“You’ll realise what a truly amazing person you are. Beneath all the power and the make-up–”
“Hey! What’s wrong with my make-up?”
“Nothing. I love it. I love you, Aubrey.”
She made eye contact with me for the first time that night. Her grey-green eyes wide and uncertain.
“And not because you’re a Shifter,” I continued. “But because I know the real you. The one that will make the right choice. First time.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said looking away again.
“Don’t you see? It’s only because you’re a Shifter that you allow yourself to make mistakes. Because you know you can wipe it away. Like… like a rough draft of a story. But pretty soon, we’re going to have to learn how write our lives in permanent ink. With no erasers or delete buttons. And we’re going to fuck up and make mistakes. That’s what real, what normal teenagers are supposed to do. They mess up and they learn from it. But Shifters never do, do they? They just blink and it all goes away. No need for second chances. No need to live with where you went wrong. So, what kind of adults is that going to make us?”
Aubrey bit her bottom lip and swallowed. “Messed-up ones?”
“Probably,” I said.
We laughed. And it felt like a shot of anaesthetic for my soul.
“I thought about changing it, you know?” she said, softly. “I knew that I could make a Shift and it would all go away and then I wouldn’t hurt so much. I thought about never meeting you. I seriously wondered if it would be worth undoing everything we’ve been through just to take the pain away.” She let out a small, sad laugh. “I didn’t know a boy could ever make me hurt this much. So stupid, isn’t it? I certainly never thought that you…” she gestured at me almost dismissively, “with your silly hair and too long legs and never knowing what to say, could hurt me
this
much. I thought I was tough. Untouchable. I promised myself after Dad left I would never let another man hurt me. And ever since my mother killed herself, I’ve tried to keep everyone away from me. Not let anyone get close. Because if I actually cared about someone, really cared, then…” She let the sentence hang.
Like always, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell her I loved her, to promise her I would never hurt her or leave her. But the truth was, I had hurt her. Whether I’d meant to or not. She was hurt because of me. And who knew, maybe I’d hurt her again. Maybe risking getting hurt was part of being in love. I wanted to tell her all of that. But instead, I looked at the rain on the skylight.
“You were right,” she said finally. “What you said that night. I do make every decision in my life knowing that if someone or something hurts me, I can just make it go away. But when it came to you, I couldn’t.” She turned to look at me again. Her head tilted slightly to one side. “Why do you think that is?”
I knew what I hoped was the reason. I hoped it was because she loved me just as much as I loved her. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I do know that when it comes to you, I’d never change a thing either.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“Now? We stop Frankie and then… we take it from there.”
“And my father?”
“We find him. We tell him we stopped Frankie and then he won’t have to stay away. He can be in your life again.”
Aubrey’s expression softened. “I think I might like that.”
“You two done?” Zac said, coming back into the room.
I looked over at Aubrey. She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. I nodded too.
“Good. There’s only so long a guy can pretend not to hear in an open plan house. So, what next?”
I pulled out the copy of Frankie’s diary Jake had given me. “She’s going to another big party tomorrow night and after that she’s booked onto a plane to Texas. So it has to be tomorrow. But…”
“But what?” Aubrey said.
“I can’t stop her on my own.”
“You’re not going to be on your own,” Aubrey said.
“You’ll help? You’ll both help?”
“If it means I get my house back to myself, then yes. I’m in,” Zac said.
“Great. But we’ll need a Fixer. Until she takes back whatever she’s done to me, I’m pretty useless.”
“You were always pretty useless.”
“Thanks, Zac.”
“My pleasure. How about Dick Morgan? He’s a Fixer, right?” Zac said.
“We can ask him. I bet he’s dying to do something that doesn’t involve standing in the rain all night,” Aubrey said.
“Rosalie might be persuaded to help,” Zac said. “I’m not her favourite person at the moment, but we can ask.”
“And I think Ella could be convinced to help,” I said.
“You have to be kidding me!” Aubrey said, shoving her fists into her hips. “If I so much as see that girl I’m taking a swing for her.”
