Trouble
In the seconds it took us to reach them, things were already beginning to rapidly devolve. Sides were being taken, and both Annie and Collin were holding Dylan by his arms. His target, a werewolf preteen in the half-way of shifting, was nearly two feet taller than him.
“-take it back,” Dylan was shouting. “Take what you said back!”
“I’m not taking anything back,” the other kid sneered.
“Please, Derek,” Annie was begging. “Come on, we don’t need to be like this! Dylan, you have to calm down!”
“You think you can take me?” The boy- Derek- was snarling at Dylan, his hackles raised, and all my instincts were screaming off the hook. “You think you can take on a werewolf, all by yourself? Your chicken-shit brother won’t be helping you!”
“Back off!” Dylan shouted. “You take back what you said about my mom!”
“It’s not worth it,” Collin was shouting, trying to pull him back. We were trying to push through the crowd of kids and parents all trying to see what was happening.
“You’re not worth it,” Derek snarled. “You going to fight your own battles, freak, or is your brother the one who takes control?”
We finally broke through the crowd before things could worsen. Collin’s own determination to keep from hitting this Derek kid was beginning to wane, but Annie’s desperation was slowly keeping things together.
Aegis stepped forward, and sheer aura alone suddenly cowed all of the kids, Derek included. Scowling, he dropped to the ground, and Collin released Dylan, who winced and looked at his shoes.
“What is going on here?” Aegis growled out, looking between all of them.
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Showing up at precisely that moment was Brittani Choi herself. Dressed as usual in her top-of-the-line name-brand clothing, she walked with the poise and direction of a model, someone who believed themselves above the surrounding rabble.
“Anyone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Aegis growled. His voice was low and throaty, as close to an actual growl as a human could get. It was intimidating and terrifying… and kind of hot.
Stop that, I thought distantly, shoving those thoughts back. I had gone up to stand with my kids, holding Dylan’s shoulder as Annie and Collin cowered behind me.
No one said anything, even after Aegis had asked.
“Very well,” Aegis said, before turning to a student. “You. Tell me what’s going on.”
The boy paled, and he looked down at his shoes to avoid meeting the eye of either Dylan or Derek.
“Derek stopped one of the Lake boys outside the school,” he said, looking down. “He’s been trying to start something all day with them. He finally hit a nerve, though, because he called their mom a… a… um. It wasn’t a nice word.”
“Starts with a ‘w’,” Dylan gritted out. He looked up past Derek toward Brittani. “Really great job you’re doing there, as a mom.”
Brittani’s eyes flashed, and she came up behind Derek to thump him on the back of the head, ignoring his yelp. “Did I hear that right? You’re using that kind of language, now?”
“Mom, you know how everyone is,” Derek said, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “They’re all pinning it on me. He started it.”
“Derek, stop,” Annie said, stepping forward. She looked at her mom. “He did say that word, mom.”
“Traitor,” Derek hissed.
Brittani narrowed her eyes, turning to look at me. “Already causing trouble around here, aren’t you?”
I stared at her. “You can’t be serious. You’re going to blame this on me?”
“I never had a problem with my kids until your rotten eggs showed up.”
Someone in the crowd made such a loud snort of disbelief that snickers ran around. Brittani immediately shot an icy cold glare at everyone gathered, and silence fell once more.
“I know better,” Aegis said bluntly, looking Brittani in the eye. “Even if she doesn’t, I do.”
She threw her hair over her shoulder and gave me a dirty look. “How’s it feel to have the Alpha wrapped around your little finger?”
I blushed. “I do not have-“
“He’s here with you, isn’t he? The Alpha has a life, Sylvia. He’s got things to do, people to help. Funny how you can’t just quit clinging to-“
“Brittani.”
She clammed up, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. The aura radiating off of Aegis was astronomical, and his eyes were firestorms.
“Where I spend my time is my choice,” he said, voice alarmingly quiet. “Take your children and go home. I expected better from you- both of you.”
Derek blanched and backed up until he was beside his mother. Neither could meet Aegis’s eye. Annie joined them, hunched slightly and looking at her feet. She was pink-faced with shame, and avoided her brother entirely. The power of an Alpha, I thought, watching in silence, because I sure as hell couldn’t talk with that kind of energy overpowering us all.
“Everyone go home,” Aegis said, turning on his heel.
Students and parents alike scattered like leaves on the wind, until all that remained was us. Aegis ran a hand through his hair and rolled his shoulders, trying to reign in that aura.
“We didn’t start anything,” Collin said, looking at me defensively. “He wouldn’t leave us alone all day.”
