Chapter 815 Chapter 815
Jake had no problem finding where she went. Her scent was all he could smell. She stood in one of his favorite spots, where you could look down into the river. He could hear the rushing water from up here. He decided he should let her know he was there so he didn’t startle her and cause her to slip.
He could smell salty tears and knew she’d been crying. He cleared his throat loudly and watched her turn. Her eyes were red. How the hell was he supposed to stand here and do nothing when she’d been crying? He’d rather rip out all his teeth than watch that. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think what I’m feeling is close to okay.” Her voice shook with emotion.
“Yeah, I get that. Uh, Gage – Gage just told me you found out some things.”
“I found out some horrifying things.” She wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Yeah, there’s some pretty sick shit going on.”
“It’s been going on for years. Longer than I have been alive.”
He nodded. “Yeah. It got worse recently.” Which in terms of time, he meant the last twenty years.
“Did it? Or did we just find out? Does everyone know?”
Nodding, he jammed his hands into his back pockets. “With modern technology, I suppose we’re finding out a lot more than before.” He frowned as something occurred to him. “Or it’s the technology that made it easier for them.”
“I – this just confirms everything I have felt. Everything I thought about what I am. About what I have no choice in.”
“What do you mean, what you are?”
“A shapeshifter. I turn into a tiger.”
“Uh, yeah, there’s a lot of that going around.” Had he ever met a shifter that didn’t want to be one? He didn’t think so.
“Not with me, there’s not. I left it all behind. I lived in the city. I built a life in the city. My business is in the city. I wasn’t around shifters. I didn’t talk about shifters. I didn’t go out with shifters. I was a normal person.” Her voice cracked.
“But you’re not. You’re a normal shifter.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Nothing about shifting is normal, and it shouldn’t be.”
He was so confused. In Kelsey’s situation, she didn’t know that shifters existed. Keeping it from her hadn’t been easy, but they’d been ordered to. With Rory, she knew shifters existed. She’d grown up knowing. She knew. She had to have shifted too. “You’ve never shifted?”
“Yes. Because I didn’t have a choice.”
His cat was so still he wasn’t sure what was wrong. “What do you mean?”
“It took over my body, and it happened. It was horrible.”
The first time was scary, he wouldn’t deny that. “But you’ve shifted since the first time?”
She shrugged and turned to look back at the river. “A few times, but I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t something I could control.” She spun back around and looked at him. “But now, I control it. It doesn’t control me.”
“It? You mean your – your animal? Your cat?” He didn’t have a name for his or anything, but he didn’t think of him as it. That was just insulting. Maybe he misunderstood. “Yeah, you have to work together, and sometimes they want to come out, and it’s not the best time, and you have to override.” He shrugged.
“No. You’re not understanding. There is no work together or sometimes. There’s no symbiotic relationship and all that. I just don’t shift. I’m a normal person with a normal job and live in the city.”
He scowled. “You did. You almost died in the city.” He winced. He probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, but it was the truth.
“I know.” Her voice was softer. “I know. They were after me, weren’t they?” She sniffled. “They weren’t after me because of who I am. They killed Blanche because she wasn’t a shifter, didn’t they?”
“Most likely.”
“Kobie and Kelsey said – said that the Alliance is fighting them and they got the top guy. So why – why did it happen?” Tears were running down her cheeks.
Jake looked around and wished all the snow was gone so he could sit somewhere because his cat was losing it right now, and he wasn’t far behind. He didn’t know how to help her. He wanted to hold her but knew she would reject that. “I’m not on one of the teams. I fix cars and equipment. I was at the Factory – that’s like a new headquarters the Alliance is using, and I heard a lot of conversations and I’ve heard Blair and Noah talking about what they’ve done. Calum is here sometimes, and I’ve heard him, and Gage knows things. Aiden Tomas was running North America. They don’t know – I know less, but that’s not important right now – the Alliance doesn’t know if the Tomas family started it and took it worldwide or if it was a bunch of people that had the same idea, and it happened over time. They don’t know. What I do know is that they have him and are working on shutting down all the rest in North America…”
“What do you mean North America?” She wasn’t crying now. “This goes beyond this continent? It isn’t just happening here in Ontario?”
“No. This is worldwide. I haven’t met them yet, but there are some guys from other countries on the international team. It’s worldwide. They came here to help us because they need help there.”
“So – why did they want me?”
Jake sighed. He didn’t know how much the girls had told her. Some of the things that had been happening turned his stomach, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her things like that. Did he tell her the truth? That kind of thing would be better coming from a female. “I don’t know why they wanted you. I don’t know. Maybe they needed a female tiger.” It wasn’t a lie at all. He didn’t know. He turned back and looked at the river, and he just wanted to hold her and tell her it was going to be all right.
“I can’t do it.” She whispered.
“Do what? You got away. You’re safe. You’re safe here. There are so many tigers here.” He scoffed. “We could start a new planet; there’s so many here.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.” She waved her arms around. “I can’t do this. This.”
He looked around. “What? Like stand out here and talk? Do you want to go back? Are you cold? Do you want my jacket? Your jacket doesn’t look very thick.”
