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20

Bo

A few days after my confrontation with Delta, I climb out of Mor’s car, which she lent me once again, and wonder why Jack directed me to a barn near the edge of town for this get-together.

This support group.

I don’t know what this meeting is supposed to be exactly.

Only that, apparently, I am not the only one who has missed out on years of my life.

Jack and Ophelia, mates of two of Mor’s siblings, were both cursed by the same sorcerer to live as animals as they acted as his magic battery.

In a way, despite their captivity times being much shorter than mine, I would hazard their experiences were more traumatic.

I wasn’t exactly aware of the world when I was trapped in a statue.

The passage of time didn’t compute for me.

It was just a suspended state of discomfort and anger.

They were awake, if slightly disoriented, as far as Mor explained it.

And then there’s the dragon.

Lee Blaythorn. I remember him actually, though he used to go by Sulien.

He was a few years older than me and popular.

That’s what happens when your parents are rich and you’re a handsome, pure-blooded mythic.

But he disappeared a few years before I had my run in with Dimitri.

I didn’t know why. No one in Folk Haven knew.

But it turns out, when his parents discovered he had fallen in love with a harpy, they kidnapped him and took him to a dragon colony in Antarctica and forced him to shift.

It’s well known that, when dragons take their beast form, they are unable to revert back to their human form for roughly forty years.

Yet, somehow, twenty years later, Lee is back and looking very humanlike.

There’s definitely more to that story, but I figure there’s probably more to all of ours.

Is that what we’re here to do today?

Share our stories?

Well, joke is on them—because I can’t.

I rub my throat, as if I could feel the binding Sev laid on me, while I walk past a couple more cars parked on a gravel pull-off.

My feet take me to the barn, where I spy Jack standing beside a short blonde woman, a white man with a thick brown beard, and a Black man with broad shoulders.

When I get close, Jack steps forward and begins to point.

Starting with me.

“Bo, you know Ophelia. And this is Lee.” He points to the bearded man.

“And that’s Xavier.” He finishes with the tall Black man.

Concise introductions done, he steps back next to Ophelia, who I met when she came to the library with Mor’s brother the other day.

“All right now, you can use any of the machines that you want. But don’t be bringing out that super strength on them. These are delicate pieces of machinery.” The warning comes from Xavier as he pulls out a key and unlocks the door to the barn.

“Machines?” I ask, still not sure what exactly we hope to accomplish in this gathering.

“Our mates want us to talk about our feelings. What it’s like to lose years.” Lee is the one who offers this through his thick beard.

His voice is scratchy and rough.

A lot different from the pretty boy I remember from high school.

“Figured we could do it while not staring at each other.”

As he finishes explaining, Xavier opens the large door, and inside, I spy something beautiful.

Pinball machines.

Rows and rows of pinball machines.

“Welcome to my hoard.”

The scene starts to make sense.

If Xavier is friends with Lee, then there’s a high chance he’s a dragon.

Most dragons pick some kind of item that they hoard.

But I’ve never heard of a dragon hoarding pinball machines.

Though it seems like a much better option to me than the massive amounts of scrap metal Dimitri had piled high in his home.

As I step over the threshold, I realize that this barn likely has the same magic seeped into its old wooden planks as the house Mor lives in.

And if any of us were to attempt to steal one of these pinball machines, chances are, the protections would come to life and enact some type of punishment that would be just as bad as what I experienced.

Silently, I try to make my intentions clear to the dragon magic in this place.

The owner of this hoard has invited me here.

I plan to be respectful to everything in this room.

I will take nothing that is not already mine.

Please don’t hurt me.

“I … I’ve never played pinball before.” This gentle confession comes from Ophelia.

She blinks around the room with big eyes, taking in all the colorful machines and missing the way that Xavier gapes at her.

Lee gives his friend an elbow to the ribs, and the guy clears the shock off his face before the small firebird turns her attention to him.

Xavier clears his throat and offers her a kind smile.

“Well then, you’re in for a treat. It’s a pretty easy game to learn. But you’re gonna have a lot of competition to get the high score.” He waves her toward a game with a steamboat theme.

