Instinct

25. You Can't Keep Secrets Here

Standing outside on the terrace, stars small and outshone by the light of the city below them, Stephanie took a deep breath. The spring chill seeped in through the layers of her clothes, of her skin, quickening her heartbeat and her breath. She focused on the pinch of frigidity, the tingling numbness in her hands and her feet, and not on the hot emotion swelling in her throat and teasing at her eyelids.

 Stephanie wasn’t sure what she was feeling.

Her sister was home. Her mother was alive. Liam was there for her as he always had been. And yet, she felt so off-balance, so out of sync, that the warmth of the apartment had stifled her nearly to suffocation and she’d bolted out onto the terrace to breathe.

It could have been that the home had closed, that everyone was gone, fled back into the shadows from whence they had come. That people so good and kind could be degraded, forced out of their home based on one little fact. One thing. It could have been that Alexei looked at her as a stranger, Liam only a little more familiarly. She was reserved and quiet, so graceful, and Stephanie could feel the power and life held within her younger sister, but Alexei wouldn’t share it with any of them.

It wasn’t at all what she had expected. Not this, not this awful jigsaw puzzle of people and history thrown back together when the pieces had shattered from different boards.

“Are you alright?”

Stephanie turned her head, looked over her shoulder at Liam, framed as he was by the light of the apartment, hair tousled, the corners of his eyes tight, strained, but alight with gentle kindness as always. She swallowed but her voice still cracked.

“Yeah.”

Turning away, she looked up at the sky, blinking back her ridiculous tears, pressing a hand to her mouth. Liam hung back for a moment and then came forward, wrapping his arms around her from behind and tucking his chin over her shoulder.

“It’s different,” he observed.

Stephanie couldn’t help but smile, even if tears welled up in her eyes and her lips quivered.

“You could say that.”

She exhaled and leaned back into him, gripping his arm with the hand that had been holding back her tears unsuccessfully. His presence always balanced her, just a little bit. He was a grounding force when she felt as if she’d disintegrate with all of this madness. When the lump in her throat no longer threatened to break open and spill her emotions, she took a deep breath.

“My mom’s coming home,” she said.

Liam didn’t say anything immediately, taking the time to formulate his response. “Isn’t that a good thing?” He asked tentatively.

Stephanie smiled mirthlessly and shook her head. “She hasn’t come back since you brought me here. She’s been avoiding New York.”

Liam sighed.

Stephanie shrugged. “I guess I just don’t understand,” she said. “I mean, I know that she has things to do, that she’s important, but -” her voice wavered. “God, would it have killed her to stay a little while? To visit sometimes?”

“Stephanie…”

“No, I know,” Stephanie interrupted. “It’s selfish, I know. I just wish…”

What did she wish for? The easiest thing would be to wish that nothing had ever happened, that she wasn’t a werewolf - no one was. If everyone was just the same then her family would still be together, they wouldn’t be so broken on so many levels. But she couldn’t wish for that, not really. All of it was a part of her: the good and the bad and the awful.