“No, I don’t want your jacket. I can’t go back. I can’t do this. Jake, I can’t do this. I can’t live here. I can’t be part of your tiger population. I’m not a shifter.”
“Rory, you are a shifter. You may not shift, but you’re still a shifter. You can’t change what’s inside of you.”
“But I did. I did change it. I don’t have to shift anymore.”
“Look, I don’t know about that. I – you know what, I fricken love being a shifter. I love running. Faster than two legs can carry me and stopping fast, and chasing things – it’s just – I love all the scents and sights I pick up. I love being a shifter.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, I don’t know how you can’t enjoy it when you shift. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass when your animal is nagging at you and they want to do one thing and you want to do something else, but when you guys do get together, there’s nothing like it, you know? And you may not like it, and I know you started a new life, and that’s okay. That’s what you needed to do, and that’s okay too; everyone needs to be true to themselves.”
“I don’t want to shift. Ever since I got here, everything hurts.” Her voice shook with emotion.
“Well, you went through a lot. Have you slept? Have you eaten? You know you have to eat often to control it. Your body has to be fueled.”
“I know what to do. I just can’t do this. I can’t live here. I can live like this. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to decorate your bunk place?”
Jake scoffed. “It could use something, like a pressure washer, but no, that’s not what you have to do. There are so many out there, that have been rescued and found. New homes and communities are being built and—and, the factory—no, you can’t really do much there because it’s not that kind of place, but there are other places – there are places you could do things with. I’m sure someone in the Alliance knows more about that.”
“So, I’m supposed to wait here and be part of this tiger pack…”
“Clan. We’re a clan.”
She glared at him. “I know it’s a clan. You know what I mean. I just don’t think I can do this, Jake. I don’t think I can do this.” She was whispering again.
“Sometimes people are a lot stronger than they think they are. I have witnessed that firsthand. Did you meet anyone over at Blair’s? Did Kobie tell you what her clan went through to survive and get here?”
“Yes. She told me. It’s awful. Just awful what they went through. Those little boys that were rescued. What they went through – when you look at their faces, you can see what happened to them. It’s wrong. It should never have happened. And it happened because shifters aren’t normal.”
He had to really focus to not scowl at her. She’d been through a lot, this wasn’t the time to set her straight. “That’s a human opinion. Mine happens to be different.”
“And you think all of this is okay? Being a shifter is okay?”
“There’s no okay or not. It just is. I didn’t cause it. I didn’t create the first shifter and think, okay, ten percent of the population can shift into animals or whatever number it is. I know it’s dwindled in the last fifty years – that’s what we’re trying to save. We’re trying to have a community again.”
“I don’t remember that. I don’t remember community. I lived with my parents, and I know my uncle left a long time ago. Everyone started leaving. Now, there are five of them still together, and they call themselves a clan. That’s not a community.”
“That’s what the Alliance is trying to fix. It wasn’t always like that. Ask your uncle. He knows what it was like.”
“I know. I’ve heard stories. But that’s just it; they’re stories. They’re stories, Jake. I live in the real world?”
“So, what do you want to do? What are you planning to do? You can’t go back to the city. You know that, right?”
She nodded, and the tears were in her eyes again. They didn’t fall, but they were there.
“What are you going to do?” Her tears made his chest hurt.
“I don’t know yet. I’m still processing all of this.”
“You should go over to Emersyn and Noah’s. Noah, there’s a good example. He went through hell. He’s all scared up. He was a captive for fifteen years. And now he’s out there fighting and rescuing others and freeing them. He didn’t give up, and let me tell you, he hates shifting, too; he fights it when he does shift. But when he does shift, he’s like a whole other Noah. Maybe you just need to give it a chance.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Jake’s cat was losing his shit. He didn’t know how he was able to stand here. “That’s okay. You don’t have to decide the rest of your life right now.” He moved closer. His cat was so tense he was surprised he was able to move his legs at all. “Listen, when we were, uh, emptying the van, I don’t know if you, uh, realized it, but you know we’re mates, right?” She looked at him, her eyes filled with unfallen tears. The emotion that had been so clear to see was blanked out. He couldn’t tell a single thing she was thinking, which was the story of his life lately.
“Yes, I figured out that’s what it meant—after a while, but, I can’t really have a mate when I don’t want to be a shifter.”
Jake tilted his head to the side, searching for words he should say. “I don’t think it really has a lot to do with being, you know, an animal inside or on the outside; it’s the connection. It’s fate. It made the connection for us, so I don’t know if you think you can just not be part of it, because it’s there. You feel it.”
“I just can’t think about it right now. Is that okay that I don’t think about it right now?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah. Shit, that’s fine. I get it. You just found out—everything is – is happening. I get it. No, I do. I get it.”
“Can you take me back to the house?” She looked along the path. “I’m not used to trees, and I’ll probably get lost.”
Jake jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and balled them up. Jerking his head in the direction he’d come from, he waited for her to move. “It’s this way. Come on, I’ll take you back.” She went by him. He blew out a breath. That talk was a total failure.