Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) (13 page)

You know why.

Could she have been any more of an idiot? She didn’t know what she was thinking.

Actually, no. That was wrong. She hadn’t been thinking at all. She was still half-strung out from the sleeping pills she’d willingly swallowed before they left London. The soft light inside Layne’s pillow fort made the sight of him snuggling up with Caroline even more heart-meltingly, or brain-meltingly, sweet. She’d let herself forget all about the walls she’d erected between them, and why she’d built them in the first place. It was just three words, words that could have meant anything, but now, two days later, Layne was still looking at her as if he’d finally realized those walls were nothing more than an illusion.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Even worse, she hadn’t done anything to repair the damage. She could have. Easily. A few well thought out words and hours of carefully practiced apathy, and things would be back to normal. But she couldn’t talk herself into doing it. She couldn’t pretend indifference when all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and never let go.

Maybe there was no use in trying anymore. Wasn’t this how every fairytale in existence went? The princess would run and hide, thinking she was safe from her curse, until it came sneaking out of nowhere and damned her for eternity… or until a handsome prince wandered along. Lizzie had to face the truth. The curse was coming for her, and this time, not even a prince with magical lips could save her.

When she was little, she didn’t think of it as a curse, although her mother was constantly trying to convince her of the truth. “The Anders Curse,” she would say as Lizzie happily accepted an extra sucker from the bank teller. Sometimes the words were said with a chuckle, and other times it was with a sigh. Once Lizzie’s father was gone, she spat it out like a profanity.

Lizzie was twelve when she finally had enough. “What does that even mean?” she screamed, exhaustion weighing down her overly thin shoulders.

“You know what it means.” Her mother was laying on the couch she hadn’t left in two days, her frail body wrapped in an old, stained quilt. “People love you. You don’t do anything to deserve it. They just look at you and fall head over heels. Your father was the same way. Everywhere he went, women would bat their eyes and stick out their tits, trying to grab even a fraction of his attention. And just like him, one day you’ll fall in love with some poor fool who won’t know any better than to believe all your lies. Then, when he is so addicted to you he can’t remember who he is anymore, you’ll leave.”

“I won’t,” Lizzie had said, trying to ignore that her mother basically said she didn’t deserved to be loved. “I would never hurt someone like Dad hurt you.”

Her mother’s laugh was hollow and rusty. “You know, he said the same thing. ‘I’ll never be like my mom. I’m going to love you forever.’ And then one day, out of the blue, he decided he couldn’t stay here anymore. Said we were weighing him down. Two days later, he was gone.” She sat up then, looking more lucid than she had in weeks. “It was the curse. He loved me one day, and the next he didn’t. Your grandmother did the same thing to your grandfather, and someday you’ll do it too. You are your father’s daughter.”

Lizzie hadn’t believed her, not then, but as time went on, the more her mother talked about the curse, and the more anyone who knew her parents said she was just like her father, the more it started making sense. And then, one day, she tried the ultimate experiment of her Seer powers with her best friend. She’d been building up, finding out how much she could See of one person’s mind at a time. When she grabbed his hand, she reached for everything, and found it. Every fear. Every hurt. And every ounce of love he had for her.

It was happening. Only a curse could cause someone to feel so much. Like her mother said, she’d done nothing to deserve it. And the worst part was, she finally understood the full extent of the curse. Because what he felt for her was rivaled only by how much she loved him in return, and knowing one day all their love would disappear was unbearable.

The next day she fished out her winter gloves and ordered another half dozen pairs online. Instead of meeting Layne for breakfast like she always did, she went to the Alphas and requested a room change. When he finally ran her down later that afternoon, she smugly said she didn’t have time for his childish games and suggested he go find friends his own age. Never once in the past three years did she look at him and not remember the way his face had fallen with pain and confusion. It took weeks of snide insults and ignored overtures for him to give up. She cried herself to sleep every night for a month after she first started feeling the hatred radiating off of him whenever she was around, but it was for the best. The only way to protect him was to push him away. She couldn’t -
wouldn’t
- do to him what her father did to her mother. She loved him too much to turn him into a hollow shell of a person. She would rather he be filled with rage than be empty.

For three years, it had worked. She kept pushing him away, and eventually they both forgot how much they meant to one another. She knew he never really stopped loving her, the same way a part of her heart always belonged to him, but it was nothing more than a tiny treasure box of affection he kept hidden. At least, it had been when they were able to avoid each other the majority of the time. But now that box was flung open, and the love inside was once again a living thing.

And instead of feeling defeated or guilty like she should, Lizzie reveled in being loved.

Her mother was right. She was cursed. Destined to become the bad guy. No matter how much she tried to fight it, her resolve was weakening. One day she was going to give in, and then it was all over but the shouting.

No. She could do this. She would rebuild the walls. She would protect him from herself. Because in the end, it wouldn’t just be shouting. There would be tears and hurt and anger. When the time came for her to join the family business of leaving, she would destroy the most precious thing in her world.

“You do know you have to actually look at the words on the page to read, don’t you?” the object of her thoughts asked, plopping down next to her on the couch, despite there being several other perfectly acceptable empty seats.

“I’m envisioning the scene,” she lied, hoping the heat in her cheeks wasn’t translating into a blush. It was stupid for her to be embarrassed. She was the one with mind-reading abilities. Not him. Yet she couldn’t help but worry he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “I like to get the setting right in my mind before all the drama happens. It ruins the mood when I have to go back and figure that stuff out after the fact.”

Layne laid back, using the armrest as a pillow. One leg was braced on the floor and the other fell across the pillow on her lap. Even with several layers of clothes and an abundance of cotton stuffing between them, she could feel the warmth of his leg seeping into hers.