“Let me show you how it’s done. Then I’ll leave you all to it.”

Not too long later, the four of us set up at four machines that are side by side, and soon, I realize the genius of Lee’s choice.

We don’t have to look at each other.

We don’t even have to talk to each other.

We all get to focus on something fun.

Something that all of us either knows how to do, no matter how long we were away, or can figure out easily.

“Before the sorcerer, I grew up pretty sheltered,” Ophelia offers as she starts her game over.

“My dad didn’t let me leave our homestead. That’s why I’ve never played pinball before. I didn’t know a lot of things about the modern world even though I had only been trapped for three years.” Her voice is quiet but strong as she slips a quarter into the machine.

Xavier gave each of us a bag of his own money, grinning and saying that he wasn’t going to charge us for the use of his hoard and this was easier than having to open up the change slot for every round that we played.

“How’s it been?” I ask, counting her as the bravest among us since she shared first. “Trying to learn all the modern stuff? Mor showed me her phone, but I was worried that I’d crack the screen.”

Ophelia tosses me a grin as she presses the buttons on the side of her machine.

“Smartphones are confusing. But once you get the hang of using one, it’s really fun. All the information that you can search online. I get lost on it sometimes, and Broderick has to gently take my phone from me just so I realize what is going on in the world around me. And don’t worry so much about breaking the screen. I’ve dropped my phone while flying, and it still survived.” She slips her hand into her back pocket and pulls one of the devices out to show me no cracks on the glass.

“Google is also great when someone says something I don’t understand.”

Jack snorts beside her, but the sound doesn’t come out as derisive.

More like he thinks the slang is ridiculous.

“Town is different.” This observation comes from Lee.

“I know what it was like. When you were here before. What the people thought like back then.” The dragon keeps his intense blue stare on the game in front of him, but I feel like he’s digging into my brain and pulling out the questions that mean the most to me.

“Not gonna tell you everyone’s changed. But the close-minded ones, they have less power than they used to.”

“Really?” I hear the doubt in my own voice.

“Your Shelly witches got that house in Wing territory. That was a big step.”

All three of us stare at Lee.

“Big step toward what?” Ophelia asks, her voice quiet, as if whatever we’re discussing might be illicit.

“Getting rid of the divides,” he explains.

“Blocking where we can live. Mythics are pushing back because it doesn’t make sense.”

He’s saying what I never would out loud.

Thoughts I had whenever I passed from the Claw section into the Monster one.

Would my mermaid mother have stayed if we hadn’t been shuffled off to the farthest corner of Lake Galen?

Maybe there would’ve been less resentment from my werewolf father if he could’ve remained closer to the pack?

“Even if they get rid of the boundaries,” I say, “that doesn’t mean the groups will suddenly forget that I’m a monster.”

“The groups?” The question comes from Ophelia.

I get the sense that she’s the most curious of us.

Possibly the most innocent too.

“The pack.” I keep my eyes away from Jack and focused on the quarter that I’m slipping into my machine.

“Doesn’t matter that I’m half. Doesn’t matter that the moon calls to me.”

“I’m not with a pack.”

I jerk my head up at that and stare over at Jack, his dark gaze meeting mine, his face revealing nothing.

“You’re not?”

He’s got two to choose from, according to Griffith.

Why would he opt to be a lone wolf?

“No. My first alpha was the one who sold me to the sorcerer. Not looking to sign myself over to another.” His voice is flat on the confession, but I get the sense fury roils just underneath.

“Both packs here owe me.”

Jack’s attention returns to his machine as he starts to play another round, as if he isn’t rocking my world with every single statement he makes.

“If you want to join one, I will make sure that you can.” He flicks his eyes to me and then away again.

“But if you just want someone to run with under the moon, then you have me.”

I swallow.

And then I have to do it again because my entire throat is blocked by emotion.

I don’t think this wolf understands how much he just offered me.

Even my father never ran with me on the night of a full moon.

Since I was thirteen, I change on that night, just like every other wolf does.

And on that night each month, when wolves join together, I run alone.

“Thank you. I … I would like to run with you.”

And when I glance Jack’s way, I swear I see the start of a smile on the corner of his mouth.