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Chapter Three: Reflections

Constance

            I slumped against the closed front door, grateful I didn’t have to pretend to be okay at the moment.  I was always the first one home and didn’t have to worry about putting on a ruse until later when Jamie got out of cheerleading practice and the guys got home from football.

            Lately, my anxiety had been nearly absent since I had left my mother’s house, broken up with Keith, and smoothed everything over with Matt.  But recently, it had been slowly creeping back into my life like a sickness and today, it was hitting me hard.  I had a feeling it was due to Kevin and his constant harassment about getting involved in some kind of relationship.  And, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, meeting Gabriel also dug up unwanted memories from the past; ones I had tried so hard to bury.

            I needed to avoid Gabriel.  He was everything I had sworn off after Keith.  And I couldn’t help shake the feeling he would end up destroying me if I fell into temptation.  Maybe it was wrong of me to judge him so quickly, but he had that same dark, mysterious countenance my ex had that put me on edge.  Shoving him from my mind, I was determined to put him from my thoughts entirely.

            Determined to get myself out of this funk, I dropped my bag in a chair and proceeded to the kitchen.  Cooking or baking always helped me calm down and think more clearly while allowing me to still be productive.

            As I pulled out all the ingredients for lasagna, I pondered why Kevin had increasingly become more and more insistent on a relationship.  I tried to figure out when—if ever—I had allowed our friendship to turn into ‘something more’ and came up empty handed.  There hadn’t ever been a time when I allowed the lines to blur.  Every time he tried to blur the lines, such as cuddling with me on the couch or holding my hand, I had always and immediately removed myself from him.  I never allowed that kind of familiarity.  The only thing I ever did was give him a hug once in a while and engage in verbal banter, like normal friends would do.

            As much as I wanted to avoid conflict, I was at the point where I had to put my foot down.  Tonight, I would confront him about his obsession and not allow him to walk away until this was resolved.

            My heart sank at the very real possibility that the only way to completely resolve this was for me to move out of the house I shared with those I called family.  I didn’t want to move and I also didn’t make enough to buy my own house or rent an apartment.  I was lucky and spoiled because Matt had bought this house after graduating from high school.  With the help of his wealthy family, the house had been paid off in full and the only expenses were those of the monthly utilities.  Divided between the four of us, there was hardly anything to pay.

            At the moment, I didn’t have enough money saved to move out on my own, or even rent a room from someone.  My only other option was to move back in with my crazy mother and I wasn’t sure if that was the best thing.  I was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.  I didn’t want to fight with Kevin anymore but living with my emotionally abusive mother would be detrimental to my health.

            What was a poor girl to do?

            Maybe staying one more semester with the crew wouldn’t be bad, and once break came around, I could find another job and save up money so I could rent a room.  That was probably the best and most feasible option I had.  I just had to survive a few more months under the same roof as Kevin and then it would be all better.  With space our friendship should improve.

            As I placed the lasagna in the oven, my phone started ringing.  I knew who it was without even looking at the ID on the screen.  “Hi cuz!” I greeted cheerfully.  Talking to my cousin always put me in a better mood.

            “Hi C,” he returned.  “How’s your day going?”

            “Oh, could be better, could be worse.  Same ol’ same ol’.”

            “It’s Kevin again isn’t it?” he asked knowingly.

            “Yeah.  He’s not letting up.  I’m going to talk to him but I don’t know if it’ll work.”

            “I can’t ever leave you around single vampires can I?” he teased.

            “Nope!  They all have this bad habit of thinking I’m a great match made in heaven.”

            “You just need to stop being so damn cute!”

            “That’s the problem!  It’s when I start being all mean, rude and standoffish they can’t resist me!  Maybe being nice and too clingy will put them off?”

            He laughed.  “What can I say?  They like the challenge.  You know how their charm makes women fall at their feet practically begging for it.  They like that you’re hard to get.”

            “So, what you’re saying is I need to pretend to be besotted with them and they’ll leave me the heck alone?” I responded, amused.  None of this was really new news; we just never discussed it before.

            “I thought you would have figured that out by now, seeing you have only been surrounded by them for years, not to mention you’re—

            “Don’t you dare suggest I’m like that,” I growled, trying to sound offended but failing horribly through my laughter.

            “No, you’re just plain normal,” he retorted.

            “I don’t know if I should be offended or not!” I gasped.

            “Typical blond, can’t make up her mind.”

