Aria "Stay here, I need to run out."
"What? Where?" Zane had grabbed his jacket and keys and was heading toward the front door, but before he could get out, I caught his arm. "Where are you going?"
He stopped and half-turned, glancing at my hand wrapped around the leather of his jacket. "To the bar."
"What"s happening?"
He sighed. "Someone broke into your car last night."
"They broke in?"
He nodded.
"I"m going with you."
"No, you"re not."
"I"ll just come on foot if you don"t take me."
"I doubt you have a clue where you are."
"I will not stay here. It"s my car, d.a.m.n it!" He was hiding something from me. "Stop telling me what I can and cannot do. I"ve had enough of that."
He sighed, considering. "Fine. Get your jacket."
I nodded and ran up the stairs to the room I"d spent the night in, found my jacket, and ran back down. Zane opened the door, letting me out. Worry creased his brow, and he didn"t speak as we got into the truck. He lived in an even more remote location than the bar because it took us twenty minutes to even get on a paved road and even then, we only pa.s.sed one gas station along the way. Once at the bar, I saw two motorcycles parked outside, along with my little Miata, its soft top torn to shreds.
"Oh no. Who would have done this?" I asked.
Zane parked next to the building and climbed out, never taking his eyes off the car. Fly walked out of the bar and nodded a greeting to me.
"Go inside, Aria," Zane said.
"No. I want to know what"s going on. You can"t expect me to just blindly trust you."
Fly muttered something as he joined us. Zane turned to me, opened his mouth then closed it again and nodded. "Okay. Fine." He seemed annoyed, but we walked over together and I realized as soon as we were close enough to see inside why he was trying to keep me from it. What he was hoping to prevent me from seeing. And seeing it made me stop dead in my tracks, memories of that night six years ago rushing back. The glimpse of my mother"s body, lying in a pool of blood. My brother near her, the violence done him making me queasy even now. The detective had yelled for someone to get me out of there, but it was too late. The images were burned into my mind. And that was the reason for the black rose on my arm. Bryan had been covered with them. Dozens of black roses strewn across his body - not my mother"s, just his. And there, in the driver"s seat of my car, lying on shards of broken gla.s.s, was a single black rose, thorns intact, the flower terrifying in its perfection.
Zane picked it up, turning to me, the look in his eyes telling me all I needed to know. I took a step back and felt Fly"s gaze on me as I shook my head.
"Have you seen the security footage yet?" Zane asked him.
Fly shook his head. "Camera was vandalized."
"Of course."
"What does this mean?" I asked, although the answer to that question churned in my gut.
I stared at the rose in Zane"s hand.
"It means they"re not finished," he said, snapping the rose in half and throwing it to the ground, smashing it beneath his foot before returning his gaze to mine. "It never was finished."
For the longest time after the night of the murders, all I"d felt was anger, a hot, growing rage inside me. It gave me strength to go on, to stop feeling sorry for myself and think of something else, something much more important: revenge. It was what had kept me going for so many years. Fear had always been there, in the background. If it hadn"t been for Zane, if it hadn"t been for him taking me to that hotel, I"d be dead now, too.
It had been building for months, this crazy attraction between us. He"d been so responsible all along. He was my brother"s best friend. He was eighteen. I was sixteen. But it was undeniable, like this thing with us, it chased us, it never let up no matter how hard he tried to resist it. Me? I"d never even tried to fight it. Not once. And that night, he"d given in. We"d been at a hotel the night my mother and brother were murdered. He"d stopped just short of taking what I so desperately wanted to give him, but the things we"d done - I had never felt like that before or since.
When we"d gotten home, it had been surreal. The street had been alive with police lights, sirens sounding in the distance still on their way to the scene. I remembered now the feeling of disbelief, of utter helplessness as I walked up to the house, every part of me shaking, tears already streaming down my face. I"d walked in through the open front door. So many people around, and no one had stopped me. They were all too busy processing the scene. And I"d walked in to find them lying like that, blood everywhere, more blood than I"d even imagined possible. And the roses...all those roses.
I knew what Zane wasn"t saying, what that black rose meant. It was a warning.
No, a promise.
A promise of death.
My death.
"Aria? You okay?" Zane tilted my face up to his. "Aria?"
We were inside the bar. Fly set a gla.s.s of water in front of me then took a seat.
"Did they take anything?"
"I don"t know," Zane said, glancing at Fly.
"The glove compartment. I have something important." The page from Bryan"s diary.
"I"ll go." Fly was on his feet and out the door before either of us could stop him.
"Drink the water, Aria."
I picked it up and took a sip, my hand trembling. Fly came in, and we both turned. He held the envelope that contained the page and the anonymous letter.
"Was it him? Was it Obsidian who left the rose?" I asked Zane.
Fly"s forehead creased, and he glanced at Zane, but Zane kept his eyes on me.
"I"m not going to let anyone hurt you, Aria." Pause. "What"s in the envelope?"
I took out both the note and the sheet from Bryan"s diary. I handed over the anonymous note first. I had it memorized.
The man you want is called Obsidian.
He read it then pa.s.sed it over to Fly and waited for the next one.
