Chapter 69

MEGAN

Guys are such assholes!

Okay, sure not every single man out there is an asshole, but that bar sure was full of them.

Working on my new assignment, I had to pause the audio to yawn and stretch. The perk of being a remote transcriber was that I could live anywhere. I didn’t have to worry about finding work when I moved because I could just take my work with me. If it wasn’t so damn boring, it would be the perfect job.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor.

I wanted to be able to help people, heal them, and work with them toward having a better life. My mom was a witch and she worked wonders helping people. I was so inspired by that.

Unfortunately, because my father was a wolf shifter instead of any other kind of magic, I was left with just seeing. I was so pissed. The first time my powers ever showed up I was seven and at a friend’s birthday party. I looked into her eyes as I gave her the gift I’d picked out, and could see her talking to our friends about how terrible and weird I was.

It was like my mind became a white wall and someone aimed a projector at it for me to watch.

I could see it so clearly.

I tried to keep quiet about what happened, but within the next couple of weeks, I was told that she was talking behind my back.

As a seven-year-old, this was devastating. Since then, I’ve seen good and bad.

Future weddings, funerals, and mundane things like someone accidentally leaving their keys in the fridge. In the end, it was a lot of information to process that I didn't need. It didn't happen every time I looked into someone's eyes, but it happened often enough to bug the hell out of me. I couldn't work a retail job, couldn't own a business. Imagine going through the check-out and your cashier phases out for a good twenty seconds, only to come back and tell you that you need to take a faster path home because your husband is cheating on you and you need to catch him.

It’s overwhelming for everyone involved.

With transcribing, I just had to listen to audio, everything from doctor’s notes to meeting minutes, and type out what I heard. No eye contact.

Pulling off my headphones, I decided it was time for a break. I’d been too distracted lately.

The trash from the Chinese takeout I’d ordered the night before was still on my counter, and I sighed. I should at least keep my apartment clean. Almost every woman in the building was trying to befriend me. It was nice, I’d never had a ton of friends, but that meant I couldn’t just leave my place a pigsty.

Tossing the leftovers in the trash, I tied off the kitchen trash bag to take it out.

There was one thing that was kind of nice about the bar.

The first guy who talked to me, regardless of how damn rude he was, was so hot.

He was the kind of eye candy that would make you want to avoid eye contact even if you weren’t a seer, he had that kind of magnetic attraction about him. It’d been a while since I’d met anyone who overwhelmed me like that, not that I wasn’t attracted to my ex when I dated him.

This guy just exuded sex, it steamed out of his pores and almost filled the whole bar with his scent. I couldn’t place what the smell was, like cloves and plywood, but different. How he fit those thighs in those jeans, I couldn’t be sure, but I was, at the time, interested in seeing how he used what was between them.

Until he opened his mouth. Of course!

I sighed to myself in frustration as I made my way down to the dumpster.

Tossing my bag in with a thud, I was surprised that I wasn’t alone.

As I turned around, I accidentally made eye contact with Anna. “Hey,” she started to say, but the world slipped away from me. Oh, no!

It was dark, midnight or later, and she was there by the trash cans. Something large, huge, was stalking behind her. She was still pregnant, maybe more than she was at the current time, and she was struggling to lift a small trash bag into the dumpster.

The thing in the shadows was stalking her, following her.

In my mind, I tried to warn her, wanted to grab her away and protect her, but I wasn't there. She was alone. Her blue nightgown fluttered around her as the thing leaped, pinning her down hard onto the concrete below. She hit her head and the last thing I could see was it opening its mouth and revealing huge teeth.

“Megan?” I could feel a hand on my arm, and I jumped as I came out of the vision.

It felt like I hadn’t breathed that whole time.

Gasping, leaning over, and trying to relax, I could feel a cold sweat breaking out over my face and neck.

“Honey, are you okay?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, um ... yeah, I’m okay,” I lied. Anna pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “It’s not a fever,” I couldn’t stop the huff of laughter that came out with that.

