All the Little Pieces

3. MOTHERLY MANIPULATION

PART 2

ZACH

“You know, you really ought to find out what it is that she’s keeping from you.”

I could feel my forehead furrowing as I watched Naya run away. It wasn’t that she was a bad liar; she was actually quite good at being deceitful. It was just to me, she was blatantly obvious.

“I would look into her mind myself, but that would be against the rules. That dear brother of mine told me that all this was to be specifically handled by you,” he said sarcastically. “And anyway, you know how much I hate to get my hands dirty.”

I slowly closed the door, removing any trace of expression from my face as I turned to look at my uncle. 

“It’s not always necessary to read someone’s mind, you know. You could just ask them.”

My uncle laughed at, what I knew he believed to be, my naiveté. In his world, people did not ask questions, because words were always a lie.

“Zach, my darling boy, what is it that I’ve always told you?” he asked in a patronizing tone.

“Never believe anything anyone says,” I chanted out in a bored voice. I’d had that saying drilled into me ever since I could remember. Frankly, I was sick of hearing it. It was such a depressing motto to live by.

I shook my head in a silent show of disagreement, and then walked slowly up the stairs to my bedroom. My uncle didn’t follow me, instead walking away to some other part of the house.

Quickly stripping off my t-shirt and shorts, I strolled into the en-suite bathroom to take a shower. I felt sweaty from the hot weather, and I needed to look neat for my lunch meeting. My eyes wandered over to the mirror, inspecting my body. Spending a few hours a day exercising and shifting had given me a lean, firm physique. My arms and chest were well defined, the muscles smooth and hard.

I knew that I had an attractive body, but being well muscled didn’t give me the ability to hide the scars that littered my skin.

After years of various sports to keep myself fit, I had picked up my fair share of battle wounds along the way. Plus, I had plenty of scars from my early attempts at shape-shifting. I traced the mark along the right side of my chest. It was from when I had shifted from a wolf back to a human, only to find that one of my ribs had broken and the muscle surrounding it disappeared.

However, not all of the marks were from accidents. As I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes roamed over the delicate traces of thin scars that covered my chest, above my heart. An elegant design of faint swirls, vines and knots, all connected to form the intricate shape of a tiger.     

The tiger was my totem, the symbol of who I was. It was a tattoo of sorts, branding me for life and linking me to my people. Even though it was a sign of power, showing that I had passed the Death Ceremony, it felt like a curse at times. I could never escape if I wanted to; my life as a shifter would always be a part of me.

I sighed, and stepped into the shower, letting the ice cold water pound on my shoulders. It sliced over my body as my arms rested on the tiled walls.

***

“You’re late.”

I held back a sigh as my mother stated the obvious. She had a habit of doing that, and it irritated me beyond belief.

“I’m sorry, but you didn’t exactly give me much time to prepare. I was in the middle of something when you called.”

“In the middle of something or someone?” she asked, with her left eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “You know I like to be kept updated about the situation with that girl. You need to tell me when you’re with her.”