250. Normal person

250. Normal person
Rain
I swear I was just coming in for a snack.
Like a normal person.
It was nice to be a normal person.
Why couldn’t more of the Moonveil pack be normal?
Jesse was scared and could plot world domination, while Matt had a temper to rival an action hero. Then there was Colby, who was kind of like MacGyver and could plan his escape even with nothing more than a string, paper clip, and lighter.
When it came to Lia, she was just fucking amazing but also and visions. People who had visions weren’t normal as much as it pained me to admit it. I didn’t want to think it, but I also had to accept that it was the truth. With the twins… well, that was enough said. Just mentioning their names and remembering everything that had been going on with them was more than enough of a warning that no one was normal.
See, I was the only normal one! I might be prone to setting fires and breaking into hysterics, but it didn’t make me any less normal.
Huffing, I was determined to keep that normal label no matter what. I walked out to get a snack, and then I realized that the twins were doing something strange.
Whimpering, I tried to ignore them.
They were crouched over the coffee table like it was a sacrificial altar, muttering to each other in low tones that probably sounded normal to them but screamed cult behavior to anyone else. One of them had a spoon. The other had… was that a frog?
Nope. Not my business. Snacks. I came for snacks.
I edged toward the kitchen, doing that awkward sideways walk people do when they’re pretending not to look but are watching everything like a hawk. Maybe if I didn’t make any sudden movements, they wouldn’t notice me. Like dealing with velociraptors. Or toddlers.
But no, there were Gemma and Rowan, sitting cross-legged on the floor, still like creepy little forest druids, speaking in sync.
“—and when the sky turns red,” Gemma murmured.
“—We’ll know the veil is thinning,” Rowan finished.
I froze in the doorway, granola bar halfway to my mouth.
“Nope,” I said out loud. “Not going to happen. This isn’t going to happen.”
But it was going to happen. Fuck, it had already started happening. What was I going to do?
They didn’t look up. Of course they didn’t. That would’ve been normal.
“You two doing the twin mind-meld thing again?” I asked, stepping farther into the room. “Because, not going to lie, I’d appreciate like… a one-minute warning before the spooky dialogue starts.”
Gemma blinked at me. “We weren’t trying to be spooky.”
“That’s just your default setting, huh?” I muttered.
Rowan looked over, completely unfazed. “We can speak into each other’s thoughts.”
“You what now?”
“We hear each other,” Gemma said. “In our minds.”
“Like... with words?”
Rowan tilted his head. “With everything.”
“Okay, that’s terrifying,” I said, unwrapping the granola bar. “Do you get like, full access? Or is it like texting, but psychic?”
Gemma shrugged. “We don’t know any different. It’s always been this way.”
“You ever, like, mute each other?”
Rowan smiled faintly. “Why would we?”
Yep, there was no way that this was going to get stranger at any point. But by this point I was willing to just try to go with the flow because freaking out was going to get me nowhere. You know where it was going to get me? Straight to a headache, that’s where.
Fuck this was so fucked up.
Sighing, I looked over at the kids, and my gaze softened.
I had to keep a cool head for them, even though they were usually the ones who kept cool. It was I who tended to fly off the handle.
Shit.
Maybe I wasn’t normal. I was realizing I was as far from normal as possible.
None of us was normal.
I had to accept that. It wasn’t an easy thing to accept, but it was something I had have accept.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, flopping onto the couch and biting into the bar, “maybe for things like personal space, inner peace, or not accidentally hearing your sibling’s thoughts about crushes or bowel movements.”
Gemma wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t happen.”
“Right,” I said, pointing at them with the granola bar, “because you’ve probably evolved past shame and privacy.”
They exchanged a glance and—yep—smiled at the same time.
I stared at them. “Do you practice that?”
“No,” they said together.
I groaned. “You guys are going to give me a complex.”
Gemma leaned toward me slightly. “Do you want to hear what we hear?”
