THE MOTEL manager had to threaten to call the cops before I finally left the room on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the check-out time. After taking just one change of clothes—a T-shirt, hoodie, and a pair of jeans—I left the backpack Clay had bought for me behind. I assumed he’d left it for me as penance. That it was supposed to somehow be his repentance. He didn’t deserve that. He hadn’t earned it. His actions, the way he’d forced his way into my life and heart just to leave me alone in my desperation, made me hate him as much as I’d once loved him.

How could he leave when I needed him the most?

The one consolation I had was that he hadn’t taken advantage of my desires before leaving. I could only imagine how much more I would hate us both if that had happened.

The only other thing I took from the hotel room was the cash that Clay had left. I hadn’t wanted to, but I didn’t have the survival instinct Dad had possessed. Only fragments of information had stuck with me, and the thought of doing some of the things he’d done in order to survive, made my stomach twist. I wasn’t cut out for a life of crime; it was part of the reason I had rallied so hard to get the part-time job that I’d had. The job that had allowed Clay to find me.

The simple fact was I’d thought I would have Dad for years to come. I could only hope the pieces of knowledge I had gained would be enough to keep me alive.

Even though I shouldn’t have, I returned to the place that Dad and I had called home for a few short weeks.

It was nothing like I’d expected it to be.

I’d envisioned the twisted, blackened mess I’d seen just a few nights before, but it wasn’t. The cleanup was already in full effect—it was almost as if the house had never existed in the first place. I wondered whether the Rain were instrumental in getting things resolved quicker than they usually would be.

Despite the fact that the charred remains were gone, I gagged as if smoke still filled the air. It didn’t hold any solace or peace for me, just the bitter memory of Clay’s promises and betrayals.

Finding no peace, I turned away and headed to the only other place in Charlotte that I needed to see before I left town for good. It would be just as unsettling for me, but I couldn’t force myself to leave Charlotte without going there first.

An hour and a half later, I stood in front of the warehouse where Clay and I had spent seven days living someone else’s life—one where we could be happy and have each other. I couldn’t bring myself to go any closer than the broken fence. When I turned to leave, knowing that I could find no comfort inside the crumbling walls. A single magnolia lay on the ground with a ribbon tied around it.

Certain that the flower was intended for me, even though the thought broke my heart all over again, I bent to pick it up. A tiny scrap of paper was hidden beneath the ribbon listing a cemetery name and a plot number. My knees buckled as it dawned on me that Clay had arranged for my father to have a proper burial. It was impossible for him to have organized it all so quickly though, not unless the Rain helped him somehow. I desperately wanted to go visit the site and see whether my suspicions were correct. I couldn’t risk it if there was Rain involvement though.

It was bound to be a trap. Even if Clay had organized it all, and had intended to give this to me as a parting gift, there was no way his family, or someone else in the Rain, wouldn’t have corrupted it. Even if Dad hadn’t told me enough about their underhanded tactics, I’d seen it with Louise. Hadn’t Clay said she’d promised him two days? If it was impossible for Clay to trust his own family, how could I trust that Dad’s funeral plot was untainted?

I doubted Clay had taken my comment that it would have been kinder if he’d just killed me to heart to set it up. If he had, I wouldn’t still be walking. He’d known where I was the whole time.

I’d meant it when I’d said it.

I still meant it. The pain of death would have nothing on the perpetual ache that resided deep within my chest after losing everything important to me. That didn’t mean I wanted death though.

On the contrary, death would have been an easy choice for me but it would add nothing more than insult to my father’s memory. I didn’t know the details of his death. Asking the how’s had seemed so unimportant in the face of everything. My father had tried for so long to keep me safe. His death would’ve somehow ensured my survival. I was certain of it.

Knowing that the piece of paper in my hands with the details of his cemetery plot would always be a draw for me, a piece of bait to lead me to whatever trap the Rain had laid, I forced heat into my fingers and watched as the flames took away the danger.

