Page 33 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

Autumn and Sam ate outside every night that week.

They sat at the wooden picnic table on the deck at the back of the house that overlooked the lake.

It was a relatively small lake, and only a few cottages dotted the slip of shore.

Autumn told him that a man named Stan Burroughs had built the cozy cottage with his own two hands back in the sixties, and when he passed away, it went to his son, who had become a lawyer and moved to New York City.

His son put it up for sale, and Bill had bought it after his wife, Allie, died.

She told him about her adoption and all about Bill, and he saw the way her eyes became soft and her lips tipped whenever she talked about him. Although he was overjoyed that she’d found a family to love her, it made him feel lonely too. He felt again like he was sitting on that fence, looking in.

The weather had grown cool. The trees were trying to hold their last remaining leaves, the forest floor a carpet of red and gold. Sam watched as they fluttered and floated to the ground. He thought about the apple trees and how they must be almost bare as well.

Things are always changing, Sam. Life is moving all around us, even when we don’t realize it.

Was that what Adam had meant? A leaf got picked up by a slight breeze, dipping and rising and somersaulting through the air.

Sam felt that way too lately, his thoughts flipping and sailing, traveling to places his mind had never been.

He pictured himself walking down that city street toward the school where he’d learned Amon had an assignment.

He pictured Autumn as she caught sight of him and then followed him to the school.

Their paths, somehow, had miraculously converged.

Against all odds and defying every probability.

Weeks, maybe even months before, Autumn had planned to be there on that day.

Even while Sam was avoiding killing himself, while he was working on that apple farm and sitting on fences alone, life was moving toward that very moment, and he hadn’t even realized it. Couldn’t have known. Have faith.

The same way she’d entered his life so many years ago and then left the journal behind that had kept him sane in more ways than one.

It hadn’t always seemed like a blessing, truthfully.

And just recently, he’d wished for the escape he imagined in madness.

But then again, he couldn’t have known she’d come back into this life, and he’d be grateful he had retained a mostly sound mind.

How would he have enjoyed her if he hadn’t?

You’re a fool. And you’ll be worse off when you’re parted again.

Yes, well, at least it would be permanent.

He looked over at Autumn, wrapped in a thick sweater, a book in her hand.

She read a lot of books. Bill must too, because it was his cottage, and there was a whole shelf of them inside.

Sam could tell she was preoccupied though sometimes, because she’d tap her bookmark and look away from the pages, staring unseeingly beyond her novel, a troubled look on her face.

If she wasn’t here with him, she’d probably be researching or calling or doing who knew what toward finding answers about what he’d shared with her.

It made him nervous, and it made him ever conscious of their limited time together.

As soon as he was able, he’d have to leave.

Then she could research to her heart’s content, but she’d never find anything concrete—the program would have covered their every track.

Now though…now, for this waning pause of time, it was just her and him and the dwindling canopy of leaves surrounding the small cottage where they waited things out.

It was a nice evening, and they’d remained outside, sitting and watching the water after they’d eaten the ravioli from a can. Every time she opened one of those cans, she looked apologetic and said things like, “Well, this will have to do,” like he might have complained about it.

But Sam didn’t care about food. He’d eaten hospital fare most of his life, and then he’d had to eat lots of things worse than that when food was scarce and you ate whatever you could find that was halfway edible during missions.

He was perfectly happy with canned ravioli.

Especially if he could look at her while he ate it.

Sam stretched one arm, opening and closing his fist as he flexed his fingers. He was getting stronger by the hour. He’d dressed his own wounds that morning. He was still walking stiffly and carefully, but he was walking. He’d even taken several slow strolls through the woods alone.

He closed his eyes and raised his face to the fading sun and felt the bare brush of warmth upon his skin.

A pen was on the table in front of her, and every few minutes, she’d reach for it without looking up from the page and then underline something in her book. That went on for a while, and though he liked watching her when she was unaware, he found he wanted her attention.

He cleared his throat, but she didn’t look up.

He’d been busy for the last several days filling in the pages on the pad of white paper.

