Raven

Chapter 19

NINETEEN

I didn't know if it was the bike, the situation, or whoever that Lyra woman was, but something was off about my mother as we left the scrap yard. Her eyes had blazed at Malachai, and I didn’t like the way he looked at her. But there was more to it. I might not have been able to read my mother, but I could read him. There was anger there, anger and a whole lot of something else. He glared at me as we left, our eyes meeting, and I let my top lip peel back to show him the panther teeth that’d come down in my jaw. I didn’t need to speak. The message was clear. He might have been fae and full of magic, but he was in our world now.

We got my bike to the car park of the cafe, and my mother said nothing. No comments, no instructions. It was not like her, but I used it, pushed against things I knew she’d normally complain about. She even let me ride with her going pillion. If I couldn’t feel there was something wrong, that’d have been the biggest hint, because her letting me be in control of anything … not a chance.

These kinds of moods when she got them niggled at me. They made my skin itch, and I’d wait. It was like waiting for a volcano to explode, because you knew it was going to. It was just a matter of time. Part of me just wanted to scream at her. Just bloody tell me what it is so we can get it out of the way. But I bit my tongue and carried on.

The bike was in pretty good shape considering. In all honesty, I was pretty sure it’d be long gone, or if I found it, it’d be smashed just because the humans knew it belonged to an Other. Yes, that’s how pathetic they get. I guess I should have been grateful that Malachai was going to keep it for himself. I’d be sure to thank him one day, especially if he ever looked at my mother like that again.

There was a slight tear in the seat, one of the handlebars had lost its cover, and the petrol tank bore a slight scratch—nothing I couldn’t buff out later.

We got to our building. My mother unlocked the garage so I could put the bike in. Surprisingly, she left me to it, not helping and still not speaking. I stared at her for a good long moment as she went back to the door of our place, but she didn’t even look back at me. Her silence was getting under my skin. There was something different in this.

When I got upstairs to our place, it was no different. She was in the bedroom, probably getting changed, because that was where she kept her clothes. We shared the bedroom. Not the bed. I got the room mostly, but if I wasn’t there, then she used it. The wardrobe was split between our clothes. Not that we had many, but it was fine. We didn’t need stuff.

While she was in there, I went to the lounge and plonked myself down on the sofa. I even opened one of my college books, which was useless, because my head wasn’t in a place to read it. In the end, I sat with my head in my hands. My mother came out of the bedroom, and I expected her to say something to me, but all she did was mutter a goodbye and leave.

I tried reading her, sending out my ability, threads in the air, but she was back to her normal, locked self. It was like hitting a thick, dark membrane that any time I tried to penetrate it, I got thrown back. It took me a moment to shake it off. I’m pretty sure my mother knew about what I could do. Probably before I did, which was why she had her shields up in the first place. But I wasn’t trying to invade her mind. I wanted to scope out her feelings and understand what the fuck was going on.

It had to be the fae and Lyra.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her this rattled. It was like a live wire had been cut, sparking and fraying at the edges. Normally, she only got this way when it was something about me, and we’d talked out everything I’d done wrong already.

I clenched my jaw, knowing better than to ask. Her walls were up, higher than usual, bristling with an unspoken warning. She was a vault, and I didn’t have the key. Her problems were her own. She’d always played the adult card, locking me out of her world. My job was to pass school, pay the bills, and keep my nose clean. Her rules. Her life. I was just a kid trying to stay in line.

I guess it didn't matter. My mother would deal with it, and it'd pass, and then we'd never mention it again. I had to go and meet Lachlan.

I had only ever done a couple of reverse shiftings before. It wasn’t often people came back from Exile. Usually, they went there to hide, to go under the radar. Not that Exile was anything special. From what I knew of it, it was a hostile place, but it had a level of freedom. No one cared, basically. So why would someone come back? I guessed we’d see.

I went down into the underground to meet Lachlan. It was already late, and we’d probably not make it back before the ten o'clock curfew. That gave us an hour to get there and back, which was never going to happen.

There were roads we could use, ways we could go without sweepers monitoring, but those routes cut through areas dominated by Others or controlled by Society. Most were sketchy backstreets that humans didn’t give a shit about. But if we were careful enough, we could slip through without anyone seeing us.

The underground was a sprawling cavern, once an underground railway system, shut down a decade ago. Stray Others had taken over, and no one bothered to kick them out. Some tracks still remained, while others had been pulled up and covered with makeshift flooring.