If only the pain could be burned away as easily.

 

 

EACH NEW day on the road became harder rather than easier.

After weeks alone, the minutes and hours melded together in an empty blur. Every night as I tried to sleep, I thought that the pain had to lessen eventually. Each morning when I woke from a fitful rest, the same agony dripped from my broken heart and the same dark circles looped my eyes.

The worst thing was that even though I was so careful about where I stayed and what I bought the money Clay had left for me seemed to disappear all too quickly. I only stayed in the cheapest motels and ate once a day, but it didn’t help.

Within two months, I was homeless, penniless, and utterly alone.

Not long after the money ran out, I was nearly arrested. Two officers spotted me wandering down the side of a state highway. One of them gave me a warning about the dangers of hitchhiking, but the other just stared at me. His withering stare and hawkish eyes sent my heart racing.

His gaze jumped between where my hair was secured in a ponytail and my eyes. I tried to avoid meeting his gaze, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. A slow smile spread across his face. It was the devilish grin of a predator. I was certain he understood more about my nature than any normal person could.

He could only have been a Rain operative, or at least working alongside them.

While he had me pinned in his gaze, the other officer found an open warrant for my arrest over a murder charge. My throat constricted as I learned I’d been framed for my father’s death forced its way into my mind. As if losing him in the first place wasn’t bad enough.

When the officer with the beady eyes and eager stare pulled out his handcuffs, one thing became clear. If I allowed myself to go with them, I would never be coming back. There would be no trial, just a swift execution.

Even as he prepared to clamp the cuffs around my wrists, his partner had thrown open the rear door ready to push me inside. They’d obviously expected a fight, but they hadn’t expected the heat that leaped from my skin to bite at their hands.

Because of my grief and the new agony caused by learning of my wanted status, I didn’t have enough energy to beat back the sunbird when she wanted to take control of the situation. Within seconds, I was so hot it was as if I had been cast into a furnace.

Worse, I was no longer in control of my body.

Instead of trying to endure my flames to get me into the cuffs, two pairs of hands shoved at me roughly, trying to force me into the car. I landed on the seat at an awkward angle but the sunbird wasn’t finished using my body. I screamed out as the flames burst from me, instantly igniting the plastic around me and beating the officers back.

One of them reached for my ankle before realizing his mistake. “You bitch,” he growled as the fire the sunbird had released instantly blistered his hand.

When his partner became distracted trying to help his fallen friend, I leaped from the car and ran. My whole body ached as I came back to myself. My skin burned where the sunbird had been too vigorous with releasing the fire. I didn’t stop to let myself recover though. I just ran as far and fast as I could.

With the terror of being arrested for murder—or murdered myself—an ever-constant threat, I bounced from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. It was hard to get by without any money, but I did what I needed to in order to survive. I didn’t have any other choice. Any time people grew suspicious of my nature, I left. I was at a shelter in Philadelphia, almost seven months after Clay had left me, when I met Brian.

Although it was hard to trust anyone in the shelter—some of the people there would have sold me out in a heartbeat for the reward money on my head—I found myself drawn to Brian. A recovering alcoholic haunted by the memory of his wife, I could see the reflection of my own guilt in his eyes. I’d learned that his wife had died in a car accident almost two years prior. At the time, he’d been driving under the influence and had ploughed into a car stopped at a red light. The guilt of knowing he’d been responsible for her death pecked away at the pieces of his life until it had all crumbled down around him. Within six months, he’d lost his job, his house, and even his family had turned their back on him. In him, I could see myself.

It had been my own addictions and selfishness that had caused my father’s death and then forced Clay to leave me. Through our shared grief, Brian and I had grown closer with each passing day. Or at least, we could stand each other’s company more than anyone else’s. When it came time for me to move on, he asked if he could tag along. I was reluctant at first, knowing that the longer he was near me, the higher the chance of him discovering the extent of my secrets.

