EIGHT
Archer Grant, who was a restless man by nature, was experiencing the most restless evening of his life. Every moment since watching the strange girl named Eloise slip through his fingers and go running off into the night had felt like a lifetime. He was crawling inside of his own skin. It was a feeling he was used to, being what he was, but this was worse than anything he’d yet been through.
When he got that itch delivered to him by the world that dwelled inside of him he could morph into his other half and all would feel right in the world again. But this? This was a crawling he had no cure for, or rather he knew the cure but had no access to it. All he had was her name, for Christ’s sake. Just a first name and nothing else before she’d taken off at a full run as if banshees had been chasing after her.
Not that he’d been entirely surprised by that. His Gram could have that effect on people and he’d seen people leave her tent on more than one occasion with pale, sickly faces. He’d even seen a person come out, stagger forward a step or two, and vomit helplessly. He’d never seen someone look quite as haunted as her before, though, and he’d never felt so upended by a chance encounter.
When he’d circled the whole of the carnival not once, not twice, but three fucking times, he had been sure that Eloise was no longer inside of it. He’d known it already, had felt it inside of himself, but once he really knew it the full weight of his unhappiness bore down upon him.
He found one of the tents in the back of the carnival, the one that catered to those with seedier desires than some of the more family oriented patrons, he’d ordered himself a tumbler full of whiskey. He took one sip, looked at his glass thoughtfully, then ordered the entire bottle instead. The bartender, a young twenty-something guy he knew but not well, had given him a look that suggested a whole bottle of liquor might not be a good idea, but one well-placed glass was enough to shut his mouth up well enough.
So, Archer had sat himself down, bottle easily within hand’s reach, and tried to drink the girl out of his mind. That was exactly where he’d been when Roman had come upon him. Leave it to Roman Morrow to find a man even when he didn’t want to be found and that went double for a man with a bottle of whiskey on his person. A low whistle let Archer know his old friend was there before he saw him and Archer grimaced, wishing at that moment to be left the hell alone.
“Brother, what the hell are you doing in here all on your own?”
“I’m not on my own,” Archer said glibly, just a hint of menace tinging the edges of his voice. “I’ve got the bartender here—”
“Jimmy.”
“See? I’ve got Jimmy behind the bar and Johnny right beside me. I’m doing just fine. No need for extra friends.”
“I can see that, clearly. That being said, I think I’m going to claim a stool anyhow.”
“Suit yourself.”
So, Roman did just that, not that he needed any prompting to do it. Roman was one of those men who always did what he wanted whether it worked for the people around him or not. Why would this evening be any different? Add to the equation the fact that Archer already had a bottle on the bar, a bottle that had been bought and paid for, and there was no doubt that he would sit down for a spell, a spell that would probably last until the contents of the bottle were completely gone.
He raised a finger to Jimmy the bartender to indicate a need for a glass of his own and waited impatiently for it to be brought. He wouldn’t say a word until it was and Archer knew it. It was the way the man operated. Even if he intended on trying to help his friend out with whatever slightly-off-kilter advice he had to offer, he wouldn’t do so until he’d wetted his whistle with someone else’s liquor.
Once he’d gotten that done, he favored Archer with a sideways glance, one that was full of the contempt Archer was used to seeing there but also with something else. It was something that looked so foreign in those eyes Archer hardly recognized what it was.
After a moment, he had it figured out, at least the nature of what he was seeing, but it hardly helped him to understand it any. It was fear. Roman Morrow, a man with zero regard for most of what happened around him, was afraid of something. Archer couldn’t figure what that something was but it did a little towards helping him improve his mood. Not because he was glad to see his friend afraid, it wasn’t anything as nasty as that, but because it peaked his curiosity, which in turn distracted his heated mind some from the girl he couldn’t have.
“What’s the matter with you, Roman?”
“Me? You’re asking me what’s the matter with me?”
