"Jazz." Knox growled out my name, his eyes once again on my hands.
I gasped at the squirming, many-legged creature in my palm. It looked like a spider with the legs of a centipede, and I didn't remember conjuring it, or picking up the paperclip, but there it was in my hand. Until I dropped it and the paper clip fell to the ground. "Sorry."
More emotions than I could keep track of passed through his gaze. He grabbed my hand; the warmth of his fingers helped cut through my sudden anxiety. "I'll make us something to eat while you call your friend. You're…it's too similar for me to be comfortable."
Despite the comfort of his touch, his vague hesitation poured gasoline on my frayed, burning nerves. I had no reason to be afraid right now. Even if Knox did send me on my way, he'd told me he wouldn't hand me over to my father. I'd be free to return to the life I'd known. I wouldn't stay where I wasn't wanted. That had always been my one rule. But thinking about what that meant just made my heart pound harder. That life hadn't always been horrible, but it didn't have Knox.
These thoughts occupied my brain on the walk to the kitchen. Knox sat me down in the chair at the small table, handing me my phone. My eyes widened. I hadn't seen my phone since I'd been taken, and after a while, I'd stopped caring about it. Seeing it now was like returning to an old hobby, one that had once meant so much but now felt foreign.
"I should've given it back to you a while ago," Knox said, his voice as clear when he was confessing his regrets as it was at any other time. He went to the fridge, leaving me to thumb through my contacts to Hollister's number.
"Jazz?" Hollister's answer sounded out of breath. "Aver, wait…it's Jazz."
There was a low rumble from somewhere on Hollister's end. "If this is a bad time…"
"It isn't!" Hollister replied. "How are you? I've been worried, especially after you stopped texting. What's going on? Where are you right now?"
As the questions flooded in, my lips turned up in the corners. Of all my city-specific friends, Hollister was by far my favorite. Whenever I'd come into town, he'd asked no questions and had been ready for wherever the night took us. "I'm fine. Who's Aver?"
There was a louder growl from the other end, and Knox looked back sharply.
Hollister just laughed. "Babe, I didn't…it just didn't come up." Hollister's voice sounded muffled, like he was talking to someone in the room instead of into the phone.
I assumed that was Aver taking issue with the fact that I didn't know who he was. The last time I'd seen Hollister… "Oh! That hot guy at the club!"
That time, Knox's growl was sharp.
"The same," Hollister said. "So what happened? Did Knox catch up?"
Catch up, like he'd had homework or a note to give me. I pictured that afternoon we'd spent in the gym. "We caught up."
"So? And? Tell me everything!"
Under Hollister's words was a quiet coo, a gurgling, and then a stream of unmistakable babble. Did he have a baby? Clearly, my life wasn't the only one going through some changes. "Okay, I'll start, but you're going right after."
An hour later, Knox had made dinner, ate—while making sure I continued to eat during talking breaks—and hung around while Hollister told me everything that had happened to him. About meeting Aver, learning he wasn't the only person with abilities, and then everything that had happened after. Including his impossible pregnancy.
"Pregnant?" I balked. "Like 'child growing inside of you' pregnant?"
"Exactly like that."
My nose wrinkled at the thought. "Where did it grow? How? You don't have…the parts." There was likely a more delicate way for me to have asked that.
"It's a blessed thing," Hollister said like that explained anything. "But it really doesn't sound like what happened to me and the rest of us is happening to you. You might just have your own brand of uniqueness going on."
I told him about my journey to the Hotel Royal Paynes, the running, the chasing. I was vague on where we were now, though Hollister seemed to have some idea because he asked if I was enjoying the coast. My mind reeled at the knowledge that one of my closest friends was now a wolf shifter and that he'd had a baby. My story felt boring in comparison.
When I got to the part where I told Hollister what I could do, he interrupted me with a sharp, "All those nights you said you were paying?"
I grimaced. We'd always gone to bars somehow related to my father, but that didn't make it completely better. Especially when the bar owners went to count the till at the end of the night and found only paper. "I've been keeping track," I lied, earning another sharp growl from Knox. The man was a human lie detector.
Vaguely, in the same way I thought it would be nice to see the Northern Lights some time, I'd planned on paying back for everything I'd taken. When I'd been younger, I'd kept track in a notebook of all the things I'd stolen or places I'd stayed with bogus credit cards or letters from some imaginary important person.
"Okay, I haven't been keeping track, but I have a vague idea."
"But your dad is alive?" Hollister asked, the question coming from left field.
"Yes?" Unfortunately.
"He's your real dad?"
I scoffed. Of that, I was completely sure. There was no way my father, the great Mr. Walter Whitten, would've spent one penny on my care if he weren't sure of his parentage.
"Why are you asking if he's dead?"
Hollister didn't say anything for a moment. "The four of us all have certain things in common. All of our biological parents died early. Does the name Patrick Walker mean anything to you?"
Surprisingly, I did feel an inkling of awareness when he mentioned the name, but not enough to speak on it. "No, sorry."
"And our birthdays aren't the same," Hollister said as if what he said meant anything.
"No, remember? I came down for your party that year, and we got into the Jell-O pit with the strippers, and you kept trying to get me to eat Jell-O from their—"
The snarls came in surround sound, from my side of the phone and on Hollister's.
Hollister burst out laughing. "I do remember that." He caught his breath. "Seriously, though, this is strange. The things we had in common, the things we believe explain what's been going on in our lives, it doesn't match your life. I think this is something else, but…I don't know what. How do you feel? Are you…wait…you and Knox, are you…"
Hollister's questions started coming faster and faster, pouring from his mouth the moment the words hit his mind.
My gaze darted to Knox, who stood in front of the sink, running the washed dinner dishes under water. I knew what I wanted us to be. I fuck you, and you're mine. Those had been his exact words. While direct, the scope of the statement wasn't clear enough for me to answer any questions regarding our status. "I feel fine. Great actually." There, I could answer one of the questions. I could still feel the emptiness in the universe where my answer would've nestled. Were Knox and I…sleeping together? Yes. I didn't know how to answer anything beyond that.