"I think this was a page from Bryan"s diary."
Zane took it and read it, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, glancing at me once before returning his attention to the sheet. There was so much he was keeping from me and if I wasn"t sure before, I was now. Zane Von knew much more than he let on, and it was time for answers.
"What was going to happen in two weeks, Zane? What is he talking about? Why would you tell him he had to leave us?"
Fly stood. "I"m going to do a perimeter check."
Zane nodded, his expression heavy. He waited until Fly was out the door before he met my eyes. "Did your mother every talk about your dad? About where you come from?"
"She hardly mentioned him. I"d find her going through old photographs, but she wouldn"t talk about him."
"Did anyone tell you how he died?"
I shook my head. "I knew he was killed but not how."
He rubbed his face with both hands before running them through his hair, pulling at the roots. "This is going to be so freaking hard."
"Well, it can"t be worse than the stories I"ve made up in my head all these years."
"Oh, trust me..." He met my gaze. "Do you know what a shape shifter is?"
"A what?"
"Okay, let"s just back up. That may not be the best place to start. There are two...groups, rivals, one of which your father was a part of."
"What do you mean by "group"?"
He put his hand up. "Just wait; let me tell you the story. Your father was part of one, and your mother the other."
"Okay." Not really, but at least he was talking.
"When they got married, there were more than a few people from both sides whose feathers were ruffled."
"I"m not sure if you"re trying to be funny or sugarcoat this somehow for me, but there"s no need for that. My family was murdered. I"ve just received a death threat. Please, tell me what is going on. Tell it to me straight, Zane."
He stood and walked over to the bar, taking a bottle of beer, offering me one.
"No, thanks." Beer would not taste good to me for a very long time.
He twisted the cap off his and drank about half the bottle at the bar before coming back to the table.
"When your mom and dad got married, they p.i.s.sed a lot of people off, Aria. And when your father was killed, your mom took off with you and Bryan and pretty much severed all ties with her father. I know you"re pretty angry about how your grandfather"s handled things, but I can understand why he did what he did. He let your mother go, thinking she"d be safer separate from him, from anything to do with him, but he was obviously wrong. I think putting you at the school was his way of safeguarding you."
"So are you saying the same people who killed my father killed my mom and Bryan?"
"Maybe not the exact same, but most likely from the same group."
"Why? I mean, who was my father? I can"t understand people being so opposed to their marriage that they"d kill them. It doesn"t make any sense. It"s 2015, and you"re making them out to sound like freaking Romeo and Juliet."
He pushed Bryan"s letter in front of me. "Read this."
"I"ve read it, Zane. A thousand times."
"Well, read it again, for me. Just read it out loud."
I looked at it and began: "I don"t remember my dad. Aria doesn"t either. She searches photographs sometimes, but I can see in her eyes there"s no memory. Maybe it"s better she doesn"t know, doesn"t find out.
I"ll be eighteen in two weeks. That"s when it will happen. If it happens. I"m pretty sure it will. I see my body, how it"s changing, growing, and I know. I feel different inside, too. Hungrier. That"s the only way I can describe it. It scares me. If it happens, I have to leave Mom and Aria behind. Now that I know what I am... why and from whom we"re running, I"m not sure that"s a great idea. Zane says it is. He says it"s the only thing I can do to keep them safe. I can"t imagine leaving them unprotected, especially Aria. She"s just a kid. And she has no idea who what we are."
Stopping, I looked up at him. "What"s he talking about? What is this thing that will happen? What does he mean what he is, "what we are"?"
"This is going to sound crazy, Aria, but you just have to put aside any - logical - anything when I tell you."
"You"re scaring me," I chuckled but, truly, my hands were trembling.
"Your family, the men in your family, they carry a certain gene. It"s an extra piece in their makeup. I have it, too. Actually, most of the people you saw at the bar are shifters."
"Shifters." I sat back and shook my head, but the longer I watched him, the longer he watched me, the more I realized he was telling the truth. Or at least telling a truth he believed. "What exactly is a shifter?"
"I think you know that."
"Humor me."
"A human being who has the ability to shape shift into a...wolf...in this case."
I busted out laughing at that just as the door opened and Fly walked in.
"All clear, Z."
Zane took his eyes off me for a minute. "Thanks, man."
"What"s so funny?" Fly asked.
"Just telling Aria where she comes from."
Where she comes from.
"Ah." He moved behind the bar like this was the most casual, most natural conversation. "Opening up as usual?"
Zane nodded and turned to me. "My office is in the back. Why don"t you go lie down and process what I"ve told you so far. I need to make a couple of calls, and we can talk again later, okay?"
"Okay?" I asked, rising to my feet as he helped me. "You just told me my brother was a...a...shape shifter. That my family descends from werewolves. Which means what for me, I have no idea, but I can tell you one thing-I"ve never changed into a hairy beast at the full moon-"
"Full moon has nothing to do with it," he said, ushering me into his office.
"I was joking. That was a joke."
"Lie down for a bit. Fly will be here if you need anything. Just...stay here. Inside. Don"t go anywhere until I get back."
"Where are you going?"