“I’m pretty sure that was the question. Yes, that’s what I’m asking you. You’ve got a look on your face that makes it look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“Not a ghost, no, but something I never thought I’d see. You could say it’s even more disturbing than a ghost would be, should I ever happen to see a thing like that.”
“Must be something pretty terrible you’re seeing then, brother. Do I want to know what it is?”
“My thoughts? No, you probably don’t, which is exactly why I’m going to tell you.”
“Sure,” Archer said nonchalantly, not sure whether he was amused or pissed off at this point. “That seems like sound logic, right?”
“Logic don’t got nothing to do with it, Archer. You’re lovesick.”
“Come again?”
“Lovesick. I can see it all over your face. It’s that girl, isn’t it? That little slip of a thing with the golden locks and the wide, green eyes.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“But you do, brother. You can’t play dumb with me. I’m the one who taught you the ignorant act, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well then tell me straight. If you know you can’t hide it from me then tell it to me straight. Might as well, especially when you’re sitting here trying to drink your sorrows away.”
Archer didn’t know whether he wanted to hit him or spill his guts. He’d never been in this kind of predicament before. He’d seen Roman get himself all into a tangle over a woman before. It was in the guy’s nature. He’d fall madly for some broad who wasn’t worth it by any stretch of the imagination and then two weeks later there would be some kind of knockdown, drag out fight and Roman would hate the same woman he had loved with every bit of fiery passion.
But Archer wasn’t like that. He never fell for anyone. The idea that he would see this girl for such a short amount of time, that he would see her and then not be able to get her out of his head no matter what he tried, was ludicrous to him. He couldn’t figure out how she had gotten into his head so completely but he knew what he had to do to get her out again. There was only one thing to do, a realization that he came to in that very moment, with Roman sitting beside him and drinking his hooch.
“I’ve got to find her.”
“Whoa I’m sorry, come again? I must have heard you wrong.”
“You didn’t. I have to find her. I’ve been trying to get her out of my head but it’s not going to happen.”
Roman had been so shocked by his assertion that he had actually spit the whiskey in his mouth all over the makeshift bar top in front of him. That was a pretty good indication in and of itself that he was more surprised than he was accustomed to getting because Roman wasn’t the kind of man to waste alcohol if he could at all help it.
If that hadn’t been enough, one look at his face would have told Archer everything he needed to know. His eyes were incredibly large while his mouth had dropped open into such a perfect o-shaped expression of surprise that it looked like it could have come from a cartoon character instead of an almost seven-foot-tall werewolf. When Archer reiterated that he meant what he had said, that he needed to find Eloise and that he intended to do so, Roman’s face began to flush.
He was honestly flustered at that point, something that Archer couldn’t help find sort of astonishing. The fear in Roman’s face was, if anything, becoming more acute at a rapid rate and he looked genuinely flustered. He looked like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about the situation, a look he rarely wore even when it would probably have been the appropriate one.
When he finally managed to speak again, his voice sounded cracked and strangled, like it belonged to someone much older and much more beaten down than the man that he actually was.
“You can’t do that, Archer. You can’t go looking for that girl.”
“Can’t I?”
“No! You can’t!”
“And why not? You tell me that, Roman. You’ve spent our whole lives telling me that we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Now you’re telling me that's no longer the case? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at all, especially not coming from you. You’ve never done anything but exactly what you wanted to, not in our whole lives.”
“I don’t care. This is different. This is something you can’t go do.”
“I can, actually. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Archer moved to get up from his stool but Roman was faster. He was up on his feet in a flash, ready to physically stop his lovelorn friend if that was what was required of him. Archer’s eyes flashed, a fire that served as fair warning that he wasn’t playing around. He was stubborn enough that when he intended to get a thing done, it was exactly what he was going to do.
If he had to get into a fight for it, that was what he’d do. He had no problem with it, no problem at all. Making the decision that he was going to go off in search of Eloise was the first thing that had made him feel better since seeing her flee from him, and that had been several hours ago. He didn’t intend to keep feeling like shit for however long it took for him to get the girl out of his system and so he would do the thing that would make him feel better. Besides, he honestly didn’t think he would feel better.