            “Oh!” I growled good naturedly.  “The next time I see you, I’m going to get you for that!”

            “Don’t be so sensitive!”

            “The only thing that’s going to be sensitive is your rear!”

            “That’s my girl,” he said softly, affectionately.

            “Don’t tease me so!”

            “Made you smile though right?”

            Yes, he had successfully done that.  “Do you have any good news for me?” I asked, unable to hide the hope in my voice.  Normally, when he called, there was something new he had learned or found out about our ‘circumstance.’  That circumstance being centered around our immortality and the loss of memory involving it. 

            When Erwin was shot by Keith, it had triggered some kind of jolt that reconnected all the ‘forgotten’ connections between the members of his pack.  Just like Erwin hadn’t known he was the alpha of a werewolf pack, his pack hadn’t known about him.  Their memories of one another had all been shrouded and twisted using magic; only the feeling of loss had remained.  Later we would understand the lost feeling indicated something was amiss.  While this incident hadn’t restored all memories, it had restored enough for us to realize this memory loss wasn’t the result of an accident.  It was intentional. The car crash had just been a cover story for something far greater and sinister.  We just didn’t know what.

            After coming to the realization we were anything but human, my cousin and I—with the help of his pack—tried to figure out why we hadn’t known about our heritage.  We knew someone had intentionally tampered with our memories and the memories of those we had known before, but that didn’t explain why my cousin and I had forgotten we were immortals while the rest of his pack had remained aware of their lineage.  This, then, led us to start speculating as to why.  The most probable hypothesis we came up with was that maybe one of us was in danger and we were put into hiding—of sorts.

            A piece of information which lent credibility to this particular theory was my father’s quick departure shortly after the car accident occurred.  My father’s occupation—which had conveniently been erased from my memories—had been known nationwide, if not worldwide, for his work.  Therefore, if he would have stayed, someone could have easily recognized him and if my family was trying to protect me or Erwin from some kind of danger, it would have been imperative for him to be removed from our lives.  Thus, we ruled my father’s departure as necessary. 

            Following this assumption, we concluded my parents were mates.  My father wouldn’t have had any reason or desire to abandon his family unless he deemed it absolutely necessary—considering the pain, deterioration and anxiety it would cause both of them to be permanently separated.  As explained to us by the members of the pack, once two beings performed and completed the bonding ritual, it was physically and mentally painful for either party to be separated.  Permanently meaning physical and mental contact was severed by magic.  That was the only way to break the strong bond between mates.  Or by death.

            Seeing as it was my parents who were separated, we concluded I was the one who was in need of protection.

            From what, we still didn’t know. 

            Since my cousin and I were clueless about anything revolving around the immortal world, the pack took it upon themselves to explain the basics every immortal knew. Such as Immortal Law, innate powers—like super human strength, speed, hearing, etc—and the rare gifts few immortals possessed.  They went into some depth about the more uncommon gifts some immortals expressed, like telepathy, kinetic absorption, controlling or mimicking animals, and manipulation of lesser beings—to name a few.  Even rarer gifts included healing, telekinesis, mind control, memory manipulation, or empathy.  Most immortals only possessed one of these superpowers, however there were a handful who expressed multiple powers and were known as sorcerers.

            Armed with this new information, we were able to surmise a memory manipulator—or a sorcerer with this particular power—was responsible for our memory loss.  It wasn’t hard to come up with a list of those with this particular gift seeing it was the rarest form of power.  The challenging part came when we were trying to narrow down which of these immortal beings was responsible.  It wasn’t easy since we had this nagging feeling danger was looming on the horizon if we rocked the boat too much.  This wasn’t done by accident.  Most memory manipulators didn’t do a job without some kind of penance or form of payment.  Therefore, someone had to know something, especially when this was on such a large scale.  Meaning it didn’t just affect the lives of my family, but the lives of distant relatives, friends and colleagues. 

            Over the months since our revelation, my cousin and his pack made some quiet inquiries into any monumental jobs any of the individuals in question took around the time our memories were affected.  To our utter disappointment, nothing came up.

            “Yes, actually I do.  None of the immortals we’ve been asking after can do such a large-scale manipulation.  Most can only manipulate two individuals; the best:  a small family.”

            “Then who ...?”

            “There’s talk that one family in particular may have been able to pull off such a grand design.”

            “Who?”

            “The Erickson’s.”

