She breathed a laugh. “Okay.”
With that, he let her go, turning and walking away into the cold, the dancing snowflakes, without a backwards glance. He’d torn off the bandage alright, but if Carter didn’t know any better he’d swear a piece of himself had been taken right along with it.
Chapter Five
Ellie…
My hands in my coat pockets, I stood there watching Carter walk away. With him went a piece of—I didn’t know. Not my heart, surely. We hadn’t been romantically involved. My life and my history, yes. The strangest part of it, anyway. He represented the weirdest and scariest time of my life when I’d gotten involved in a war between feuding gangs of shapeshifters, several months ago, back in Fort Worth. He represented me having to fight deep-seated prejudices I hadn’t even known I had against people so completely dissimilar from myself. He represented the person who had put himself on the line, more than once, to save my life. He represented my first marriage, technically. And he represented the person who had made the call to uproot my family and me, changing our identities and moving us from Texas to the Pacific Northwest to protect us from Nosizwe’s retribution.
A sigh lifted then lowered my shoulders as I watched him cross the street and parking lot. He passed Mr. and Mrs. Delmont, who were climbing out of their car, with a nod and kept going. I saw them look after him and exchange puzzled glances, then shrug and walk on into the church. The wind whipped my skirt hem around my knees, and despite the warmth of my coat and boots I was beginning to freeze. Still, I stayed in place, unable to muster up the willpower to move, until I saw Carter’s car pull out of the parking lot and drive away.
Like an unconscious habit, my fingers reached up under my coat, the neckline of my sweater, to grasp the chain around my neck. They slid down until they found the rings suspended from it.
I wasn’t sure what had prompted me to put Carter’s wedding set on a necklace and wear it constantly since moving here. Maybe as a simple reminder that I was technically married, not single. Maybe as a warning to myself that shifters were out there and I must be careful. No slip-ups with names or my past. Nothing that could blow our cover.
Maybe so I wouldn’t forget him.
As if that could happen, I told myself with a rueful chuckle.
His rental car had disappeared. Releasing the necklace, I pushed up my coat sleeve and checked my watch. Services would be starting at any moment. If I hurried, I could make it back inside, be on time, and hopefully avoid extra questions.
Sighing, I stuck my hands back in my pockets and headed for the building. I didn’t particularly feel like praise and worship right now. I wanted to go away. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. I wanted to sort out how I felt about my part in this crazy adventure that would soon end with the dissolving of my marriage. Or, as complete an end as it could come to, with me now wondering if every stranger I passed in the grocery store was a shifter; living each day in the fear that Nosizwe might figure out where I was and send some terrifying fiend after me; wondering about the fabled Stones of Fire, and the war Carter had mentioned.
How bad was the war, anyway? I hadn’t pressed him for details. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Yet in my heart of hearts I wondered if everything I’d seen and witnessed, like the battle in the Fort Worth Botanic Garden last November, had been merely a foretaste of what might be happening now. If so, that was a scary, scary thought. I would never forget that night—the blood, the fear, the sheer terror at seeing urban legends and folklore come to life before my eyes. Seemingly normal humans transforming in the blink of an eye into the unimaginable—the unimaginable bent on killing me and anyone associated with me. Not to mention the guilt at taking a life—shooting the female gargoyle bearing down on Carter.
You didn’t have a choice, I reminded myself, as I headed up the steps into church.
No, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t stopped to think, either. I’d seen the shifter coming, and I’d pulled Carter’s SIG and fired. If I hadn’t, who knows whether Carter, who’d been in his human form at the moment, would’ve survived?
Nevertheless, that didn’t prevent the recurring nightmares. Nightmares where I awakened freezing cold, yet drenched in sweat. Nightmares where I jolted up in bed, my heart pounding like it would break my ribcage, my eyes darting around my room, checking corners and shadows, the closet, like a child scared of monsters. Only, I wasn’t a child. And there were monsters. I knew that now. Because of my fear I’d taken to sleeping with a light on, and a gun in the drawer of my nightstand, beside my bed. A gun I’d gone and purchased on my own, without my family knowing. I’d half-worried at the time that a background check might raise red flags in the system, but there’d been no issues. James had done a thorough job altering our identities.
The worst part was, I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Not my mom, my best friend. Not my dad, my rock. Not even my brothers. I had to keep everything bottled up inside, until sometimes I felt like I might burst or scream. It was hard. Daily, I carried a load of guilt that nothing could assuage for displacing my family. For not being able to answer their questions, particularly my parents’. For only being able to apologize and say, “Please, trust me. You just have to trust me.”
A breach had opened up somewhere in our family unit that I wasn’t sure could ever be healed. I’d changed all of their lives, and even though I knew they didn’t hold it against me, per se, how could they not be somewhat resentful that everything, everything had changed and I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—explain why?
They’re safe, I reassured myself as I slipped into the sanctuary and took a seat on the back row. My younger brother was doing fine with his guitar, leading the worship music. Since I didn’t feel like getting up on stage or interrupting, I simply sat in the back, outwardly present but inwardly a million miles away from the singing that filled the small auditorium.
They’re safe, I said again. That was the whole point of this. If they knew, they’d understand. Any of them would have done exactly what I did to protect the rest of us. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t make the decision, anyway. Carter did. Not like he asked my opinion. He’d already set everything in motion before telling me what he was planning to do.
Carter…
Again, my fingers consciously or unconsciously went to the necklace beneath my neckline. I didn’t pull the rings out, but gently traced the chain, pondering. Around me, the service went on, but my mind was far distant.
I should have given this back to him, I realized abruptly, as my thumb touched the rings through my sweater, then slid away. Why didn’t I think of that before he left?
True, he’d told me I could keep it, but it didn’t feel right. What would I do with it, anyway? Sell it? Pawn it? That seemed wrong.
I could wait until our divorce is official then mail it back to him, I mused, my mind sorting through options.
That was a possibility.
Or I could take it back to him today before he left town. After all, I knew where he was staying.
Could bring him his Christmas present too.
The idea amused me, but I concealed a smile. Dad was up at the front now, and I was already going to be under enough scrutiny from him once services were over. I didn’t want him catching me grinning like an idiot during the morning prayer announcements, with no rational explanation why.