The True One

Chapter 17

Verity

Feet buried in warm sand, I closed my eyes and let the ocean's rumble drown out the absurdity of my life. On the beach at sunset, there were no mysterious abilities, no archives with documents about some sort of group obsessed with werewolves. No men chasing me. No unreliable sidekick with adorable cheeks and questionable intentions. Only the grit of shells crushed down to fine grains over millennia and the consistency of waves pulled in and out by the tide.

My unreliable sidekick plopped down next to me and let out a long sigh that took two crashes of waves to complete. We'd come here after our harrowing incident at the archives to breath fresh sea air and decompress for a moment while we decided our next steps. Alek, it seemed, was struggling with the decompression bit.

"This is bad, Verity," Alek said, pounding a fist into the sand. "They're hiding more than I thought."

What he meant was, he could accept all kinds of secret-keeping in relation to me and my mom but keeping details of his own life obscure was a bridge too far.

I wanted to role my eyes at him, but I got where he was coming from. His name in context to mine—that made it personal in a way it couldn't have been before. Whatever he wanted to find out about himself, he wanted it to confirm that all was right in his world, not that his life was somehow interconnected with my messed up existence.

"Don't you think it's time, Alek?"

He followed my gaze out to the blood red horizon and the sun that balanced upon it. "Time for what?"

"You're upset that they're hiding something from you. Meanwhile, here I am seeking answers from Mr. Secrets, and you don't even see the irony."

He kept his lips in a thin line.

"That's it, huh? You're still not going to reveal a damn thing. Who were those men? Who owns that archive? How are you part of all this? How did you know about my mom?" Anger swelled up in me as he sat there silently. My belly still ached where my wolf had been kicked, but still I yearned to manifest her again, to be her—a free, wild being. I would dance into the waves and not care when sand stuck to my wet fur. The power of the water churning against my legs would invigorate me.

And then, just as I felt my most powerful, I'd turn on Alek and make him talk.

"What is it?" Alek asked, and I realized the image of Alek in fear for his life as I stood above him upon four sand-caked legs had made me laugh.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

That snark earned another long sigh from him. "Look Verity, I want to tell you things, but its... it's more complicated than you can imagine. The truth is, we are in danger—both of us. These people aren't going to stop pursuing you. And now they know I'm helping you."

"So, you're in deep shit too. I get that, Alek. I just think I'd be better equipped to deal with all this if I wasn't flying blind half the time."

"I'm not doing this out of spite," he said. "I may be a shitty bodyguard, but I really am trying to protect you."

"Lies won't protect me."

Bending his knees, he wrapped his arms around them.

As we both took in the weight of my words, a seagull hopped nearby, dipped its head to retrieve some unseen treasure from the shore, then darted off down the beach. No cares beyond feeding itself and staying a safe distance from the distraught humans invading its beach.

I shivered, not so much from the cool breeze but from the knowledge that we were getting nowhere with this conversation.

"Haven't you ever had a secret so terrible that you didn't know how to bring it to light?" he asked me.