There was something about Eloise that got under his skin, something he knew he wouldn’t be able to shake. She was going to stick with him, even after he saw her again, if he saw her again. Maybe he had a little bit of Gram’s sight after all because something told him that Eloise was going to become something of a fixture in his life. She wasn’t going to be the sort of person that swam into his life only to swim right back out again. She was going to change things, maybe for all of them.
“You can’t! Believe me, brother, I’m all for you chasing a piece of tail but this isn’t the one for you. This girl is trouble.”
“How in the hell would you know a thing like that? You think you’re like Gram now? You think you can read my future now?”
“No, you little shithead, I don’t. But you’re not the only one who talks to Gram, are you? I talk to her too, and she says that girl is bad news.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re calling me a liar now? And all because you want that uppity chick?”
“Watch your mouth, Roman.”
“You don’t even know her, Archer! You’re fighting me over her and you don’t even know her! How messed up is that?!”
“You talked to Gram about her. Fine. I believe that. I can even believe she said something to you about her not being someone to get mixed up with. She just about went screaming from that tent, Roman. Whatever Gram said to her was enough to upset her, and badly. You tell me how often the rubes who go to see Gram and come out sick or upset are people Gram had something good to say about them?”
“Archer, really—”
“How often?”
“Fine. Not often, okay? You’re right about that.”
“So, what’s the difference here? This is the kind of thing we’ve laughed about together and all of a sudden you’re talking to me like it’s gospel. What gives?”
“Alright, I see what we’re going to have to do.”
“Do you? And what’s that?”
“We’re going to see Gram.”
“The hell we are!”
“If we don’t and you get yourself into real trouble, no way in hell is Gram going to help bail you out of it.”
“What do I care?”
“You’ll care a whole lot if you get yourself thrown into jail. You know how they treat folks like us and it ain’t good.”
Roman was right and Archer knew it. He wanted to hit him in the face, to knock him out cold for meddling, but he was right and there was no way for him to get around that fact. And so they did as Roman was insisting they do. They went to Gram’s little tent, both men wearing unusually grim faces that scared away the last of the drunken stragglers milling around the carnival grounds. When they arrived at the tent, Gram was standing outside of it, sipping on something that looked vile and waiting for the two of them to appear.
She was waiting for them, of course. She probably had been since Roman had first sat down beside Archer, knowing what the conversation was going to come to. She watched them with slightly narrow, over-bright eyes as they approached her, nodding her head as if in response to some secret voice that only she could hear.
The things she had to say were unlike anything Archer had expected. He got an earful about the beautiful blonde girl who had fled from him and his Gram’s ability as if her life depended on it. He learned that she was more like him than he would ever have believed, with a lion living inside of her instead of a wolf. He learned about her family, a great and wealthy line of lion shifters with whom his own family had been feuding and fighting for generation after generation without any hope of resolution.
When Archer asked why, his Gram became both stern and vague, something that was a particular talent of hers. What it boiled down to was that she wasn’t going to say. She wasn’t going to speak on the whys and hows of the matter, not for anything. What she was willing to say, more than willing, was that Archer was not to go after that girl.
He wasn’t to look for her and if he happened to see her again (a very big if considering there was a slim chance her parents would allow her anywhere near where Asher and his people were again) he was to walk away in the opposite direction as if he’d never spoken to her at all. He nodded, agreeing to comply with these rules, and then stalked off into the wild swamplands, climbing into his trailer to brood on his own.
If Archer had any idea of how similar his own thoughts were to those of Eloise in those moments he might have laughed out loud. He wanted to do what Gram instructed, was in the habit of minding her requests, and it was what he had intended to do. It was only that he just couldn’t take it.
He tried and found that he just couldn’t and so he pulled himself up and out of bed again. If her family was as powerful as Gram had made them sound, it shouldn’t be difficult to locate them. He would see his girl again, regardless of what anyone had to say. Especially because something told him that she was aching to see him as well.