The archways were useful; strays had built shop fronts or facades around them, creating a semblance of an underground world. It had been there so long, it functioned well, but it wasn’t the most welcoming place. As nice as it might sound, the people down there had nothing. No money, no property. They had carved their world out of poverty, living the best they could with what little they had. This was where the desperate came when they had no other options.

The main track of the underground went as far as the next station. It was covered and lit up, with doors lining the sides. I assumed those rooms had been maintenance rooms or something similar when it was a working railway. The place was so vast, stretching across two stations. The other station came out at the river, where the infirmary had been built. It spanned a good few shipping containers, the large metal kind stacked onto boats and shipped out with cargo. I had no idea how they’d got them down there or when. The thing with strays—just because they weren’t part of Society didn’t mean they were useless. This entire place, this world they’d created for themselves, functioned maybe on a better level than the one up top. They hadn't just got the shipping containers down here; they'd engineered them into a proper hospital. Plus, they’d used many of the boxes, stacked to make places for the Others down here to live. It was nothing short of impressive.

Hands in my pockets, I followed the path along the station where this side of the underground started and headed up to the main drag. Various people nodded at me or said hello, but it was when I was within spitting distance of Madame Sian’s that the woman sitting outside leapt out of her seat and rushed to me, arms wide open and the biggest grin on her face.

Of course, I returned it and caught her. “Raven …” she squealed. She threw her arms around me, and I did the same with her. My arms went all the way around, and I picked her up easily. She was a little bird, so delicate.

She peered back a little to look up at me. “I swear to god, you get bigger every time I see you. What the heck has your mother been feeding you? And where can I get some?”

I laughed. “What can I say, it’s the genes.” If you held Sue too tight, she’d snap or break something. She wasn’t skinny in an unhealthy way. She was just little, and it suited her.

She brushed her hair out of her face and beamed at me. “Your mum is with a client. She should be done soon if you want to wait.”

“It’s just a flying visit. I have something else to do. I just thought I’d say hi if she was free. Will you tell her I stopped by?”

“Sure.” She moved in for another hug, squeezing me tight, and I let her. When I went to move back, she didn’t let me go. Instead, she stared up at me, meeting my eyes. Her fox-like eyes flickered. That’s what she was—a fox, hence her small stature. She reached up to me, put her hand on my cheek, and blew out a breath. Something cold travelled through me—a shiver inside my body, but it went just as fast as it came.

Was that what it was like when I reached out with my power?

Sue was a seer. “It’s all going to be alright,” she said.

I frowned. “What?”

Her eyes shifted, not to her fox form, but to a glassy, eerie look that’d make even the toughest shifter shiver. “That’s all I can tell you. It’ll be alright in the end.”

“You’re giving me half a thing and leaving it there?” My voice was sharp, frustration bubbling to the surface.

She pressed her lips together, and the usual warmth in her smile vanished. Sue saw things—flashes, brief moments, scenes. She never told people what she saw. Her ability was a cruel joke. To glimpse someone's future and not be able to warn them ... If she did, fate had a twisted way of changing it. You didn’t mess with fate and get away with it. So it was better not to say.

She hadn’t told me that, but I had heard her talking to my mother when I was younger and they’d thought I was sleeping. She’d seen something she couldn’t tell anyone, and it bothered her. It turned out later, it was one of their girls turning up dead in a politician’s bed—human—and no one giving a damn what had happened.

“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “But I can tell you it’ll be alright. You will be alright.” She emphasised the "you," her eyes pleading.

“Something bad is going to happen?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest and my head going straight to Tia.

Her gaze hardened, her whole demeanour shifting. She took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I …” Tears welled in her eyes, turning them into glistening pools, but she didn’t let them fall. “I just needed you to know that. Even when the darkness threatens to consume you, remember that, okay?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she put her finger to my lips, silencing me. She forced a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No more talk. Go and do something rebellious.” She winked and backed away. “I love you like my own, little sparrow.” Sparrow, her play on my name. A joke from when I was little. “Remember that too.”

I leant in and kissed her cheek. “We’ll all be alright.”

I went to find Lachlan and pushed out of my mind what Sue had said. I could worry about it and drive myself fucking nuts, or I could go and do what I needed. If fate had something in store for me, there was sod all I could do about it.

Lachlan lived in the underground, despite being one of Malcolm’s tigers and part of Society. But status wasn’t a thing for him. He was low level like me, but he worked for Malcolm. People knew, and no one cared. He just wasn't that important.