“I just need a change of scenery,” he’d told me. “I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

Part of me worried that he might be a plant, someone willing to turn me in at the first opportunity, but he seemed as genuinely sad and lost as I was. As time went on, my desire for company, and the security of being beside him, won out, and I agreed to take him with me.

While we were between shelters, we huddled under bridges and slept tucked around each other for warmth during the slowly cooling autumn nights. We traveled like that for a few months growing ever closer to each other as the nights became longer and colder.

One day, after we’d just settled in a new hostel, Brian disappeared. For over twenty-four hours, he was gone, and I couldn’t say for certain whether I minded or not. During the time we’d spent together, I had relished the companionship. It was refreshing to have had someone to talk to after so many months alone, even if our conversation rarely progressed much beyond the weather. We didn’t need to give the ghosts of our past a constant voice to help ease our mutual suffering.

I was honest enough with myself to know that should Brian never return, it wouldn’t affect me the way Clay’s parting had. Even the thought of the moment I’d been left alone at the motel after hurling barbed words, most of which I hadn’t meant, was enough to force tears into my eyes and cause my heart to race. The “one day” that Clay had promised didn’t seem possible anymore. I grew convinced that any reunion was out of the question and even if we met again it would once again end in heartache. After all, nothing would change so long as I was still . . . what I was. Brian was safe for me—he hadn’t infected my heart and didn’t have the power to break me the way Clay had.

The truth was that even with our growing closeness, I was well aware that Brian would be little more than a passing footnote when I looked back on my life. That certainty wasn’t enough to make me leave him behind though.

It was the middle of the following night when Brian finally returned. He climbed beside me onto the bed and tapped me to wake me up. My eyes opened, and I took in his silhouette. For a moment, I was annoyed because he’d pulled me from a dream I’d had where Clay was still by my side.

“What is it?” I asked before I was fully awake.

“Share a drink with me?” He passed me an open bottle of clear liquid.

I sniffed at the contents, uncertain because Dad had never drank—he said it was too dangerous because it dulled the senses.

Maybe a bit of dulling is exactly what I need.

“I didn’t think you were supposed to drink anymore,” I said. As his friend, I had at least a passing duty to protect him from himself. Didn’t I?

He shrugged. “I’m not, but it’s a special occasion.”

The way he said the words and the vacant expression in his eyes left me with no doubt exactly what the occasion was. It was clearly an anniversary of some kind, possibly of their wedding or maybe her death. Knowing how desperately I would want support on the anniversary of Dad’s death in a few short months, I decided that if he wanted to drink I would join him. It was the least I could do.

I took a swig of the bottle, before almost instantly coughing and spluttering as the fluid blazed down the back of my throat. The fumes raced through my nasal passage and bashed at my brain. “You like this stuff?” I coughed.

He grabbed the bottle back from me and brought it to his lips. “It’s not exactly a fine, aged whiskey, but it does the job.” He held the bottle out for me again.

I took another sip. It went down marginally easier than the first, but it still left an acrid taste in my mouth.

“She was so beautiful that night,” he murmured as I passed the bottle back to him.

I’d heard bits and pieces of the story of the accident, but he rarely spoke to me about his wife. He necked the bottle and took a long swig. Unshed tears glinted in his eyes as he looked back at me. His voice was quiet and monotone, and he stared through me and into the past.

“We were on the way home from a Christmas party. It was black tie, and she was just so goddamn beautiful in her new dress.” He shifted closer to me and rested his head on my shoulder as he spoke. The bottle exchanged hands between us readily as we both drank to forget the past. Before he’d finished his story, we’d almost emptied the bottle.

“Don’t you ever get sick and tired of feeling so fucking lonely all the time?” he slurred in my ear.

My head spun in the best possible way. I figured it was the alcohol because Brian had never made me lose control that way before. I nodded. “All the time.”