            A telltale gaping chasm of loss clouded my mind at the name.  It sounded so familiar . . . Too familiar, but I could not grasp any solid memories, even though I could feel them tickling the edges of my consciousness.

            “Constance?”

            “I’ve got that feeling I know the name, but . . . .”

            “I’ve got that same feeling.”

            “Have you been able to get any information about the family?”

            “Not really.  The pack doesn’t know much about them but the basics.  They are a relatively large and unique family.  Many are sorcerers who have honed their powers to a point that they are one of the most—if not the most—powerful group of immortals in the world.  Their matriarch, a full-blooded werewolf, mated with a full-blooded vampire and had one successful pregnancy which produced twin males.”

            Wow!  That was definitely quite an anomaly.  Vampires and werewolves weren’t necessarily compatible, their DNA acting like two entirely different species.  The abnormality of such an anomaly was truly fascinating.  What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on blood samples from that family just to see what made them compatible; to see what mutations occurred in order for the twins to come into existence!

            The biologist in me was highly intrigued by this wild glitch.

            “The twins grew to adulthood without any complications.  One is mated and the other is not.  The one who is mated, though, is one of the only few in the family who does not express the sorcerer gene.  The other twin is an extraordinarily powerful individual and is a member of the High Immortal Council.  There’s one more thing about this family.  They are renowned for their expertise in the hunting and killing of demons.”

            Another intriguing aspect.  Not many are strong enough—physically or mentally—to kill a demon.

            “Can you quietly ask around about them?”

            “It’s risky Constance, especially since one of them is in the HIC.”

            “I know but … This is the most promising information we’ve gotten so far.”

            “I’ll do what I can,” Erwin promised.

            Good.  “How’s my mother?”

            There was a derisive snort from him.  “She’s alive.”

            I rolled my eyes at his tone and decided to let his short, bitter answer slide.  My mother was and continues to be a sore topic between us.  He doesn’t like that I’m paying her bills and making sure she has food to survive on because she wasn’t the best of mothers.  She had neglected me and emotionally abused me and over time it just got worse.  The thing of it, though, was that it all tied back to her and my father’s severed bond.  Do I believe she could have handled things differently?  Yes.  But, she handled the stress of a broken family and shattered bond to the best of her abilities.  I couldn’t condemn her for that.

            He didn’t want me going to her house, giving her any opportunity to further inflict damage onto me.  Therefore, he or one of his pack members, would drop by once every week to do a wellness check on her.  Erwin had helped me set up all the bills online, therefore there was no need or excuse to go to her house, other than to drop off groceries occasionally.

            “How’s the pack?” I ask, trying to lighten my cousin’s mood.

            Erwin immediately latched onto the opportunity to leave behind the bitter subject of my mother and dove into the pack’s latest antics of boredom.  Talking about Erwin’s pack of mutts always helped me relax.  They were one of the few consistencies in my life and I enjoyed hearing about them.  It was past time for me to go and visit them again.

            “We all miss you.  You should come visit this weekend.”  Erwin’s invitation mirrored my thoughts.

            “Maybe.  We will see,” I murmured halfheartedly.  Matt and his friends were going camping this weekend which meant a girl’s weekend for Jamie and I.  “I’ll talk to you later this week.  Love you!”

            “Love you too.”

            Once I was off the phone, I made a batch of brownies and then started working on my Belle costume.  At some point in time, I turned the oven off and left the food in to keep everything warm.  Another half hour or so later, the crew came waltzing in from practice.

            “Mmm,” Jamie hummed taking a deep breath.  “Something smells good.”

            “I made lasagna.  And brownies.”

            “Yum!  Chocolate,” she smiled.

            “I know how you feel,” I sympathized with her.  Not only could we finish each other’s sentences and dress similarly without ever consulting one another, we also shared the same monthly call every woman under fifty experiences.

            “I’m guessing dessert is first?” Matt teased.

            Jamie and I just laughed.

***

            After dinner, I made my way out to the front porch swing while they cleaned up.  I was trying to figure out how best to approach Kevin about my concerns.

            A gentle jolt of the swing alerted me I was no longer alone.  “So . . . ,” Kevin began.

            Think of the devil and he shall appear.  Oh, this wasn’t going to be good.  “So?”

            “You hanging with Gabriel Kingly?”

            I had not expected Gabriel to come up at all and was thrown a bit off my game.  I swung my gaze to Kevin’s.  “No?”  I hadn’t meant to make it into a question.

