Instinct

17. Flesh, Blood and Tears

FOUR HOURS EARLIER

No one was immortal.

That lesson, Liam had learned time and time again since the day he’d been born. Before, as he was fondly referring to his life prior to all of this, the concept had been muted, tucked away in such a manner that he didn’t dwell on it for too long. People passed peacefully in their old age, after living their lives fully, back then. Over time, there’d been the odd tragedy to disrupt that childish illusion of death: May’s older brother getting himself killed in a drunk driving accident, and one suicide of a young woman that had seemingly come out of nowhere to hear his parents speak of it.

But nothing, nothing had taught him how wrong he’d been to think that death would never catch him, could never affect the people he cared about, than the past four years.

He’d stared death in the face, felt the cold fingers of its grip on the back of his neck, shadowing him far too many times to count. Liam had seen the life bleed out of people and werewolves alike- cold-blooded murders, drug overdoses, starvation- even hypothermia. He knew more than most people how scarily fragile life was, how quickly it could disappear.

No one was infallible.

It had been a more difficult idea to grasp. There were some people that Liam trusted completely- what kid could ever think that their parents might not be right? But as with the idea of death, every innocent, naïve ideal came tumbling down eventually. The farther Liam ventured into the unknown, into the shadows hovering at the edge of society, the more he was forced to acknowledge this too.

When the stakes were high, people would choose sides, and if they didn’t brace themselves for that eventuality, they’d end up in the crossfire. Sometimes, that happened anyway.

Knowing that he’d sacrificed himself to allow Stephanie to save that boy that she cared about, only to realize that she hadn’t spared him another glance, had been one in a long line of disappointments. When he’d eventually, finally, caught up with his parents again, it had been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Somewhere along the line the stress, the grief- life had worn his beautiful, confident mother into the ground. She was tired, so very tired, content to sit back and relinquish her leadership. Liam supposed that losing him, her only son, had had a hand in that. His father was a ghost of a man, no longer defined lines and strength personified. The struggle had ground them into the dirt until he couldn’t recognize them next to the glorified images of them Liam had in his head. After all this time, feeling this deep chasm between himself and his parents, his parents, brought the time that had passed slamming home.

Three years. Three years of his life he had fought and pushed and torn through just to realize that he no longer fit in space that he left separating his parents. That struggle had only made Liam fight harder, grow brighter, while it smothered his larger-than-life parents.

No one was invariable.

People changed. Liam knew that as well as he knew himself. People grew up, grew apart and moved on. Despite that, no one, least of all Liam, had expected the transformation that Laura Armstrong had undergone in the face of losing both of her daughters and her husband. The years had aged her, yes, but there was an edge in her eyes that had not been there before- a hunger, a ruthlessness to replace the compliant passivity she had previously possessed.

She had come into her own, stepped up to the plate when Eileen and Scott Hall- Alphas by blood and by nature- could not. At first, he’d resented that. The little part of his brain that still clung to the way things used to be claimed that she didn’t have the right, but he knew better now. It didn’t hurt that Laura was often his only confidant, a true Alpha. Understanding when the need was there, strong and steadfast at the right times, invested and passionate and so human.