His fingers traced a path into my hair, and I giggled as it tickled my neck.

“Can you stop me from being lonely tonight?” he asked with fresh tears glossing his eyes. I nodded as I claimed his lips.

We swapped sloppy kisses, and I giggled again as my mind offered swirls of patterns behind my closed eyes. I’d never been so uninhibited, and I had to admit it was freeing.

Brian wrapped his arms around me before pushing me onto the bed and kissing me harder. The sensation of his body pressed against mine was so strange that I couldn’t help laughing louder. I was only used to kissing Clay. Only knew the taste of our mingled tongues. The way Brian fit against me was different. The differences were almost enough to make me pull away, but the warmth of skin-to-skin contact with another human was too much for me to resist. I’d lost so much and had been so alone, that I was determined not to overthink anything any longer. That was the point of the multiple sips of alcohol I’d consumed. Now I was determined that if Brian wanted me, I wouldn’t refuse.

His hands explored my body as he pushed away my clothing. He only shifted everything enough to grant him access to the places he wanted to kiss and explore. His touch was clumsy and rough but brought to mind Clay’s tender caresses. Resting his body heavily between my legs, he moved his lips to mine again. The warmth of his mostly naked body pressed against my exposed thighs.

“I want you,” he slurred into my mouth before kissing me again.

His body was right there, pressed firmly against mine, and my heart raced.

He pulled himself away from me, just far enough to roll a condom down his length. He must’ve planned his seduction ahead of time. At least enough to be prepared for the possibilty. Should I have been flattered that he’d considered me that way or insulted by the assumption. As the alcohol swam in my mind, I didn’t care either way.

Is this really about to happen? Do I really want this?

I couldn’t wait for Clay forever.

Without any extra lead-up or warning, Brian pushed himself inside of me. Despite what I’d imagined it might be like to share the same experience with Clay, Brian entering me was more pain than pleasure. I groaned and shifted my body in response, trying to find a better position. On TV it always looked much more pleasurable than the uncomfortable tangle of limbs we’d become.

For his part, Brian seemed to be enjoying our union and must have interpreted my noises as desire. He moved faster over me as his tongue and lips pressed against me in sloppy kisses. His hands openly explored my body as he thrust deeper and deeper.

Eventually, the pain faded to become a slight discomfort.

Just as it became almost enjoyable, Brian collapsed over me in a panting mess. He closed his eyes and turned his face toward me.

“Thank you.” He kissed my cheek before extracting himself from my embrace to clean up. He frowned as he stood and went to pull the condom off. “Holy shit, there’s something wrong with it . . . it’s . . . it’s warped or something.”

I wasn’t sure what to say or what to do. “How? Why would that happen?” I asked, even as my stomach twisted. Was it my heat that had caused it?

“I don’t know, goddamn it,” he muttered. “It’s never happened before. It’s like it melted.”

His words were like a punch to my gut. It was my fault. I couldn’t even do something as normal as have sex or use a condom without my nature screwing things up.

“Are you on the pill or something?” Brian snapped, pulling me from my self-pity.

I shook my head.

“Shit.”

I could almost see his thoughts running through his head, and moved to reassure him about one thing. “I can’t have kids though.”

Brian blew out a breath of relief and laughed.

The sound of his laughter chilled me, and I sat up to draw my knees against my chest.

“Sorry I freaked out,” he said. “I’ve just never been with anyone else besides Mary.” His sorrow over losing her rang in his voice. He reached for a second bottle of vodka and twisted off the lid before raising the drink to his lips.

I flushed red. “I’ve never been with anyone,” I admitted in a quiet whisper as I stood to fix my clothing back into place. Being even slightly exposed to Brian now that the moment had passed was a little off-putting.

“Never? With anyone?” he repeated. “Shit, Evie, you should have said something.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t . . . Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if you’d said.”