“He was pretty pissed about Annie hanging out with us,” Dylan muttered. “She’s in 6th grade, but we share lunch together. She came over, and he immediately started picking on Collin.”
Annie’s a year younger than them, I thought. That suddenly triggered my mathematics, and I realized very suddenly that Brittani must have had Derek the very same year I left.
“When did Brittani and Lawrence get married?” I said, blinking in disbelief.
“Probably… a year after you disappeared.” Aegis rolled his shoulders and looked at me. “Why?”
“I…” I looked at my kids. It felt surreal, to be thinking of events that had happened even so soon after I had run. “She must have gotten pregnant almost right out of high school.”
“Her parents were… upset, to say the least. Not enough to cut her or their future grandchildren off, but enough to demand a wedding. Not that Brittani minded,” Aegis added dryly. “She and Lawrence do care for each other, ironically.”
Figures, I thought bitterly. Even Brittani can find someone who actually loves her. Of course I’m the problem.
“Let’s get you all home,” Aegis said, tired. “You can ask Jade and Ivy about the details later.”
----
It was a quiet drive. I tried asking the kids about their day, but neither answered. Picking up Lucy helped to liven the mood, because her enthusiasm about her own first day at their new school was both oblivious and infectious, and at last, the boys were laughing. Still, however, I received no answers (from Collin and Dylan, at least).
“Don’t pressure,” Aegis said quietly to me. “They’ll come to you when they’re ready.”
I swallowed. I felt suddenly so alone. They’ve never kept things from me before, I thought, a weight in my chest. Why now? Is it because… because I kept the werewolf thing from them?
The thought was terrifying. I’d been alone for so long except for my kids, and I was having to really deal with the consequences of my actions now. But where was my manual? Where was my instruction booklet that told me exactly what to do and say in every scenario? I had done my best… surely?
The answer was clear. They didn’t trust me anymore.
My hands tightened on my pants, and I saw Aegis frown at me out of the corner of my eye, though he didn’t say anything.
We reached my home in the midst of Lucy’s regaling us of her “bajillion new friends”, and I was relieved to slide out of the suddenly stifling car.
“You all right?” Aegis asked quietly, coming to my side.
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Too late. I am worried. Something’s shaken you up.”
But I shook my head, turning to get Lucy out of the backseat. The boys were already halfway up the lawn toward the door, wearily dragging backpacks behind them, and Lucy was talking a mile a minute even with the doors closed and no one in there to listen to her.
Rudy was waiting inside, leaning on the counter and grinning at us.
“How was school today?” He asked, but Collin and Dylan just waved at him and trudged their way up the stairs, disappearing.
I felt my chest tighten.
“Well, then,” Rudy said, raising his eyebrows. His smile returned when Lucy danced in through the door and straight up to him. “I know you will have a lot to tell me!”
“I have so much to share,” Lucy said promptly. “I have to start all over though. My new teacher’s name is Miss Pran, and she’s a werewolf, and half of my class are probably werewolves, or so they say, which is so cool-“
“She’ll be going for a while,” Aegis said, grinning as he stood to the side. I quietly laid my jacket across the back of one of the couches.
“Before I forget- hang on, sweetheart, and then you can tell me absolutely everything- I have to leave, tomorrow.”
I looked up, panic settling in on top of the constriction. “Leave? Where are you going?”
“Awww, what?” Lucy’s face fell. “You’re leaving?”
“We’ve got a situation that they need me for,” Rudy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Things back in LA are ramping up, and since the full moon just passed, there were a couple of unregistered turnings that have made things worse. They need all hands on deck for this one.”
I squeezed my hands together. My decision not to tell anyone is really having a butterfly affect on the whole world, it feels like… “Will you be all right?”
“How long will you be gone?” Lucy asked, pouting. “You’re coming back, right?”
Rudy hesitated, and I saw that gaunt, hollow look appear in his eyes. I knew that look all too well.
“Of course he’s coming back,” I said quickly, and Rudy looked up. “I still need your help.”
“You don’t need my help,” Rudy said, glancing at Aegis and giving me a soft smile. “You’re well looked after.”
“I need your help,” I repeated. “You were there from the beginning, Rudy. You know me better than anyone, now. You know this family. We need your help, and I can’t be relying on the Alpha all the time. He’s got a pack to look after.”
Rudy hesitated. Aegis, hopefully out of understanding (or perhaps in agreement), did not correct me.
“Please, Mr. Rudy?” Lucy asked, tugging on his suit coat. “Please? I still have to show you all my doll stories.”
“You have to come back,” I said, trying to reinforce the words. “We still need to have that talk.”
