Soul Mates

Chapter 8

Ada was well and truly over this entire thing. She had spent the past week, not that anyone could tell, unpacking. It had officially been a week since the two had moved into the new house. Over half the house remained in boxes, and their relationship was still rocky. On the mend, but on uneven foundation.

Jack was doing his own thing, leaving Ada to her own devices for the most part. He still had his asshole Dad moments, but what father didn't? It could always be worse, Ada supposed. After all, he wasn't hoovering, which is a win in her books.

One thing that hadn't been mentioned since the initial issue? The group of guys from last week. Since that first day in town, Ada nor Jack had seen or heard a single thing from any of them. So, that fight has been abandoned for more pressing issues. Such as getting the rest of the house out of boxes. It should have been an easy enough task, because neither of them could stand to spend more than an hour working on the boxes. After all, they had kind of burnt themselves out the first few days, and as of the last two days, they were both so over it.

So, there they sat. Over half the house is in boxes, and there is no motivation to get any of it out. Ada figured at some point, they would get there, but until then they just dug what they needed out as they had to. Jack, on the other hand, couldn't stand the state the home was in, but something kept him from changing it. He just didn't know what it was.

"Ada!" Jack yelled up the stairs for the third time. It almost seemed as if his daughter had taken to ignoring him once again. Their relationship was far from on good terms but it seems to have taken a turn for the better recently. Until now, that is.

Jack stomped up the stairs in search of his biggest headache and his best decision ever.

“What, Dad? I’m kinda in the middle of something.” Ada finally shouted back from behind the closed bathroom door.

Ada stood facing the now foggy mirror in the bathroom. Well before it was foggy, she was having a hard time believing what she was seeing. What was once the smooth, clean skin of the tops of her breast, now a tattoo of sorts had mysteriously appeared. Her hand rested over the shape.

The shape? A wolf made up of swirls and vine style lines. Under the wolf shape, there was the slightest hint of what could be letters. It was hard to tell, but it almost looked like the letters CLW.

What the f**k is that? Bounced through Ada’s mind as her hand brushed over the smooth skin.

Jack would one hundred percent believe it was a tattoo, and would promptly kick her out on her ass. The issue? She had never wanted a tattoo, never one mentioned getting one.

Ada couldn’t tear her eyes off the shape on her chest. Even though she knew she needed to take a shower and get out of there. She did need to find a way to hide this from Jack, or make up a super cool story in case he saw it. While it would definitely be covered by a t-shirt, a swimsuit or low cut tank top was a whole other story.

Ada turned her back and finally got into the steaming hot shower. Maybe she could just scrub it off like its permanent marker? That dream was crushed by the end of the shower when all Ada had to show for all her scrubbing was red and sore skin on her chest.

Ada wrapped a towel around her hair and her fluffy robe around her body and shot out the bathroom and across the hall into her bedroom.

Jack, who was still propped up outside the bathroom door, where he had been for the past 15 minutes, startled as the door slammed open. He barely processed that the blur he witnessed shoot across the hall was, in fact, his daughter and not some strange supernatural being.

“What’s the rush?” He called after her as her bedroom door slammed shut.

Ada’s voice was too muffled to hear her response. Jack just rolled his eyes headed into his bedroom. He’d just been waiting to talk to her about heading into town to get some more groceries and maybe trying out a cute little diner he’d found online. He figured he could just talk to her after she was dressed.

Behind her closed door, Ada’s hand found the wolf on her chest once more. Her fingers brushed across the figure gently. Something about it drew her to touch it, look at it as often as possible.

She finally pulled her attention off of the spot long enough to get dressed. Something weird was happening. Something that started after she moved to this town. After her father got extra weird about her being in town and meeting strangers.

Adalynn’s mind wandered back to Cole, the tall stranger from town last week. She’d found herself thinking about him on and off since she met him in town. Thinking about who he was, when or if she’d ever seen him again. In fact, it seemed he was on her mind way more than any other person she’d ever met before. Her life since moving to this town had gotten weird. And she had a feeling it was only going to get weirder in the coming weeks.

Ada turned toward her window in a movement towards her bed where her clothes lay. That’s when she saw the eyes. The bright yellow, non blinking eyes staring at her from the tree line. She’d left the curtains and window open to let in some fresh air and light in the nice weather, but now she questioned that choice.

Whoever, or whatever, the eyes were connected to was hidden in the shadows of the woods too well for her to make out. But something about those eyes held her in place. Kept her from turning away, or rushing towards the window to close it and the curtains.

It was like the bright yellow eyes had put her in a trance. One that she could not seem to break, no matter how hard she tried to. Finally, after what felt like forever but was probably only about one minute, the eyes disappeared into the wood. Ada felt like she had been released from the trap as they disappeared. She rushed forward to close the window and pull the curtain closed before they could come back. Weird indeed.