Aviva
I barely have time to pull my dress over my body before Ryan is running again, hastily pulling on his shirt. I leave my sandals behind and sprint toward him, my bare feet slipping over rock that turns to gravel as we reach the village. My heart is thundering when I finally reach his side.
We sprinted down into the valley. It took mere minutes compared to the long climb up to the spring. I’ve never run so fast, and so far, and my legs burn as I reach for Ryan’s arm but–
People are gathered around one of the houses near the center of the village. I see Shoshannah in the crowd and rush out a desperate prayer, thanking the Goddess for keeping her safe from… whatever we hurried here for.
But then a scream rips through the night, hollow and anguished. My blood runs cold as a memory slips through my mind, burning to light. The sound of the scream is so familiar and so fresh, even though it’s been several years since I heard that same scream.
“Shoshannah,” I whisper as she flies into my arms.
Ryan talks animatedly with Jacob and Andrew, gesturing wildly as he points to the house where the cries are coming from.
Jacob nods, his face slightly pale, and starts motioning for the crowd to disperse. “Everyone go home now. Your Beta doesn’t need this–”
“Back to your houses. Give them space,” Andrew echoes in a gentler tone.
A few women crowd Ryan, who listens to them, nodding along with whatever they’re saying, but I can’t hear over the blood rushing in my ears. I hold Shoshannah so tight she starts to squirm, but then a hand is on my shoulder, and I look up into a woman’s eyes, someone I recognize from the village but I’ve never met.
“Let her stay with us tonight. I’m Opal. I’m Maggie’s mother. She and Shoshannah have been playing together, and our home is about half a mile away, down the road. She’ll be fine.”
“Oh, I–”
Ryan is suddenly beside me shoving a set of keys into my hand. He eyes Opal, who backs away with Shoshannah. “Take her to your house, Opal, that’s fine–”
Another scream tears through the air. My hands shake as I watch my sister turn with the woman.
What the hell is going on?
“Ryan?” I croak, looking up at him.
“In my bedroom, under the bed, there’s a lockbox.” He wraps his hand around mine, the keys biting into my palm. “You’ll see a little wooden box inside. Take one of the vials out of it. Be very, very careful with it.” His eyes are wide and wild as he scans my face. “Go.”
I turn and run for the house, but my mind is on one thing–my knife belt. I wish I had a new bow. Breaking mine in that fall… I think about it every day. But if someone is hurt–hurt enough to be screaming in agony like that, whatever attacked them has to be nearby, right?
Adrenaline keeps my feet moving faster than my mind is reeling, and soon I’m on my knees and frantically testing each key on the lockbox. Finally it opens, and the only thing inside is the wooden box Ryan mentioned.
I claw it open and find six small glass vials of… something. I lift one to the light. The liquid inside glows the palest, almost translucent blue. It shimmers with golden swirls that momentarily mesmerize me.
But the adrenaline in my veins has me on my feet again, the vial clutched in one hand as I sling my knife belt over my shoulder, moving too swiftly toward the door to bother looping it around my waist. I fly down the steps, running as fast as I can toward the house where the crowd had been gathering when we first arrived and make a critical error upon charging inside.
* * *
Ryan
“James.” I take James by the arm and pull him away from the bed where his mate is slack with pain. “James, look at me, take the baby and sit outside for a minute, please. Let Justine–”
“That’s my fucking mate,” James snarls in my face, teeth bared. “My wife!” The baby girl in his arms chokes on a cry. She was born shortly before we arrived and is still damp, still red, wrapped roughly in a thick blanket.
“Go outside, now,” I growl, taking him by the collar. I start dragging him out of the bedroom. “If you shift right now, you’re going to hurt your daughter. She needs you, okay? They both do. You need to sit out here and calm down–”
Aviva is standing in the hallway leading to the bedroom where Justine is doing everything she can to stabilize Dahlia. I didn’t even see her there. I didn’t hear her come in. She’s totally, completely still and has a faraway look in her eyes.
Freya rushes to the doorway of the bedroom, her eyes wide and expression contorted as she looks at Aviva. “No. No, Aviva. You can’t be here.”
Aviva’s face drains of all color. Her eyes are locked on the bed, just visible behind Freya, the sheets damp and stained with blood.
Even James, who two seconds ago had been on the verge of shifting with his newborn, perfectly healthy daughter in his arms, stills as he notices the sudden anguish playing behind Aviva’s eyes.
She looks like… she looks like she’s about to faint. I don’t think she’s breathing. “Aviva? Hey–”
She blinks, a single tear rolling down her cheek. I’ve never seen her cry. Not even when she said goodbye to Lora. No, she hadn’t cried.
And she hadn’t looked like this.