Rudy sighed and ran a hand through his hair before smiling tiredly down at Lucy. “Of course. If you’ll have me, I’ll be back.”
“Yes!” Lucy jumped up. “It’s like having a real big family! Okay, so as I was saying-“
I let out a small sigh of relief as Lucy dragged Rudy over to her backpack, presumably to show him some of her schoolwork. I felt Aegis tap my shoulder, and I looked up to see him nod toward the front porch. We walked out together, and I moved to stand near the edge, overlooking a front lawn that was both familiar and alien. Mom always used to have funny gnomes everywhere… it’s so empty, now.
“Something’s bothering you deeply.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Aegis, standing there with his arms crossed, amber eyes on me.
“Nothing escapes you, does it?” I said dryly. My throat constricted, and I looked away. “It’s a very complicated thing, Aegis.”
“Try. Get it out of your head, before it can get tangled and nasty.”
I breathed out slowly, closed my eyes, and thought for a moment. “I have spent the last decade relying on myself. After Rudy and Rosa returned to their lives, my sole source of communication was my kids. The world was separate from me; I was an 18 year old with a couple of newborns. I haven’t formed a serious relationship since Jackson took off.”
Aegis came to stand beside me. “Go on.”
“My kids and I have told each other everything. Absolutely everything. The good, the bad, the ugly… I’ve never kept anything from them.” I paused. “Except the one thing that mattered the most.”
“We all make mistakes, Sylvia. You can’t beat yourself up over it.”
“But it’s changed everything,” I whispered. “I thought we could just move forward and… and nothing would change. But everything has changed between us.” I felt tears sliding down my face. “There’s a chasm between me and my boys, growing deeper by the day, and it’s all my fault.”
“It is not your fault. You did the very best you could with what you had.”
“I shouldn’t have kept it a secret. How stupid could I be? How did I think that was the right thing to do? I don’t even know anymore.”
“You obviously did, then.”
“No.” I felt my voice quiver. “I was just a coward.”
Aegis snorted. “No one who takes two newborn babies in at the age of 18 gets to call themselves a coward.”
“But-“
“You are human.” Aegis turned to look at me, and his gaze held me and forced me to keep looking at him. “There is nothing wrong with that. You are not perfect, and you never will be. This, too, shall pass, like all else in the world that was ever terrible.”
“But what if it doesn’t?” I whispered. “What if they’re lost from me, forever?”
“All you can do is give them the tools to survive in this world,” Aegis said gently. “It’s not your job to tell them what to think or feel. If you have given them the strength to survive and live, then you have done a good job as a mother, and one day, if not now, they will see that.”
I breathed heavily out of my mouth, swiping at more tears. “Coming here has really shaken everything up.”
“You knew it would.”
“I had no choice.” I stepped back to turn toward the house. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate you helping and encouraging me, but I-“
Before I could finish what I was saying, I suddenly tripped over my own stupid two left feet, and I stumbled and threw out my hand. I tried to catch myself, but I went down hard- or would have, if Aegis hadn’t immediately jumped forward and grabbed me.
For a split second, we stood suspended there, me draped backward over one arm, him bent over me. His face was incredibly close to mine; he’d caught me so effortlessly mid-fall that it had about stolen my breath away. I could nearly feel his chest against mine, a sensation that immediately had an affect on my heart rate.
Both our eyes widened, and his breath caught. For too many seconds (and not enough), he was mere inches from my face, and my whole chest tightened with the sudden burning desire for him to lean in; it seemed like he would, like he was fighting it. His long black hair framed his face, and his eyes were so intent on mine…
Then Aegis swallowed, stood up, and righted me once more. I stumbled again, though not from lack of balance this time. My head was giddy.
“Are you all right?” His voice was odd.
“Yes, I… I’m all right.” So was mine.
“You should go inside. I’ll go back and… lock up the shop.”
“Right. Of course.”
I turned and moved to the door, somewhat dazed, but felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look, and there was Aegis, again, inches from me. I froze up; his eyes burned like lanterns.
“I will not fail you and your family again,” he whispered, voice impossibly deep and soft all at once. He raised a hand to push my hair out of my face.
Panic threaded through the hammering in my chest, and old wounds ripped open; I jerked back and away, afraid like a deer being confronted by the wolf, barely noticing when my head bounced against the door behind me.
Aegis paused, but his hand instead just went to lean against the wall beside my face. He stood over me; instead of being imposing, it felt like being under the cool shade of a tree.
“I can wait as long as you need,” he said, before finally pushing back and away, at last returning to his car.