Kelley Armstrong - The Gathering

“More animal than human.”

He nodded. “She still takes care of me, but in a different way, protecting me, like with that guy today. But now I’m the parent. I make sure we have clothes and food and a place to live. I’m not complaining—she did it for years, and it’s time I took some responsibility. But …”

“You want your sister back. You think she’d want to be back.”

“I know she would. I mean, if that happened to me … If it happened to you …”

My heart started thudding so hard I struggled to breathe. Shifting into animal form, running and experiencing life as a cougar—that part sounded amazing. But truly becoming an animal, giving up all my dreams, my future? I felt sick just thinking about it.

“She’s getting worse,” he said in a low voice. “She Shifts more and more. One day, maybe she won’t Shift back.”

“But that’s not normal, right? Obviously skin-walkers were still human. Something went wrong with the experiment. That’s why you’re here. You came looking for another subject, hoping to find leads to the group that did this, to see if they can fix her.”

He nodded. “When Mom found out about the cancer, she started searching for the other subjects. She contacted someone who really didn’t want to tell her anything but finally said he knew where one girl was. You. Here. When Mom was dying, she said if anything went wrong, to come here and look for you. She knew the name of the town and what your mom looked like, but that’s all I had.”

“Only my mom is my adopted mother. So you started going through all the girls, trying to find the one with the birthmark. If you were looking for a Native girl, though … kind of obvious, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t. Your mom’s white.”

“W-what?”

“That’s what my mom said. It’s how your mom’s family hid. Intermarriage. She had Native blood, but she looked Caucasian—hazel eyes and light hair.”

“And my dad?”

“I don’t know. It was all in vitro fertilization.”

My guess was that the sperm donors carried the gene, too. That would make sense, if you were trying to resuscitate a genetic trait. My dad must have been full Native, then. Not that it mattered now. Well, it did matter. I was half white. Or close to it.

For genetic shocks, that didn’t quite match finding out I could change into a cougar, but it was close. I felt a weird squeezing panic in my chest, like waking up one day and looking in the mirror to see a stranger.

“So you figured I wasn’t the girl you were looking for. You gave it a shot, but halfhearted, just in case.”

“It wasn’t like—”

“You thought it was Hayley, didn’t you? Hazel eyes, blond hair, right age.”

“Kind of. But not really. I was—” He exhaled, gaze dropping to his hands, folded in front of him. “Hayley liked me. Enough to tell me anything I wanted without asking why I wanted to know it. She was on the swim team, and she’d have seen just about every girl here in a swimsuit …”

“She could tell you if anyone had a birthmark. She’s seen mine, but she didn’t mention it.”

“No, and I got the feeling she wouldn’t even if you had one.”

So he had to see for himself. That was why he’d wanted to go swimming yesterday. To confirm his suspicion.

He continued, “I thought maybe it was Sam. Hayley wouldn’t have noticed if she had a birthmark. Mom wasn’t completely sure that you’d be here with your mother. She knew she’d given up one of her twins.”

“Twins?”

“A boy and a girl. Multiple births are common with skin …” He trailed off. “You really didn’t know, then.”

“That I’m a skin-walker? That my mother is white? That I have a twin brother? No, apparently there’s a lot about myself I didn’t know.”

“I’m not doing this right. I …” He slid closer, arm going behind me, but I jumped away so fast I almost fell off the log.

“Just tell me the rest,” I said.

“My mom knew that yours gave up one of her kids to make them both harder to find—the scientists would be looking for twins. When she heard that you surfaced up here, she presumed you were the one your mom …” He looked over, like he’d just realized he was telling me that my mother chose to keep one of her children, and it wasn’t me. “Maya …”

“Go on.”

He swore and shifted position, giving me a look like he wanted to make this easier.

“So you figured it was Sam,” I said. “She came here alone, so that fit, too. Only she didn’t want anything to do with you, meaning there was no way you were getting close enough to check for a birthmark.”

“No way I wanted to either,” he muttered. “I asked her out. She said no. When I tried taking the slow route, getting to know her, she told me to take a hike, and when I didn’t, she went after Annie.”

“What?”

“Annie came by to get a look at her. Like with you, because I thought she was the one. Sam wanted her to tell me to back off. Annie laughed. Sam was about to take a swing at her when I got there. She stopped and she said she wasn’t going to hit Annie. Doesn’t matter. It completely freaked Annie out. And completely pissed me off. She could tell Annie was slow. It was like kicking a puppy that wants to play.”

Sure, Sam was quick with her fists, but she was never cruel. My guess was that she’d just raised her hand in anger. An instinctive reaction with Sam.

Yet she’d had a few run-ins with other girls at school. Was I defending her because she was nice enough to me?

I said, “And that’s when the cougars started taking an interest in me and you realized you’d been chasing the wrong girl.”

He nodded, calm, like he had no idea what he was admitting.

I continued. “But I’d already made it clear I wasn’t impressed by the bad boy routine, so you had to figure out what would impress me. Honesty. Let me see past the bad boy front and make me feel special, as if you liked me so much you’d let down your guard for me.”

I wanted him to say no, I was wrong, that wasn’t how it happened at all.

He didn’t even try. I supposed, when this was over, I’d be grateful for that. But right now, it hurt. Hurt so bad. After everything I’d just found out, you’d think this wouldn’t matter, but the rest of it was too hard to wrap my head around. I needed time for it to sink in. This sunk in. Like a dagger.

“So I guess you found what you were looking for,” I said. “The girl you were looking for.”

My words twisted with a bitterness I wished I could suck back in, and his lips parted in a curse, as if he’d just realized what he’d admitted.

“It isn’t like that.”

“Yes, it is. You chased me for the same reason you chased all the rest. You thought I was the one. You chased me harder because you were pretty sure I was. That’s why you came to my party. That’s why you took me up on the roof. It was you who dosed my drink, wasn’t it? Hoping I might be willing to shed some clothing, so you could look for a birthmark.”

“No! I did not drug you, Maya. Yes, that’s why I hit on you. That’s why I hit on every girl. But you were different.”

Because I was the one. I got to my feet.

“I don’t know anything about my mother or skin-walkers or scientists. But if everything else you said is true—and I have no reason to think it isn’t—then I need to find these answers as much as you do. So I’ll help you. Right now, though, I need to go home.”

“Maya.” He took my arm.

I shook him off. “I need to go home, okay? I have a lot to think about. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

I walked away. He didn’t try to stop me.

My relationship with Rafe was a lie. He’d chased me for a reason. He’d kissed me for a reason. Even when I’d looked into his eyes and thought I’d seen something special, it was there for a reason.