I notice the knife belt slung over her shoulder. She’d thought someone had gotten attacked. She was ready to defend us if it came to that. The vial is clutched in her hand, though, but her hand doesn’t tremble as her eyes stay locked and unseeing on the bloody sheets. Freya pushes past me, prying the vial out her hand and tossing it to me casually, like it means nothing, like the tears inside won’t heal Dahlia, who is just bleeding more than expected and had a really rough go of it, from what I hear. Neither of these women could have known about the tears, though. Aviva knows nothing about my family’s powers. At least, I don’t think she does.
“Aviva,” Freya whispers desperately, smoothing Aviva’s wild hair away from her face. “Hey, she’s fine. Dahlia is fine. She’s going to be okay.”
Aviva takes a shallow breath then turns and sprints from the house.
“What–”
“How could you bring her here?” Freya screams at me, which startles both me and James. I hand James the vial, and he quickly goes back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Freya looks toward the door where Aviva disappeared, her chest rapidly rising and falling. “How could you?” she sneers, teeth bared.
“What are you talking about?”
“Her mother,” she croaks, her eyes full of tears.
I shake my head, not following.
Freya gapes at me. “You didn’t know?”
“Didn’t know what? What’s wrong with Aviva?”
Freya sniffles, shaking her head. “Her mother died having Lora. It was horrible. It was… days of this, but so much worse.” She waves a hand toward the room where Dahlia is recovering, which is now being sped up by the tears. “Oh, Goddess, I can’t even… I can’t even put into words.” She shakes her head. “Aviva was sixteen. She was there for all of it. It was awful, Ryan. I don’t think she ever really recovered from it–”
I’m out the door before Freya can finish.
I had no idea. I’m a fucking asshole, I already know that. I can still taste the horrible things I said to Aviva moments before we came back to the village. I shouldn’t have said them. I want her to hate me, to keep her distance. I think I do. I think that’s what I want but…
“Is Dahlia okay?”
“How is she? The baby?”
A few pack members stop me in the center of the village. I look around in the dark. I can’t see Aviva anywhere. Did she shift and run? She had to have shifted. That’s what she does, isn’t it? When the memories become too much? Isn’t that what her own father tried to tell me?
“She’s fine,” I say, brushing past everyone starting to gather again even though I had Jacob and Andrew tell them to go home. Dahlia and James just had the first of the babies born on the soil of our new territory. It’s an exciting, but nerve wracking, time. We’re so far from help if we were to need it.
My feet carry me on their own accord, and soon, I’m pushing through the door of my house. “Aviva?”
I’m answered by silence, by darkness. The bedroom door is open a crack, though. I slip inside. “Aviva?”
She’s sitting on the floor with her head between her knees. She’s shaking, choking on silent sobs.
I kneel in front of her, hesitating before I lay my hand on her shoulder. She flinches so hard her back slams against the foot of the bed. It has to hurt based on the crunching sound that follows. “Hey, it’s me, Aviva–”
“Let go!” She swats me, and I get a glimpse of her face as she gasps for breath. “Let-let go of me–” She gasps again, painfully this time, like she can’t find the air she needs. “I don’t–want–you–here–”
What’s left of my heart shatters as she struggles to breathe, her face ghostly white. “Look at me,” I beg, grabbing her arms and pulling her toward me. “Aviva, look at me. You’re having a panic attack–” She fights, whimpering and trying to swat out of my hold, but I get my arms around her and haul her into my lap.
She begs me to let her go, but I cross my arms over her chest, pinning her arms down. I grunt with effort as I rise to my knees then stand, carrying her two steps to the bed.
She’s shaking so hard her teeth chatter as I lie down on the bed and roll so I’m lying on my side with her back to my chest. Her cheek rests on my arm. I can feel her tears sliding down her cheek and onto my skin.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her, tears stinging my own eyes. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”
She whimpers and shakes so badly the bed is shaking, but I hang on, curling around her body and pressing my weight against her, sheltering her.
I lick my lips before burying my face in her hair, pressing my mouth against her shoulder. Goddess, I wish I knew what she smelled like. I hate that I don’t know. I don’t understand why I can’t pick up her scent.
Her heart is beating so fucking fast as I press a kiss to the spot where her shoulder meets her neck. She’s slightly damp with sweat, her hair sticking to her skin.
“I wish you would have told me,” I whisper, hating myself for what I said to her earlier. It’s the only thing on my mind. “I’m sorry, Aviva. I’m sorry.”
She’s starting to calm down, her breathing regulating. I hold her closer though, taking in her warmth, the feel of her against my chest. She fits perfectly here with me curled around her. I want to just… stay here, beside her.
I lie there for a long time with my arms hooked around her, holding onto her like she's the anchor in a storm. When her father said we chased the same demons, he was right. As I fall asleep beside her, I have the same dream I have every night. Hadley’s blood stains my mouth and my hands as Sarah pulls me away and looks into my eyes, horrified and scared, and I’m… empty. Unfeeling. I stay that way for years. I feel nothing for years.
Until that day in the clearing near the creek when that red wolf burst into my life and an arrow pierced that impenetrable wall I’d built around my heart.