11

I lowered myself onto the roof in front of her window and knocked on the window. Alice’s back was turned to the window. The second I knocked, she jumped so hard that she crashed into the door.

“Holy shit!” she squealed, her hands on her face. “What the hell, man? What is your problem?”

“You are my problem, Alice Hawkins!” I said, thoroughly vexed. “Why haven’t you come to school this week? Why are you avoiding me? What terrible mistake did I make to warrant this behavior?”

Alice came to the window and pulled it up.

“May I?”

“What are you, a vampire?”

“It’s manners.”

“You should have thought of that before scaring the bejesus out of me like that!”

I stepped into her room and was suddenly overcome by the many scents that I had associated with Alice. The fragrance of lavender lotion, the sweet musky smell of her perfume, and a slight tinge of sweat. The air inside her room was rank with the stench of smoke and dewberries.

“Did you burn sage in here? It’s intoxicating,” I said, holding back the urge to cough.

“I’ve been getting rid of bad vibes. But it seems they have a way of following me,” she said dryly, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, you mean me?”

“Yes, you! What is this behavior?”

I took a deep breath. She was aggravated, of course, she was. She deserved an explanation. “Listen. That day in the cove when we were making out. I don’t know what happened to you. I was never given an explanation. Could you please tell me what happened? I’ve been caught in a whirlwind of emotions, trying to make sense of what occurred.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Brandon. There are some things that you don’t know, things that I can’t talk about so easily,” she said.

“There are things you don’t know either!”

“Like what?!”

“Like how I’m in love with you, you weirdo.” Saying that out loud finally felt so good, it was like unloading a burden that had been strapped to my chest. “And I haven’t gotten the chance to say that to you. I haven’t been able to tell you that you are my fated mate. I felt it in my bones the first time we met. That day when we kissed, every fiber of my being confirmed that suspicion. You, Alice, are my fated mate.”

Alice’s face went from aghast to bewildered, her eyelashes quivering, her lips twitching. “First of all, you love me? Secondly, what does fated mate even mean? Am I supposed to know what that is? Who falls in love with someone a week after knowing them?”

“It’s a wolf thing,” I said. “And if you let me explain, I can talk about it.”

“Fine. But you won’t like what I have to say,” she said.

“There is little choice when it comes to becoming someone’s fated mate. I didn’t choose you. You didn’t pick me out of a crowd or something. Yet, when we met, Providence entwined our destinies together. That’s why I said that you might be a wolf too because only another wolf can be a wolf’s fated mate. It’s all too much and too confusing, I know, but please, I am asking that you have a little bit of faith. In me. In us,” I said.

Alice sighed. “Brandon, you’re a good guy. You are. If things were different, I would even humor this whole fated mate thing and see where it goes. However, I have a thing. It’s more of a condition. I can—and I know it sounds cuckoo—see the future sometimes. It happens in the form of a vision. That day in the cove, I had a vision of you dying.”

I felt my legs going weak as she told me what she had seen. I sat down on her bed, listening to each word seriously. I didn’t blame Alice anymore. If I’d had a vision like that, maybe I would have behaved the same way.

“And these men, they were wearing uniforms?” I asked.

“Yes, like they were soldiers or something,” she said.

There was no way she was making things up at this point. The Department of Preternatural Control had been picking us off one by one for some time now. Their mission was to purge the country of all sorts of preternatural life. Including werewolves. Including my family.

“Alice, I know you’re traumatized from what happened, but I need you to come with me. There’s an explanation for your visions. I just need you to come with me to my elders. Will you do that?”

Alice’s skepticism softened, her face giving away what she was thinking. It wasn’t cold or stern any longer. It was warm, concerned.

“I just told you that I saw you die. How are you taking it this well?”

“When you are born into a world full of magic and mysteries, when you grow up knowing that there’s a whole new world out there, a world with werewolves and faeries and elves and such, few things faze you. I’m shook. I wish you had told me earlier. But still, I’ve had worse,” I said. “Now, will you come with me?”

“Where are we going?”

“I do not claim to have all of the answers. But my elders do. I trust them. Don’t you want to know why you can see the future? Why you saw me die?”

“All I want is for this madness to end. Can your elders help with that?” she asked. “This chaos has been haunting me since I was a kid. Even back in Chicago. Hell, it’s the reason we moved in the first place.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Alice sat down beside me on her bed. “There was this kid. I was in class and I had this vision where everyone in the school was dead. And in my vision, the kid was holding, well, one of those big military rifles.”

“Jesus,” I whispered.

“I alerted the cops, the principal, and even pulled one of those new alarms they have in schools in case of a school shooter. It was a complete mess. It turned out, there was no school shooting. Whether I managed to stop it in time or whether there was nothing of that sort happening in the first place, we’ll never know. All I know is that the principal and the police had me admitted to a psych ward for an evaluation. The doctor said to my mom that the pressure of the big city had gotten to me. We freaking moved here. Everyone I ever knew back there, they looked at me like I was some sort of attention-whore. You can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like when your life ends like that.” Alice’s voice broke off into a trail of sobs and whimpers.

I came near her and wrapped my arm around her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I may not know that, but I sympathize with you. I’m here for you. You don’t have to go through this alone,” I said.

Once she stopped crying, she lifted her head off my shoulder and stared at me with bewilderment.

“You’re still here. You haven’t run away from me, thinking I’m crazy. Why?” she asked.