the mountains in the north. Her name was Nerida Haven."
"My grandmother." Lily squeezed her hands tightly, hearing a knuckle pop. "Is she alive?"
"I haven't seen her since." Jacob shifted so he was completely facing Lily, mimicking her by also resting on the fence behind him. "I walked her to the village she sought and we spoke during our journey, shared all our stories."
"And she told you about me?"
"Nerida spoke of herself," Jacob reminisced. "She spoke of her abilities, and her freedom. Nova High was still quite new, and she laughed in my face at my offer for her to be one of the teachers. She would have been an asset to the school - someone who knew so much about herself, and a creature we knew almost nothing about, but she didn't want to be chained or contained by anything.
"She spoke briefly of the family she left behind - a daughter with her own children - but didn't mention what she left, only what she sought: an adventure. She told her tales of her youth and abilities, how they manifested. It's how I knew you were her descendant, you had the same traits."
"What traits? What are we?!"
Jacob leaned forward, fed up of Lily asking questions and not piecing it together herself. "Haven't you realised yet? Did you never wonder why Marlin's Bay always had the perfect tide and perfect rain, and when you left it became dry and bleak? How the town we're standing in right now has had a plethora of rain for exactly six years, the same amount of years you've lived here with dear Olivia? That it's almost always downcast, storming or raining?"
"T-That's not possible!" Lily shook her head violently. "I didn't do anything!"
"You didn't have to! Your abilities reacted to everything around you, they'd surfaced long before last week! They've been around you all this time, you've been hidden from knowledge for too long, but no longer."
Lily's hands were shaking as shock rendered her frozen like a lake. "You still haven't told me what I am, what my family was." Her voice was hoarse.
"You and your grandmother were the only creatures like yourself. Your parents and sisters weren't as powerful. They're weak in comparison."
Lily's hands stilled and her eyes flashed silver. "Don't talk about my family like that."
Jacob watched her carefully. "Nerida explained that her abilities truly manifested after a trauma in her youth, when she needed to defend herself."
"When I saved Alice," Lily realised. "That's when my eyes burned for the first time."
"That's when you truly began to come into your abilities, when you realised what you were capable of." Jacob looked along the pier to the forest ahead of them. "And also when others began to realise it too."
"Do you know Yuric? What he plans to do to me?"
"No," Jacob said after a moment. "He's the grandson of Illya, the last werewolf Supernova from the 1800's, before my time. He knows what power is, known it his whole life. It's in his blood."
Lily gulped. "He wants to trade me for Poppy."
"The young werewolf who was taken yesterday outside the ice cream parlour?"
"Yes. He has her, said he'd release her if I turn myself over." Lily breathed out trying to sooth her shaking lips. "The others are deciding a plan now."
"It's not up to them." Jacob leaned forward and rested on his elbows. "It's up to you."
"I don't even know where he is."
"He's north of here, if you left now and began walking you'd reach him before sundown." Jacob informed.
"I thought you didn't know him?"
"I don't." Jacob grinned. "But no one can hide from a shade."
Lily frowned briefly, more memories surging forward. "Where were you when the lock down happened? An all powerful Supernova couldn't go up against some rogues?"
"Who do you think set the alarm off?" Jacob's eyes narrowed. "Do not think me cowardly or weak, I'm still the Supernova. My title has a responsibility you cannot yet understand."
Lily remembered Claire mentioning that the principal's office was meant to be empty when the lock down sounded. "And outside the principal's office? In the meditation class? What were you thinking then?"
Jacob shot to his feet, Lily quickly following, as they walked to the end of the pier and stood on fresh soil. "That's everything for now." He declared, and waved a hand north, where Yuric was waiting for her hours away. "You need to start walking now if you plan on seeing Yuric before sunset."
Lily hesitated. "You still haven't told me what I am."
"I haven't told you a lot of things, and I'm not about to tell them to you now." Jacob shrugged his shoulders. "Some things can only be learned through time."
"And what if I die tonight? What if Yuric kills me? I don't want to die not knowing who I am."
"You're Lily Morgan; the girl who can save alphas and paralyse supernovas. You know more about our history than most. You're immune to magic and you're not confined to a creature's bloodlust or shift. You're a powerful girl, Lily, but most importantly, you are not alone. The rogue cannot kill you."
Lily calmed at his words and turned north after a breath, and slowly took a step forward. And another. One after the other away from the Supernova and the pack house behind her, and towards the rogue who was holding Poppy hostage. Her fate wasn't tied down to Andrew's final decision nor whatever Yuric was planning - her life was hers. She wasn't about to let someone else rule over it, neither was she about to let Poppy be harmed because she was waiting for someone to make a decision only she could make.
She was going to save Poppy.
"You should know, Lily," Jacob called, and when Lily turned back she just glimpsed the shadows wrapping him back up to hide him from the world yet again. "That you're stronger than those rogues. Don't go down without a fight and I'll tell you everything else the world has hidden from you."
Lily nodded, his promise fueling her as she marched northward. She wasn't going to die today, not when there was so much she didn't know.
She was going to fight. She was going to live. And then, she was going to corner Jacob and demand all the answers she'd been searching for her whole life.
Starting with what she truly was.
~
Thank you all so much for reading Typhoon! It's not over yet, still several chapters to go. You're all eager to know if Jack goes to the formal with Andrew, if Ryan ever tells Lily how he feels, and if Lily will ever find out what her creature is. What are you looking forward to in this book?