Eventually it got dark, so I shuffled back inside and lay down on the bed. I’d never been to this house of Jonathan’s before but wasn’t exactly in the mood to explore. I just... wanted to sleep.
This continued for several days, until one morning Jonathan came in and threw open the curtains of my room, waking me from the weird half sleep I’d been in for fuck only knew how long.
“Get up,” he ordered. “I’ve given you time; now I want to show you something.”
“Leave me alone,” I muttered, dragging the pillow over my face. “I need sleep.”
“Bullshit,” he snorted, yanking the blankets off me. “You’ve had more sleep than a hibernating bear. Now, get up. Come as you are if you want. Doesn’t bother me.”
I glared up at him, then glanced down to check what I was wearing. Sweatpants and one of Wesley’s hoodies. No way I was taking that off, so it’d have to do.
“Fine,” I muttered, pushing my ratty hair out of my face and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Several days without eating had left me lightheaded, so it took a moment for me to get my balance before standing up. “What do you want to show me?”
“Through here,” he said, holding a door open to what looked like an office-type setup, except with multiple screens displayed on one wall. They were all off, but as we entered the room, Jonathan hit a button, turning them all on.
“What’s this?” I asked, stepping a little closer to see what was on the screens. They were security cameras or spy cameras by the look of things. Each one showed a different scene. Some were empty rooms, some had people in them... none of them made sense to me.
“I’ll show you,” my legal guardian said, pulling out a chair for me to sit in, and then he placed a large mug of coffee down in front of me.
I glanced at it for a moment, then pushed it aside to focus on what Jonathan was doing.
He frowned at me and at the rejected mug, then used a remote to bring up an older recording on one of the screens. When it played, it was a scene I was a little familiar with. A cage fight. Except...
“Are those shifters?” I exclaimed as one of the fighters swiped at his opponent with clawed hands. While I watched, his face began morphing too, until he was half man, half wolf.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Jonathan paused the footage on the horrified face of the wolf-man’s opponent. “Worse still. This guy was human.”
“Was?” I repeated, blinking up at him in horror. I’d known about shifter fight rings; Vali and Cole had been researching them. But I had no idea they’d been fighting against unsuspecting humans.
“Was,” Jonathan confirmed. “He loses this match, and it seems these fights are to the death. There were three hundred people in attendance at that particular fight, and most of them had their phones out to film the action. This particular recording had already hit four million views on YouTube before being taken down for questionable content.”
“No shit,” I breathed, still horrified. “Cole and Vali are looking into these fight rings, but they never mentioned humans being killed.”
Jonathan shrugged. “They might not know. There are a few different organizations running these things, and they all do it differently. Their goal is being achieved though.”
Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I stared at the paused footage. “Which is?”
“Panic,” Jonathan replied. “They’re outing supernaturals, and the humans are responding exactly as expected—they’re panicking.”
“To what end?” I puzzled. “What good can possibly come from causing widespread hysteria that the boogeyman is real?”
Jonathan sighed and sat down on the bench under the window, facing me. “There is a war coming, Kit. Whether you like it or not. Those supernaturals that survived the plague, they’re bitter and angry. They’re sick of hiding in the shadows and curbing their instincts. So when someone offers them an alternative—power—it was an all too easy choice for them to take.”
“So.” I frowned, screwing my eyes shut and trying to clear my head of the fuzz of depression and misery. “So someone wants to take over the world, and they’re riling up the shifters to what? Become an army? Enslave the humans?”
“Something like that.” Dad grimaced. “A lot of supernaturals truly believe they are a superior species and that the humans have had this world long enough.”
“And you? Is that what you believe, too? You must be something other than human, or else why do you know all this? Why were you trying to manipulate me into healing people’s magic?” I chewed my lip, not really wanting to hear his answer yet also anxious for the truth.
“No.” He said the word firmly and with direct eye contact. “No, it’s not. And I am still human, of sorts. But I know that if you, Kit, have any hope of saving this world, you need your own army to fight what’s coming. That means creating one.”
“So that’s what you’re doing? Creating an army for me? Why? What if I don’t want to save the world? I couldn’t even s-save Wesley.” Tears were rolling again, but this wasn’t the time or the place, so I dashed them away with the sleeve of Wesley’s hoodie.
“You have to, hon.” Jonathan said it gently, but there was no room for compromise in his tone. “You’re the only one who can.”
Clenching my jaw, I swallowed the fear and desperation and sheer hopelessness down. Here I was being told that I needed to save the fucking world, like I was some sort of Chosen One. As much as it hurt, my grief wasn’t going anywhere. I’d simply tuck it into a little box inside my mind, and later, when all was safe and I was alone, I could take it out and cry again.
“So what are you?” I changed the subject to a question that had been burning for an answer ever since River and I overheard Jonathan discussing my magic.
“Human,” he shrugged with a half smile. “Or, I was. Now I’m just... a relic. I should have died a long time ago, but my sister couldn’t bear to lose me so she did a spell. Trouble was, she always had great intentions but terrible execution, so instead of simply healing my tuberculosis, she made it so I couldn’t die. Not of natural causes anyway.”
“You’re immortal, too?” I gaped, not totally sure what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that.
“No,” he chuckled. “Not like you. I don’t heal, and I have no magic. I’m totally human, except unaffected by illness, including those of aging.”
“So your sister...” I raised my eyebrows at him in question, and he nodded.
“Wasn’t human. Story for another day, though.” He gave me a tight smile, then nodded to the screens on his wall. “For now, you need to understand what you’re up against. Those agents who chased you in LA were employed by a man named Doctor Gunther Florsheim. He works for a less-than-legal branch of the government and has been creating some sort of serum to try and enhance their soldiers.”
I grimaced. “That must be the weasel who took a vial of my blood in Toronto. So he’s the one behind these videos hitting the internet, too?”
“No. Unfortunately, that’s someone else. There are three factions at play here, kiddo. The humans like this Dr. Florsheim, the remaining supernaturals, and you. Please believe me when I say you need help. I started Omega Group after a friend of mine developed a way to test for dormant supernatural DNA in humans. All of my recruits have a high percentage of that gene within them and so stand the highest chances of turning when healed.”
“And what about them? Do they have any say in this, or is it just forced on them like guinea pigs? Do you have any comprehension of what it could do to them? To suddenly not be human anymore? You have no clue how hard it’s been for my guardians to adjust, and they were your best damn recruits.” I was getting fired up now, but he needed to answer for his actions.