2
Sabrina
The next day when I leave the cabin to go see the boys, my mother tries to call out something behind me about not missing any more school or something … but I just ignore her.
I honestly don’t care enough about her opinion since the incident with my father to turn around and respond to her. Instead, I just keep walking.
It doesn’t matter that no one has seen or heard from him following the incident of my near abduction. I’m quite certain the boys didn’t kill him, not that I’d blame them if they did.
I can’t trust my mother anymore.
And she knows it.
It’s not easy to focus on school when the whole thing seems pointless now. Sure, I’ve missed more school than is wise over the last six months, but it’s nothing compared to what I missed when we were on the run.
On the run. That seems like a whole lifetime ago now.
It’s hard to think that was barely half a year ago.
As much as I’ve missed, apparently the boys have missed even more. They were supposed to graduate in the spring, but it got pushed off until this winter. I’m sure it didn’t help that Rory and I never did finish that lycanthrope project.
Such a shame. With all the books up at the house, we could have put something spectacular together … if a bit telling.
With their graduation coming up in just a few months now, it’s easy to forget what comes after—Kaleb’s ceremony marking his joining the shifter alliance. I still haven’t been invited, something I hope I can chalk up to the boy’s scattered thoughts with all their preparations, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up.
Just like I haven’t given up on the possibility of them turning me. Not when it’s the only possibility that leads to us actually staying together the way they’ve promised.
The way I want.
If only turning a human was as simple as being bitten by a shifter, or werewolf, or whatever. But those parts of the old myths are just that—myths. Otherwise, my being turned wouldn’t be a question. It would have already happened, thanks to the shifter that tried to kill me just a few months ago.
I don’t make it all the way up to the house before I hear the sound of Kaleb’s bark-like laugh carrying through the trees from the direction of the old barn. When I push the door open, I see the three of them rolling around in the hay, practically bursting at the seams with laughter.
I can’t stop myself from smiling as I walk in to see what all the commotion is about.
As soon as they spot me in the door, Kaleb leaps up to grab me before I can even say anything. He pulls me down onto the piles of hay with them.
“What are you guys all laughing about?” I ask once I’m able to catch my breath.
Marlowe holds up a handful of Polaroid photos while I lay on my back against Kaleb’s shoulder. I take a few of them in my hands and look over them.
There’s a photo of Lydia looking surprisingly carefree at the edge of a clifftop. Romulus actually smiling. Pictures of the boys standing against a tree-lined backdrop.
A slight pang settles in my stomach when I realize when these must have been taken. They’re from the trip the boys took early in the summer, somewhere I once again wasn’t allowed to follow.
I’m not able to stay sour for long, however. At the back of the stack are several photos of Marlowe showing off varying stages of his bare backside that I manage to get a peek at before Kaleb quickly snatches them away.
“We just got our graduation robes in the mail,” Marlowe says, in way of explanation. “And Lydia started getting all sentimental and stuff, and she dragged out all these trip pictures from a few months ago.”
I can imagine that without a photograph. The boys’ mother is nothing if not sentimental.
Lydia is so close and emotionally vested with all the boys, even though Kaleb and Marlowe aren’t biologically hers. She seems like such a good mom. My mom, on the other hand, is lacking in quite a few parental areas. I love her, and I always will; but sometimes I wish I had a mom like Lydia. Actually, a lot of the time I wished that.
Especially ever since my own mother’s last betrayal early this spring.
As if sensing my shifting thoughts, Marlowe hops hurriedly to his feet and grabs a graduation robe from a nearby box on the floor and tosses one to Kaleb too.
Both boys get up to model their new attire while Rory sits on the hay with me and rolls his eyes at them. Kaleb starts to chant the graduation procession song while Marlowe pulls his pants off from under his robe and flings them across the barn. I laugh as he swings the tassel that came with the robe around in his hand as if he’s doing some sort of strip-tease.