It was the weirdest thing with the underground. It was there. Everyone knew it, and Society knew it existed, but everyone pretended no one knew about it. It was a secret place, where strays went because they had no Society, no covens, no places to call home. Technically, it wasn’t allowed to exist. The idea of strays forming any kind of groups was against the rules and often broken up by Society enforcers. But Malcolm allowed this one. As long as the people here caused no trouble, then he caused them no trouble.

The real challenge was Malcolm’s second in command. Not the pack—his son, Stephen—but with Society itself. Trevor MacDonald, alpha to the wolves, ruled with an iron fist, even his sons paid the price. Son, I should say. I had seen him beat on Cade. I had seen the marks. No one did or said anything, but people knew, even if Cade tried to hide it.

Seeing Trevor and Cade made me glad I didn’t have a father in my life because maybe he’d have turned out like that.

“Hey,” came the voice from behind me as I made my way to the stacks where Lachlan lived.

It was Lachlan. “I was just heading to your place.”

"I’ve just got something to do. Meet me at the car?" Lachlan tossed me the keys without waiting for an answer. "It’s parked on Westfield Road. Small black thing."

"Sure. Anything I can help with?"

He chewed his gum, gave a trouble-is-coming smile, and shook his head. "Nah. Won’t be a minute. Just gotta say goodbye to someone." He winked and disappeared.

A lady friend, I got it.

Westfield Road wasn’t far from the entrance—just a ten-minute walk or a five-minute jog for me. It was one of Malcolm’s cars. He had them scattered around the place for us. And by us, I mean his many assets. I wasn’t naive enough to think Lachlan and I were the only ones on his payroll. That alpha had his fingers in so many pies, it was best not to ask. Just be the tool he needed, and he’d always do us right.

I found the small SUV parked on the side street. I didn’t click the fob; I didn’t want anyone alerted to my presence. Even in a street where Others lived, the soft beep-beep would ring out like an alarm.

I slid into the passenger seat and waited. It wasn’t long before Lachlan came back. I handed him the keys, and we set off.

We took the lanes around the river. Easier in the car. Longer, but fine. The humans had built a bypass, which we weren’t allowed to use, but we could go through the small town it bypassed—a little village. To get there, though, we had to first go back into town, past the college area, then through the high street with the bars and clubs, toward the road that would eventually lead us to where Spy Glass stood.

"Wait a minute," I said, sitting up straighter. We were just going past the train station. "Stop the car." This was a different track than the underground. The station was on the right, the college on the left. And there, on the pavement, with short-cropped blonde hair...

Tia.

"Can you just give me a minute?" I said, jumping out. "Tia." I called, her name sharp on my lips.

The figure ahead pretended not to hear me, but I felt her pulse quicken. I sent out tendrils of my emotions to connect with hers, and there it was—her heart beating faster. She had heard me.

"Tia, please wait. I just want to talk."

She slowed and turned around, pulling her hood up. "Please, Raven ... I need to head home. It’s curfew."

I ran to her and came to a stop in front of her. "I know. I’m sorry. I just saw you." I gulped in air, my heart racing. "I was just going past and saw you."

She looked beyond me to Lachlan. "You’re on a job for Malcolm."

I nodded. I had told her I did jobs for him, though not what. She’d asked, but I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone. Malcolm had made it clear—under no circumstances was I to share details. The less others knew, the better. The people we moved for Malcolm needed protection. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Tia, but if something came up? It was easier not to tell her. And she accepted that.

"Are you okay?" I asked.”You went back to the cafe.”

"I'm okay," she said, but everything radiated off her. She hesitated. "I went to get your bike for you."

"I know. Thank you. The woman at the cafe said you’d taken it over the bar."

She faltered slightly, and the surge of her anxiety rushed into my veins so fast it nearly knocked me back. I had to throw up my mental shields.

"I hid it. I went back the next night. I was going to bring it back to you, but it was gone. I thought maybe you’d gone back to get it or something. I felt so terrible, thinking the humans would just ruin it. I’m glad you got it back." She gave me a weak smile, looking up at me and letting her hood fall down. I wasn’t sure if she meant to do that, but the streetlight shone on her face, and she took my breath away every single time. She made my chest ache just to look at her, with the need to reach out to her. But then I saw...

"What is that on your neck?" I reached for her collar to get a better look.

She pulled away, knocking my hand back. "It's nothing."

"It doesn’t look like nothing." I reached again, opening her hood, and she put her head down.

"Raven, it’s fine."