“And that’s fair enough,” I said, holding my hands up as if trying to calm a startled horse. “But I think she’s starting to lose faith in Frankie. And Prestige. I saw it in his eyes tonight. Whatever she’s making him do, he wants out. So, if we can get them on our side, we’ll only have the twins and Pia to go up against.”
“And Frankie,” Aubrey said. “Isn’t she a Mapper? What if she sees this all coming?”
“Mapping isn’t looking into the future, Brey. It’s plotting the past and using it to make an educated guess on what might happen,” Zac said. “But you throw up lots of variables and then what the consequences will be are anyone’s guess.”
“So, we come hard and fast and don’t give her time to think,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“For that, we’re going to need as much help as possible,” Aubrey said.
“So, let’s get it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Morgan!” Zac said as we approached Bailey’s. “My man!”
“You are barred,” Morgan said, pointing at Zac.
“Come on, don’t be like that. It’s all water under the bridge.” Zac made a wave like motion with his arm. “Us Shifters have to stick together, isn’t that right, old chap?”
“Don’t ‘old chap’ me. And you can all go and stick together somewhere that isn’t here. I don’t want to see any of your lot again,” he said, and there was a slight catch in his voice.
“What do you mean?” Aubrey said. “Your lot?”
Morgan looked at the queue of people waiting to get into Bailey’s. He turned his back on them. “I mean you Shifters.”
“But you’re a Shifter,” I said.
He swallowed hard. “Not anymore.”
“But… We only saw you a week ago. Entropy can’t have come on that quick,” I said.
“It’s been coming on for a while,” Morgan rubbed at his eyebrows as if he were trying to massage away a headache.
“And you can’t Fix?” I asked, hoping that maybe that power might take longer to fade like Benjo said it had with him.
“What do you think? You can’t Shift, you can’t Fix. That’s it. I’m all washed up, just like Father said.”
“You’re talking to your Dad again then?” Aubrey said.
“Come on, when are you going to let us in!” someone in the queue shouted.
“Right, back of the queue. I don’t care. Now,” Morgan said, pointing at a guy who looked totally puzzled. “Don’t pretend it wasn’t you. I heard you.”
“But it wasn’t me,” the guy he was pointing at said.
“Get out. You’re barred. You’re all barred!” Morgan shouted.
“Richard, calm down,” Aubrey said, as the queue of people started complaining. Rosalie was not going to be happy if they all left. “It’s going to be OK.”
“Is it? Is it really?” he said.
“Remember the lessons you gave us about adapting to life after entropy. You’re better prepared than anyone,” Aubrey said, trying to reassure him.
“Oh, they were nonsense. I didn’t know what I was on about,” he said, throwing his hands in the air.
I had always thought as much. But now didn’t seem to be the time to remind him of just how bad a teacher he had been.
“Father even suggested I go travelling, can you imagine? The grand tour, he called it.”
“Sir Richard told you to leave the country?” I said.
“Yes, he called me in to see him yesterday and was quite adamant about it all. He’d even purchased the plane tickets. But I refused them. First class, too. Oh, he said it was for my own good, some nonsense about protecting me, but I knew it was because he’s so ashamed of me he can’t even bear to be in the same country.”
I remembered Sir Richard’s white knuckles as he clutched his desk. I’d assumed he was angry, but maybe it was something else. “Did he seem angry? I mean, more angry than usual.”
“Of course he did. His son and heir is working as a bloody bouncer!” Morgan said.
“No, I mean, did he look worried?” I asked.
“What’s going on Scott?” Aubrey said.
“It’s just when Sir Richard warned me off from going anywhere near Frankie he looked, I don’t know. Scared? I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time as I was all wrapped up in what was happening to me.”
“Scared of what?” Aubrey said.
“Scared of losing his only son, maybe?” I said.
We all looked at Morgan. “What are you on about?” he said.
“Have you heard of Frankie Goodwin?”
“The charity woman? Yes, Father mentioned her yesterday, actually. Told me I wasn’t to go anywhere near her or any of her children. I didn’t know what he meant, as I’ve never met the woman, so I was hardly going to go looking for her.”
“Do you think…?” Aubrey said.