“What was that? A stroke?” She sounded scared.

“No, sorry,” I shook my head. “I’m a seer.”

Standing up straight, I tried to reclaim my composure. I mean, as much composure as a person can have standing outside of her apartment complex in her pajamas and flip-flops.

“You are?” she sounded thrilled. This threw me off, and I tried to hide it. My worst fear was that she’d try to gather people around for their ‘fortunes to be told.’ I’d been invited to so many sleepovers for that, only for people to be angry when I refused to make eye contact. “Come on, let’s get you inside,” she offered. I nodded and let her lead me up to my apartment.

While we walked, I glanced at her belly.

She was maybe just a little more pregnant than when I last saw her. Her belly was already pretty swollen like she was ready to burst at any moment.

Once we were in, she had me sit on one of my bar stools, at the tall counter that separated my kitchen from my living room and poured me a glass of water.

“My cousin is a seer,” she explained. “Her mother was a witch, my aunt by blood, and her uncle was a bear shifter. She lives over in Springfield,” she motioned, as though I could see the human city from within my apartment.

“Her visions only come when she’s submerged in water, though. Even showers can trigger one, she has to take baths and wash her hair in the sink.”

"Oh," I was surprised. That would be such a pain to avoid. I loved the water, having to go without a good long shower or swim would kill me. "Mine comes on when I make eye contact with people," I offered.

“That sounds frustrating,” she said softly. “How do you feel?”

"Better," I nodded as I sipped the water. "Thank you for this." She nodded and smiled before her phone let out a loud pinging noise.

“Oh! I have to go, my husband is picking me up for my doctor’s appointment, we’re officially halfway through the third trimester,” she smiled as she patted her stomach. It was so refreshing that she wasn't asking what I saw, usually, people hounded me for it.

“Congrats,” I smiled as earnestly as I could. “You should make him take out the trash from here on out, I don’t want to see you down there with me,” I teased. I wanted to push her in the right direction without scaring her.

“I’ll be fine,” she laughed at me. “I’ll stop by later to make sure you’re okay, please give yourself a break.” I nodded and smiled as she went, but the second she was gone it was like the air was sucked from the room. Something had attacked her in my vision.

It was huge, not just some ordinary carnivorous shifter, this thing was gigantic!

Not quite a dragon, but bigger than a tiger or bear. It was a cat, though, I was sure of it.

Sipping my water, I decided I needed to get out of the apartment.

I would eventually have to figure out what to do about all of this, but for now, I needed to get out and away from it. The stress would eat at me otherwise.

Getting dressed quickly, I pulled my hair into as much of a ponytail as it could make. It came out more like a little flame of hair stuck to the back of

my head. This was fine, it’s not like I was going to run into anyone important.

My bike roared as I started it and then headed into town.

Anna would have been mad at me for not taking more time to sit there, but I couldn’t let that vision haunt me. I had to keep moving.

Ember Abyss was the perfect mix of a city and a small town.

There was no shortage of stores, or places to buy any good or service you could ever imagine, but the traffic wasn’t hell and the people were nice. It was such a nice combination. When riding my motorcycle, I always kept on a highly tinted pair of sunglasses to avoid eye contact. My mother would have preferred I wore a helmet, but if I was about to get in a crash, it was easier just to shift and get out of the way than it was to hope I’d survive as a human.

I hadn’t shifted since the break-up.

It isn’t on purpose, it’s just that, with the move and saying goodbye to friends, I was too busy to slip away to the forest. I could always just shift in the comfort of my own home, sure, but that always felt a little claustrophobic.

The wolf in me wanted to run, an apartment wasn’t great for that. A familiar scent caught my nose, and I slowed to a stop.

It was him.

That rude biker who turned me away because I was a seer. I knew I should have just kept going, but something told me to go and talk to him. He wasn’t nice, but he at least knew the area better than me.

If there was a shifter that stood out as much as the thing in my dream, he’d probably know about it.

Turning off my bike, I walked into the vehicle body shop where his scent was coming from.

I needed his help.