When she went to step away and bat my hand away again, I grabbed it. The possessive part of me, my panther, needed to see. "No. It isn’t fine. Someone is hurting you. Who did this?" If she was marked, then the bruises should’ve been gone by now. She was a shifter; she healed quickly. These were fresh, like someone had held the side of her neck and squeezed really hard.

I grabbed her jaw. "Don't."

"No, Tia. Just no. What are you hiding from me? What is this?" I tilted her head back, revealing a large bruise like someone had tried to strangle her with one hand. A thumbprint marred her clavicle, and fingerprints wrapped around the back of her neck.

"What the fuck is this, Tia? Is this why you broke up with me?"

She put her hand over the bruise, but it didn’t matter. She stared at me with betrayal in her eyes. "You don't understand."

"Because you won't let me understand. You won't tell me what the hell is going on, and I have a right to know. You just left. You left me with no explanation, after all we'd said, all we'd discussed." The words spilled out, rising with an intensity that I couldn’t control. It wasn't just me speaking; it was my panther, clawing for answers.

"It's better this way."

"Better for who?" I demanded.

She sucked in a breath, her lip trembling. I felt like a dick for pushing, but I wasn’t letting my girl walk away. If she truly wanted me to go, I’d go, but that’s not what I was feeling from her. "Is this your brother’s?" My heart jolted as I connected the dots, and her reaction confirmed it.

"Raven ..."

"I know you've got brothers. Did one of them do this?" I pointed at the bruises.

"You don't know what it's like," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm the only girl in our family. I'm valuable to them."

"You mean, you open your legs and produce babies for them." The bitterness in my voice made her flinch, and I felt guilty the moment the words left my lips. But I was desperate, my emotions a tangled mess. My panther was wearing my patience thin.

She looked at me, pain and frustration mingling in her eyes. "You don't understand," she whispered.

"No, I don't. Because you won't let me in. If you want me to walk away, fine. But tell me why."

Her gaze darkened, and for a moment, I thought she might lash out. Instead, she swallowed hard, trying to compose herself.

"Whatever this is, we can deal with it. I'm not afraid of your brothers."

She laughed bitterly. "You don't know that. You don't know what they're capable of."

"If you're so precious to them, are they going to stop you from meeting people for the rest of your life?"

She gave me a sad, knowing smile. "Probably."

"You’re not their property," I said, my voice fierce. "Do you want to spend your life like this? Trapt by them?"

My ability snaked out, dark tendrils weaving around us. Maybe it was a breach, a violation, but I needed to know what was going on. If she wanted me to walk away, I needed a solid reason. And if she didn’t want me, that was a solid reason. But everything about her said she did. She was just afraid.

Her gaze wavered, and I sensed a change in her. She swallowed hard, her vulnerability breaking through. "I don’t know how to make you understand. We're just from different worlds."

"We can figure it out," I said softly, stepping closer. "Just meet me halfway."

Tia’s eyes glistened with unshed tears as she met my gaze again. "I don’t know how," she whispered.

"Then let me help you." I reached out, gently lifting her chin. "We’ll find a way. I promise. Did they hurt you because of me?"

She shrugged. "I pissed them off. I’m here to study, not fraternise with other students."

"We weren’t fraternising. You love me and I love you, right?"

"Yes," she said softly.

"Hey, Raven, you almost done?" Lachlan called out from the car, leaning out the window. He tapped his watch.

"Yeah, just a sec," I replied, turning back to Tia. "Please meet me. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Anytime. Just meet me."

She paused for so long that I thought maybe she wasn’t going to agree.

But in the end, she gave me a slow nod. That was all I needed. I just needed to talk to her. If, in the end, it came to it that me and her weren’t right, then sure, I’d leave her alone. She’d never see or hear from me again. It would break my heart, tear at my panther, but if that was her true wish, I’d go.

"Raven," she said softly as I started to walk away.

"Yeah?" I turned back to her.

Her bottom lip trembled a little, and she bit down on it. She hugged herself, pulling her hoodie tighter. "I did want to talk to you," she said. "Just ..." She trailed off, the words hanging in the air between us.

"Tia ..."

"I have something I need to tell you. Something I ..." she trailed off.

"Raven, come on. We've got to go," Lachlan called out again.

"Just a sec," I snapped back before turning to Tia. "What is it?"

She looked around, then back at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of fear and determination. "I think I’m pregnant," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

The words hit me. "Tia?—"

"I’ll meet you later," she cut me off, squeezing my hand briefly before letting go and running off before I could say another word.