“The woman who controls powerful people by hurting their children?” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think. I think Frankie got to Sir Richard. That’s why he closed the case and told me to stay clear.”
“He was trying to protect his child,” a voice from behind us said.
We all turned to see a man, with shaggy black hair, wearing a tatty tweed coat.
Captain Thomas Aubrey Jones, reporting for duty, I thought.
“How many times do I need to tell you to clear off?” Morgan shouted. “Hanging around here…”
I placed my hand on Morgan’s arm. “Wait.”
The man blinked and twitched. “I shouldn’t have… She’ll hurt her. Hurt her.”
“It’s OK,” I said, softly. “Aubrey is safe. Frankie isn’t going to hurt her, I’m going to make sure of it.”
The man’s twitches seemed to soften as he gazed at Aubrey.
She was looking at me, wondering what was going on.
“Aubrey,” I said, wondering if this was a terrible idea. “Meet Thomas Jones.”
“Dad,” Aubrey said looking at him, her voice soft and weak, as if she was a little girl. “Dad,” she said again, stronger this time.
The man nodded.
Aubrey launched herself into his arms. “Where have you been?” she said, her voice muffled by his large coat.
“Watching over you, my munchkin. My little munchkin.”
Zac and Morgan looked to me, as if for instructions. I held up my hand to say everything was OK.
Aubrey stepped back from her dad. “But why? Why didn’t you ever speak to me? I was all alone. You left me all alone!” Tears poured down her face, leaving dark trails as her make-up ran. She punched him, but there wasn’t much force behind the blow. Just a whole load of pain and anguish.
“I couldn’t. She killed you. Gone, just like that. I couldn’t lose you again. I was supposed to be the one to have the op,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “But she made me step down. She took my place. I was powerless. But I told, I told on her and that’s why…”
“That’s why she killed Aubrey?” I said.
He nodded. “My last Shift was to bring you back,” he said, his hand hovering next to Aubrey’s face, as if worried that if he touched her she would vanish.
“Your last Shift?” I said. “But if you’re not a Shifter then what did I sense in the alley?”
“Reality being shaped,” he said. “I can no longer Shift, but I can still Map. Drop pebbles in the pond and watch them ripple away.” He sounded almost gleeful.
“So you sent me on the path to Greene knowing it would lead to Frankie. Knowing she would take control of me?” I said, anger stirring. I was just a pawn in his game to protect Aubrey. A puppet.
“I needed you to see,” he said. “See what she’s capable of. It was the only way I could keep my baby safe.”
“So, you can remember?” I said, my anger softening. I’d give my life to protect Aubrey after all. “You can remember the other version, the one when she died.”
“I forced myself,” he said. “Forced myself to remember.” He pushed up the sleeve of his tatty coat revealing his arm. A word was tattooed in shaky lettering. “Aubrey.”
“Holding on to that memory almost undid me. But I had to remember. To keep you safe.” He looked back to Aubrey. “But you were so strong, I knew you’d be OK. After your mother… I called ARES. I told them about you. I knew they’d look after you.” He was crying too now. But whereas Aubrey’s tears were black from her make-up, his cut a path through the grime. Like mirrors of each other.
“I wasn’t OK, Dad,” Aubrey said. “I was never OK.”
“But you survived. And now look at you.” He held her by her shoulders. “So beautiful. So strong. I’m so proud of you.” They hugged again, and he rested his chin on her head. “Thank you,” he said to me. “You listened. You followed the path.”
“I… I didn’t. It was Aubrey who made me,” I said.
“Either way, you know now. And you’ll tell the world, and then she’ll never be able to hurt anyone’s child again.” He lifted Aubrey’s chin and wiped away her tears with a thick, callused thumb. “You’ll be safe, now. And when it’s all done, I’ll come and find you.”
“But I don’t want you to go,” Aubrey said.
“For now. Until she’s stopped for good, I can’t risk it.” He tapped her chin with his closed fist. “Stay strong, my little munchkin.” He turned to face me. “She’s in your hands now,” he said.
Aubrey turned to hug me, burying her face in my chest. I closed my eyes, breathing in her scent, trying to pull every last atom of her into me.