Chapter 4 #2
“Because I don't remember mine.” The admission came out flat. Matter-of-fact. “Can't exactly judge you for having a complicated bloodline when mine's full of holes I can't fill.”
Understanding flickered across his face. Not pity. Just recognition. “That's gotta be hard.”
“It is.” I ran my hand through my hair, suddenly restless.
“Everyone keeps telling me who I was. What I meant to the pack.
What I'm supposed to remember. But it's just empty space where memories should be.
And the worst part is not knowing if they're gone for good or if they're just locked away somewhere I can't reach.”
“Magic can do that,” Gideon said quietly. “Lock things away. Bury them so deep you can't find them even when you're looking.”
“Yeah, well.” I kicked at a root, needing the movement. “Doesn't make it easier.”
“No. It doesn't.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice had gone softer.
More careful. “My father kept me on a short leash. Had opinions about who was worth my time. Other witch families. The right kind of people. Anyone else was a distraction from what he wanted me to become.”
“What'd he want you to become?”
“Powerful.” The word came out bitter. “Useful. Someone who'd follow orders and not ask questions about where those orders were coming from.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.” His mouth twisted. “I asked questions. A lot of them. And that made me a problem.”
“Good,” I said. The word came out harder than I meant it to. “People who don't ask questions are the ones who let shit like Rafe happen. The ones who look the other way when they should be paying attention.”
Gideon's expression shifted. Something in his eyes going warm. “You sound like you've got experience with that.”
“I've seen what happens when people just follow orders without thinking.” I didn't elaborate.
Didn't know how to explain the flashes I got sometimes.
Memories that weren't quite memories. Impressions of violence and control and the particular kind of obedience that came from fear. “It doesn't end well.”
“No. It doesn't.”
“So you just stayed here? After everything with Silas. Never thought about leaving?”
“Every damn day.” The answer came quick. Honest. “But someone had to keep the wards up. Someone had to watch the town. And I'm stubborn, remember?”
“Yeah, I'm starting to get that.” I found myself moving closer again without thinking about it. Just drawn in by the way he talked, the way his face shifted when he dropped the careful walls. “But that's gotta be lonely. Being the only one watching.”
“It is.” He looked at me then. Really looked at me. And something in his expression cracked open slightly. “Or it was. Before.”
“Before what?”
“Before you came back.” The confession came out quiet. Almost hesitant. Like he wasn't sure if he should be saying it out loud. “Before I had someone else who understood what it's like to carry shit you didn't ask for.”
My pulse kicked up. Because he was right. We did understand each other. In ways I hadn't expected. In ways that made the pull I felt around him make more sense.
“You ever feel like you're supposed to know something but can't quite reach it?” I asked. The question came out before I could stop it. “Like there's knowledge right there under the surface but every time you try to grab it, it slips away?”
“All the time.” Gideon's voice had gone careful again. Measured. “Especially with magic. There are things I know I should remember. Spells my father taught me. Rituals he made me practice. But when I try to recall the details, it's just... blank.”
“You think he took them? The memories?”
“I don't know.” He rubbed his temples, like the conversation was giving him a headache. “Maybe. Or maybe I buried them so deep I can't find them anymore. Self-preservation or actual magical interference. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”
“Yeah.” I knew that feeling. The not-knowing. The uncertainty that came with having holes in your head where memories should be. “You know what's weird?”
“What?”
“I keep getting this feeling like I know you from somewhere.” The confession came out before I could stop it. “Not the garage. Not town. Somewhere else.”
Gideon's brow furrowed. “Like where?”
“I don't know. Just flashes, I guess. Your face. Rain, maybe. And the feeling that we talked before. Actually talked, not just the careful shit we do now where we're both trying not to say too much.”
“That doesn't make sense.” But there was doubt creeping into his voice now. Like the certainty was slipping. “I didn't leave Hollow Pines much. My father made sure of that. Kept me close. Controlled where I went, who I saw.”
“Maybe it wasn't far,” I said. “Maybe it was close. Somewhere he wouldn't have thought to watch.”
“Then I would remember.” But the words didn't sound as certain as they had a minute ago.
“Would you?” I looked at him. Held his gaze. “Because if Silas was the kind of man who kept you on a short leash, who controlled who you talked to, then maybe he had reasons to make sure you forgot certain people.”
“Why would he do that?” Gideon asked quietly.
“I don't know.” I took a step closer. Close enough now that I could see the flecks of color in his eyes, could count the small scars marking his hands, could feel the heat coming off him despite the evening chill.
“But if you're right about magic being able to lock things away, then maybe he locked something away that involved me. Or us.”
He reached for me without thinking. Just a gesture, his hand coming up to emphasize whatever point he was trying to make. At the same time I shifted forward, drawn in by the intensity in his face, by the way he was looking at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
Our hands brushed.
Skin on skin.
The world shattered.
Rain. Not hard, just steady enough to make the road slick and the trees blur at the edges.
I was nineteen and running from expectations I couldn't meet. Just needed distance. Needed to be anywhere except Hollow Pines with its weight of legacy and futures carved out before I'd had a chance to choose.