“You know what I think,” Layne said, biting off a piece of a caramel Galaxy bar. Lizzie was momentarily distracted by a bit of chocolate decorating his full bottom lip. “You should write a novel.”

“Me?
Write
a novel?”

“Well, you do read a lot of them.”

“And you eat a lot of candy bars, but I don’t see you running out to hire a bunch of Oompa-Loompas and starting a chocolate factory.”

Layne finished off his candy bar in one giant bite. “As a matter of fact,” he said around a mouthful of chocolate and caramel, “I’ve already hired my first one. Caroline will be in charge of making sure the chocolate river stays properly stirred and free of round German boys.”

And she would do it too. The kid worshiped Layne, which might have been disastrous if the idolization hadn’t gone both ways.

As if Lizzie needed another reason to love Layne. No, being handsome, smart, funny, and having a good heart wasn’t enough. He had to go and become best friends with a three year old girl. It really wasn’t fair.

“Well, I don’t plan on writing a novel anytime soon,” Lizzie said, flipping the page and pretending to be oblivious to his proximity. “I read because it’s fun. I like the escape. Writing is work, and the last thing I want to do is screw up my one true love by turning it into a chore.”

Layne snickered. “Your one true love is reading? That’s just sad, Lizzie Lou.”

“Reading is an admirable passion to have. It increases brain function, builds vocabulary, and educates.”

“Yeah, well how does it do at keeping you warm at night or holding you when you’re sad?”

Lizzie stared at the words on the page, schooling her expression so he wouldn’t know just how devastating of a blow he’d just delivered.

“I have blankets to keep me warm, and I don’t want anyone to touch me,” she said, her voice flat, but Layne wasn’t letting up. She could feel his gaze warming the side of her face. Her eyes stayed trained on the page in front of her, even though she hadn’t read a word of it. The weight on her lap lifted. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to sigh with relief or disappointment.

“You’re not really serious about that, are you?” Layne asked, sitting up. Instead of scooting over to the other armrest, he stayed on the middle cushion, mere inches from where Lizzie sat. “I mean, I get why you wear the gloves and don’t want to brush up against some random person, but you want to be touched, don’t you?”

Lizzie didn’t say anything. What could she say? That she was touch starved to the point she would sell her soul for something so simple as a pat on the back? That even though using her Sight made her stomach turn, she had relished shaking Rashid’s hand because for that brief moment she knew she was an actual corporeal part of this world and not merely a specter moving through it?

“When was the last time you were hugged? When was the last time you
kissed
someone?”

Three years ago. Perhaps you remember the details?

“Not everyone needs constant physical affection,” Lizzie bit out.

“But everyone needs
some
physical affection. There was like a study with orphan babies and stuff back in a world war or something, and it said that when you deny someone physical affection, they die.”

“I’m not an infant, Layne.”

“And you’re not made of stone, Lizzie. You have to let people in. Let someone give you a hug for the love of God.”

“Who?” she asked, letting her frustration and sadness morph into anger. “Who exactly am I supposed to let hug me? Which of our friends’ brains am I supposed to invade like a soul-ravaging pirate? Or should I spare the people I actually care about and get physical with someone I barely know and most likely will never see again? How does that work out for you, Layne? Did you get all the warm and fuzzies you need to survive by sneaking off with that Seer from Greenland at Scout and Liam’s wedding?” The last words ended with a snarl. She was breathing so hard she sounded like one of the Alpha Pack’s prized Thoroughbreds.

Layne didn’t flinch, or even narrow his eyes in anger like she expected. He just sat, staring at her like he’d never seen her angry before, which was far from the truth. She tended to live up to every stereotype ever linked to redheads.

“You saw us?”

Lizzie eyes fell back on her book, but she was too upset to even see words. It was nothing but blurry black lines on a white backdrop.

“I was looking for Mischa. I wasn’t spying on you or anything.”

Another award beat of silence, and then, “It didn’t mean anything to me.”

Lizzie’s eyes were burning. She blinked them several times to clear away whatever was irritating them, but it didn’t help.

“Obviously,” she said, remembering the almost robotic way Layne’s hands stroked and caressed as his mouth moved methodically against the somewhat older Seer’s.

“So why does it mean something to you?”

Throwing her book on the floor and running out of the room would be cowardly, but Lizzie was tempted all the same. The only thing staying her hand was knowing the moment she did, Layne would figure it all out. He would know the way her heart had broken at the sight of him with someone else. He would know how much she actually cared, and once he knew, there would be no stopping him. The Hagans were a tenacious breed in general, but Layne made his uncle and cousins look like quitters in comparison.

She opened her mouth, completely unsure of what she might say, when she was saved by the familiar snick of every lock sliding into place. A few moments later, the door swung open to reveal Alistair in all his entitled glory. For the first time in her life, Lizzie was thrilled to see him.

“Alistair, what a surprise,” she said with more warmth than the moment warranted. If Layne noticed, he didn’t say anything. He simply got up and walked into the kitchen without acknowledging the Viscount’s entrance.

“I come with a surprise,” Alistair said, a wide smile lighting up his face.

“Oh! I love surprises!” Lizzie bounced up and down, clapping her hands and wondering who in the hell she’d become in the last ten minutes.

“Oh! Me too!” Layne clapped from his place in front of the refrigerator. His tone was so sardonic Lizzie wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees in response. “What kind of surprise are we getting today? Are you going to lock me up in a cage? Or maybe you’re going to drug Lizzie and drag her out of here to do your dirty work for you? Or is it an even more awesome surprise? Maybe something involving torture and physical pain?”