But he liked to work on it while she was sleeping so she wouldn’t ask what he was doing.

The book she was reading must be riveting.

He didn’t like that book. Whatever it was.

As the sunset brightened, she brought the book higher to block out its glare. Sam reached out slowly and slid the pen quickly across the table and under his hip.

He waited, and when she reached for it a few minutes later, he watched from his peripheral vision as she lowered her book, a confused frown on her face. She set the book down and then bent, looking under the table. She huffed. “What in the world?” she murmured. “Sam, did you see my pen?”

“Maybe it blew away.”

She sat up. “A pen? Blow away? I don’t think so. Plus, there’s hardly any wind.”

“Maybe it walked away.”

“Walk—what?” She peered at him more closely, her eyes narrowing.

He liked the feel of her attention focused his way. It was the very best thing that had ever happened to him.

“Sam.”

“Autumn.”

“Do you have my pen?”

“Can you describe it?”

She paused. “It’s, oh, yea high,” she said, bringing her hands up and approximating its size. “And yea wide. It’s made of plastic, and it contains ink .”

“What color ink?”

She let out a small laugh that melted into a clearing of her throat. She put her hand out, tapped her foot, and Sam pulled the pen out from under his thigh and handed it over.

“Sneaky,” she said, rapping the pen against her wrist. “Huh.”

A smile tugged at Sam’s mouth. “You had it coming. You tripped me once.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She grinned suddenly. “You fell right on your face.”

“I didn’t fall on my face. I fell on top of you.”

She blinked, her smile melting into memory. “Yes,” she said, and her voice sounded breathy. “Yes, I remember.”

Their eyes met and held, and there was something there, but Sam didn’t know what to call it. He felt it though. It had weight. Whatever it was felt crushing in a way nothing ever had. It felt both heavy and like it might float from his grasp if he tried to hold on too tight.

“It was the last time I felt human,” he said, pressing his lips together after he said it.

He didn’t know why he’d admitted such a thing except that it was true, and he’d be leaving soon anyway.

He had nothing to give her. He’d only taken—stolen—but it felt like something to tell her she’d made him feel human once.

She’d given him hope for the first and the last time in his miserable life.

“You asked me that when you were mostly unconscious,” she said. “You asked me to tell you that you’re human. Why don’t you feel human, Sam? Is it because of the surgeries?”

He shrugged. Maybe it was mostly to do with the metal under his skin or the fact that he’d been built by doctors, but he felt it more deeply than that sometimes too, and he wasn’t sure why. “What do you think makes a person human?” he asked her.

She chewed on the tip of the pen, and the sight of her pink tongue made a spark of arousal light inside him.

He let himself enjoy it, just for a moment, before he breathed it away.

She was quiet for quite a long time as though she was thinking very hard about how to answer his question.

It made him feel important in a way he’d never felt before.

Especially because it was her, and he knew he would love the words she said even before she said them.

“I think a better question is, what feels true?”

He hadn’t expected that answer. He wrinkled his brow, confused. “True?”

“Yes. Because only things that are true satisfy the human soul.”

“Truth hurts sometimes,” he said. More often than not from my experience.

“Yes. But it’s better to know, because then you can base your decisions on truth instead of lies.

And then you have a chance at peace, because what is untrue feels jarring and abrasive.

It doesn’t ever quite settle, no matter how hard you try to swallow it down.

It keeps you in a constant state of agitation.

So you have to search for that which is true, because those are the things that make your soul sing.

And when your soul sings, you know without a doubt that you’re human. ”

“My soul doesn’t sing,” he said dejectedly. The only sound he’d ever heard rising inside him had been the howl of a beast.

But she smiled, and it was soft. “Sure it does. Maybe you haven’t been listening.”

He paused, considering her for a moment.

She was his truth. His North Star. The only thing he’d ever counted on to lead him to places that felt good and right.

And she was even more beautiful—her skin and her soul—than he’d realized.

How was that even possible? “Is that why you keep searching? For the truth about your past?” Even though it hurts?

Even though it’d be easier to let it go?