I'd taken a back road. Followed it until it dead-ended at a rest stop that looked like it had been forgotten by everyone except the trees slowly reclaiming it.
Someone else was already there.
I smelled him before I saw him properly. Magic. Old and earthy, the kind that made the air taste different. Made my wolf sit up and pay attention in ways it usually didn't for anyone outside the pack.
Dark hair. My age, give or take. Standing under the overhang with a book in his hands and that particular focus that said the world could burn and he wouldn't notice until he finished his chapter.
I should've kept walking. Should've gotten back in my truck and found somewhere else to not think about pack responsibilities and the future everyone kept trying to shove down my throat.
But I didn't.
He looked up when I got close enough. His eyes tracked me for half a second, and I saw recognition flicker across his face. Not my face. What I was. Pack magic had a scent, and apparently so did witch magic, because we clocked each other in about two seconds flat.
“Shit weather for reading,” I said.
“Better than staying home.” His voice was measured. Careful. Like he was deciding whether I was a threat or just another kid trying to escape for a while.
I laughed despite myself. “Yeah. I get that.”
We looked at each other. Two supernatural kids who'd escaped into the rain because home was suffocating and we needed to breathe.
“You're pack,” he said.
“You're a witch.” I moved under the overhang, shook the rain out of my hair. Water dripped down the back of my neck. “Never met one before.”
“Most pack kids haven't.” He closed the book. Marked his place with his thumb like he was planning to go back to it once I left. “Most avoid us.”
“Should I be avoiding you?”
“Probably.” But there was almost a smile there. Small and careful. “We're dangerous.”
“So are we.”
“Different kind of dangerous.”
“Doesn't mean we can't be curious.” I leaned against the wall, trying to look relaxed even though my wolf was still paying way too much attention to him. “I'm Ronan.”
“Gideon.”
We talked. I don't know how long. An hour, maybe more.
About pack politics and the particular suffocation that came from everyone knowing who you were supposed to become before you'd figured out who you actually were.
About magic theory and the weight of legacy and what it felt like to be told your whole life that your path was already decided.
He was smart. And he listened when I talked about pack dynamics, about the way power moved through bloodlines, about how hard it was to be the second son when everyone only cared about the heir.
At some point the rain stopped. At some point reality crept back in. Families probably wondering where we'd gone. Responsibilities waiting.
“Maybe I'll see you around,” Gideon said.
“Maybe.” I looked at him. Held his gaze for half a second longer than I probably should've. “Though something tells me we're both good at disappearing when we need to.”
There was almost a smile again. “Yeah. We are.”
Then I left. Drove back to Hollow Pines. Filed it away as unimportant. Just a random meeting with a witch kid who got it. Who understood what it felt like to be trapped by expectations you didn't ask for.
I didn't think about it again.
Until now.
The present slammed back into me.
I stumbled back, my hand jerking away from Gideon's like the contact had burned me. My heart was pounding too hard, my breath coming in bursts, and the clearing felt wrong now. Too bright. Too solid. The memory had been real in ways this didn't feel real.
Gideon stared at me, eyes wide, his face gone pale.
“What the fuck was that?” he whispered.
I couldn't answer. My throat had locked up, my whole body still caught in the aftershock of whatever the hell had just happened. I could still smell the rain. Could still feel the cold concrete under my boots. Could still hear Gideon's voice—younger, careful, testing me out to see if I was safe.
“You saw it,” I managed finally. Not a question. I could see it in his face. The shock. The confusion. The fear.
“I saw myself. I saw us talking.” He pressed both hands to his temples, like he could force the memory to make sense if he pushed hard enough. “But that didn't happen. That never happened. I would remember that.”
The certainty in his voice should've settled something in me, but it only made the cold crawl deeper under my skin.
“But you were there,” I said. My voice sounded rough. Scraped raw. “We both were. We talked. You told me your name.”
“I don't remember. I don't remember any of it. Not the rest stop, not the rain, not meeting you. It's not there. It's just—fuck, it's just gone.”
My stomach twisted. Because if he couldn't remember it, if the memory was just gone from his head like it had never existed, then someone had taken it. Someone had reached inside and carved it out clean.
“Who would do that?” The question came out flat. Shock, maybe. My brain was still trying to catch up to what my body already knew.
Gideon looked at me then, and the fear in his face hit harder than it should have.
“My father,” he said. “If someone could take this from me... from us. It had to be him.” he said slowly. The words sounded careful. Deliberate. Like he was testing them out to see if they'd hold. “Then maybe there's more. More shit missing. More things they didn't want me to remember.”
The thought settled in my chest with a weight that made it hard to breathe.
“How many?” I asked. The question came out quieter than I meant it to.
“I don't know. But why would he erase that memory of us meeting?” he asked. His voice had gone quiet. Almost a whisper.
I looked back at him, and the answer settled in my chest before I could stop it.
“Because he didn't want us to know each other,” I said. The words felt heavy coming out. “He wanted us to be strangers.”
His throat worked again. “But why?”
That, I had no answer for.
We stood there in the clearing as the last light bled out of the sky. The dark gathering around us like something alive. And all I could think was that if someone had been inside Gideon's head once, there was no telling what else they'd taken with them.
Or what they'd left behind.