Page 54 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

Now I was an obligation? An obligation. I wasn’t anyone’s problem or burden.

“You don’t have to. It’s my choice,” I said.

“I didn’t—”

“You want to talk about secrets?” I said. “What about the bullets that bounced off you? What was that? I know shifters are tough, but that was definitely not normal. And why is it you’re the only one who’s not afraid to touch me? I’m starting to think you might be withholding as well.” I locked eyes with him and didn’t waver. I’d been so busy feeling guilty about not telling him everything that it had never occurred to me that I might not be the only one hiding things.

“I guess we’ll both be keeping our secrets,” he said.

“I guess so.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kicks slowed the bike.

I got off, looking around the dense forest and taking the opportunity to stretch my legs. “Are we close?”

I hadn’t been in California since my mother died. With everything else happening, it didn’t seem to hit me until now. Somehow New York falling hadn’t hit me as hard as coming back here, with her gone and the place I’d lived most of my life destroyed.

“We’re about an hour away, but I wanted to talk to you before we got there.”

I was beginning to dread anytime someone wanted to talk to me. It was never good. Maybe being surprised by whatever bad thing was coming was better? The bad might still come, but at least I wouldn’t dread it until it happened.

“What’s wrong?”

“Several of our members have family over at the California pack, and vice versa. As you know, word gets out. After what happened, there is going to have been some chatter. I’m not sure what kind of reception we’ll receive.”

“We? You mean me. I’m pretty sure I’m the one they won’t be happy to see.”

“Whatever the case, don’t wander off on your own, and I want you to be on guard.”

“Got it.” I grabbed my canteen off the back of the bike. “I’m going to fill up before we get moving again.”

I moved toward the sound of the water, looking for a few minutes alone.

Kicks didn’t follow right away but appeared a few moments later, finding me kneeling beside the river and staring off into the distance.

“Is there something else?”

“California holds a lot of memories for me.”

So much had happened in the last month that it was strange when I realized how little we really knew about each other. I’d had decades of life before him. He’d had… I didn’t even know how old he was. Life had been such a constant battle since Death Day that what had come before was beginning to feel like it didn’t exist most days. Even when it did, it didn’t matter. And then there’d be times like this, where you couldn’t see beyond all the ghosts of your past.

“I thought you were from New York?” he asked.

“I was born in New York, but I lived most of my life in California.”

“Did you have family there?”

“I did.” There didn’t seem to be a reason to tell him my mother had passed from cancer before Death Day stole so many other lives. That would only irritate a wound that still hadn’t closed.

I still wasn’t sure what was worse—someone passing so suddenly that you felt that you didn’t get a chance for goodbyes, or watching them slowly slip away bit by bit and not being able to do a thing about it.

Kicks watched me but didn’t press for anything else.

“I’ll be at the bike,” he said, giving me my space.

Once we got back on the road, it didn’t take long to get there. We rolled up to a gated development in a high-end California suburb with a couple of guards at the gate.

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