Pulling on my own clothes while we spoke, I thought about the whole experience. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, at least it hadn’t been in the end, but it wasn’t exactly the earth-moving, mind-shattering encounter I’d dreamed of sharing with Clay either. Maybe it just takes practice?

I sighed. “Maybe I wanted it to happen. Maybe I’m sick of living the way everyone else thinks I should. Maybe I don’t want to wait for the perfect moment anymore. Maybe now is all we get, and we just have to seize the moment before it’s gone. Before everything we care about is gone!” By the end of my rant, tears pricked my eyes, and the ringing tones of hysteria sounded through my voice. I was no longer talking about Brian and me. My mind wasn’t spinning any longer; instead, it was sort of beginning to pound and the pleasant fuzziness that had inhabited my limbs was burning away to a cold chill.

In response to my harsh words, he stepped closer to me and curled his hand around my bicep. “Just as long as you’re certain.”

“I needed to feel something again. I didn’t even realize how numb I’d become.”

“Can I ask you something?” There was a strange tone in his voice. “Are you getting sick or something?”

“No,” I said as unease over the source of the question twisted my stomach into a knot.

“I just thought you might be running a fever.”

I shook my head. “It’s not a fever it’s . . . something else.” The words got stuck on my tongue as I tried to figure out a way to avoid the conversation.

“Has it got something to do with why you can’t have kids?”

I blanched away from him—he’d hit so close to the mark.

He held up his hand. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, I understand. I just thought . . . I thought we trusted each other.”

My eyes closed tightly at his mention of the “T” word. There had only been two people in my life I had actually trusted; one was dead, and the other had left me alone in my darkest hour.

“I just have a secret that I shouldn’t tell anyone.”

“You know my biggest secret.”

It was true. He’d shared with me the full extent of his responsibility for his wife’s death. I doubted that he’d even told his family that it had been a drunken, jealous rage that had caused the accident.

“I can’t tell you,” I said.

He nodded his understanding.

“But I can show you.”

Raising one eyebrow and taking another swig from the bottle, he leaned forward intently.

“Do you have anything flammable?” I asked, reaching for a paper bag when he offered it to me. Taking a deep breath, I held the bag between my fingers. Concentrating as hard as I could through the vestiges of the alcohol buzz that was fast leaving me, I forced heat into my hands and guided the flames toward the paper. As soon as the bag was lit, I dropped it onto the floor to ensure the flames that were now outside of my body couldn’t hurt me.

I looked back up to Brian, expecting to find him in the same position, but instead, he was standing on the bed with eyes wide open in shock. “What the fuck was that?”

Glancing between the burning remnants of the bag and his frightened face, I said, “That’s my secret.”

“You’re a freak!”

“No!” I pressed my hand to my mouth. The fear in his eyes as he looked at me was all too familiar and made my heart ache.

“You’re a fucking freak! How could you just pretend that you’re normal when you can—”

“I’m not a freak! I’m not evil!” Tears burned my eyes. In an instant, he’d sharpened everything we’d shared into a dagger forged from my past and plunged it deep into my heart.

His words and rejection shattered my hold on sanity. Not because I cared about him, but because it was a sharp reminder of Clay and how he’d reacted when we’d first kissed. Even after I’d thought we could put it behind us and we shared a blissful week together, my secrets had destroyed us. My nature was ultimately what drove Clay away. And now it had collected another casualty.

I reached for Brian, and he snapped his head away quickly. “Get out of here before I call the police. Or the FBI, or goddamn anyone that will listen to me because that . . . that’s not normal.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, I leaped away from him and ran. He was right; I was a freak, and all I did was hurt the people who got too close to me.

Tears flowed from me as I raced away from him, wishing I could rewind time and find a way to have made Clay stay with me regardless of the dangers I would have faced. He’d left because he wanted me to be safe, but he didn’t understand. Even if I was strong enough to be able to survive the Rain, my fragile soul couldn’t handle the way the world snapped every dream I had away long before it could come to fruition.