“Nope,” I said immediately, standing up. “Not even a little. Thanks for the existential crisis, though. I’m going to go sit in a room with music and pretend this conversation didn’t happen.”
“Your mind’s loud,” Rowan added behind me.
“I know!” I called over my shoulder. “It’s the only thing keeping your spooky twin brainwaves out!”
I swear I heard them laugh as I walked away.
The kids were trying my patience. Not in a way where I was going to get furious with them, but it was slowly pushing me over the edge, making me want to
Which somehow made it worse.
I was still muttering to myself when I turned the corner and nearly collided with Jesse.
He caught me by the shoulders before I bounced off him. “Whoa. You good?”
I blinked up at him. “Define good.”
He gave me a long look. “You look like you saw something unholy.”
“I did. Your siblings. Or forest demons in the shape of your siblings. Hard to tell anymore.”
Jesse didn’t even blink. “They do the twin chant thing again?”
“In stereo,” I said, flinging a hand toward the hallway like I’d just escaped a crime scene. “Full-on apocalypse poetry. ‘When the sky turns red,’ and ‘the veil is thinning,’ and something-something psychic brain-TikTok. I was just trying to get a granola bar, man.”
Jesse shrugged. “Yeah. They’ve been doing that all morning.”
“You knew?”
He shrugged again. “They’re in a mood.”
“A mood? Jesse, they’re prophesying at people! I nearly choked on oats.”
“You’ll live,” he said, patting my shoulder like that was helpful. “They’ve been keyed up ever since Lia left.”
At that, my energy dipped. I glanced down the hall, toward the door she’d walked out of not even two hours ago.
She was back to researching, so this was keeping her busy.
I hoped she would be back sooner rather than later.

Lia
We knew the truth now.
Well, I knew the truth.
I was heading home, ready to tell my mates what I found.
I was heading home, ready to tell my mates what I found. My heart was hammering against my ribs, and not just from the run. It was the kind of news that would change everything. The kind of truth that didn’t just rattle cages—it broke them open.
The trees thinned as I got closer to the edge of the woods, the scent of home filtering in between damp earth and old pine. I could already hear Jesse's deep voice inside, probably arguing with Matt again. Or Rain freaking out to an extent.
The house came into view, lights warm in the windows like nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
I stopped at the porch steps and stared up at the door, fingers curling into fists at my sides.
They needed to know. They had to know.
Even if it meant breaking the illusion we’d all been clinging to. Even if it meant everything would never be normal again.
“My grandmother once sealed away a primordial force linked to the sun and shadow, which is what I think Solen is,” I blurted out once I got everyone downstairs.
Rain blinked. “What?”
“I went to talk to one of the Rosewater Coven witches. They said that my grandmother once sealed away this force. Or rather, resealed it. It was something my family had been doing for generations.”
In a way, the kids were sun and shadow. I think the fact that I gave birth to one werewolf and one vampire was what brought Solen out of his prison. Werewolves were tied to the moon, able to walk in the sun. Vampires were forced to walk at night, unable to see the sun. Together, it made sense that it might cause some kind of prophecy to be born.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Had I ever mentioned I was sick of prophecies? Because I was. Sick and tired of the fact that my children were following in my footsteps, unable to forge their own path.
But after we took care of Solen, we might be able to. This was my hope that if we were able to successful deal with this creature or whatever the fuck it was, we could stop him once and for all. I wanted the best for my kids. Was that truly so much to ask?
The rest of my mates listened as I explained everything I knew about Solen, which wasn’t much. Sadly, there was only so much on this ancient creature. Even the Rosewater Coven had lost records over the years, only knowing that they had to keep him at bay.
But then the twins were born, and he was no longer being helped, their birth giving Solen a chance to break free.
It was only a matter of time before he made himself known. I only hoped that we were ready for whatever was going to happen once he did because it was going to be one hell of a difficult fight.