            “You smell like him.”

            “We have US history together,” I explained.

            “Hmm,” Kevin frowned.

            “When we parted ways after class, I realized I’d lost my keys.  I went looking for them in the classroom.  Gabriel had found them and gave them back to me,” I explained, not understanding why I felt the need to do so.  Truthfully, it wasn’t any of Kevin’s business who I interacted with.  “He was just being a good Samaritan.”

            Kevin grunted again.

            “What is it Kev?”

            He didn’t answer right away, as if he was contemplating his answer.  “He’s not good, C.”

            I shrugged.  “He seemed pretty normal to me.”  Liar!

            “He’s not, and you would do well to stay away from him.”

            His statement had me bristling.  “Kevin, I know you have feelings for me and all, but I’m not interested in you like that.  I thought I had made that perfectly clear when you asked me out last month and I thought we had sorted this all out.  So, why do I get the feeling you didn’t take that conversation to heart?”

            “Constance.”  There was aggravation in his tone.

            “Don’t Constance me, Kevin!”

            “Can we talk about this later?  Maybe after we finish our conversation about Gabriel Kingly?”

            “No!  This needs to happen now!”  I shot up onto my feet, glaring at him as my fists connected with my hips.  I was fuming.  “You seriously need to lay off on the whole relationship thing because that’s never going to happen between us.  I don’t share the same feelings you do, and I never will.  You’ve convinced yourself of something that’s not really there.  You’re failing to see I’m not the right one for you.”

            Kevin rose slowly, nearly menacingly, piercing me with such a hostile glare I almost winced.  “Don’t you dare tell me what I’m feeling Constance.”

            “Then don’t tell me what I’m feeling,” I growled back.

            He pursed his lips, knowing I’d shoved him in a corner with his own words.  “You need to stay away from Gabriel.”  He changed the subject.

            Fine!  “Why?  What is so bad about him, Kevin, other than he’s your competition?”

            Kevin bared his fangs, livid.  His eyes a soft shade of red.  “He’s a dangerous half-breed Constance.  That’s all I can say about him.”

            “You’ve never been shy about sharing your secrets of the immortal world.  Why stop now?”

            I felt the air shift just before his fingers latched around my neck and dragged me to him.  “Careful now.”

            “Or what?  You’ll make me disappear?  Because I’m a mortal in an immortal world?  You wouldn’t do anything to me.”  Even now, as angry and frustrated as he was, caught in his grasp, I trusted in him not to cross that line into abusiveness.  This was just his way of trying to prove his dominance in a situation where I owned him.  Though, it still wasn’t okay for him to do this.

            Sighing, he eased his grip.  His hand gently slid to the nape of my neck.  Before he could try to pull me in for a kiss, I ducked out from his touch and put space between us.  “s**t, C.  I’m sorry!”  He took a step back too, running a hand through his hair as if trying to get his bearings.  “You’re right.  It’s just, difficult to instantly shelve one’s feelings.  Especially when you really care about someone.”

            I studied him, trying to determine if this meant he would stop his unwanted advances and realize I had permanently placed him in the friend zone.  Or if he was just trying to appease me.  Well, I guess the future would tell.  I was tired of beating this subject to death.

            “C?”

            “Yes?”

            “As much as I may not like the idea of you being with someone else, Gabriel truly isn’t someone you want to get involved with.  Promise me you’ll avoid him at all costs.”

            “I promise I won’t intentionally seek him out.  But, you have to understand we attend the same college and share a class.  I’m not going to be able to completely avoid him.”

            “Drop the class.”

            Was he for real right now? “No, it’s too late to do that.”  I wasn’t about to flunk a class intentionally.

            “Well then, you leave me with no choice,” he said rubbing the space between his eyes, as if fighting a headache.

            “What do you mean?”

            “I’m going to have to drop economics so I can keep an eye on you in history.”

            “You’re being ridiculous, you know that right?”

            “I’m trying to protect you.”

            “Really?  Tell me, what can he do in a class full of people?” I demanded.  According to immortal law, an immortal couldn’t expose oneself to the general population or force any being against their will without there being severe repercussions.  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

            He contemplated my logic.  “Just stay with Jamie until Matt and I are out of class, okay?  And make sure you’re never left alone with him, please.”

            With how insistent Kevin was being, there had to be some truth behind his warnings.  “Okay, I promise.”