“I’ll try not to hurt you,” Liam called to me from across the patch of grass we had chosen as our arena.

I flexed my fingers. “Same here.”

Jase stepped back.

“You ready?” I asked.

Liam stuck out his hand, palm up, and then flicked his fingers a la Neo from The Matrix.

“Oh, please,” I said. “That is so cliché. Do you really--” And then he was right in front of me, his way-too-freaking-huge fist barreling towards my face so fast I really didn’t have time to dwell on how he got there.

In a move that was both an attempt to show off and an effort to get some space between the two of us, I dove forward, tucking my body in for a summersault once I hit the ground. When I bounced back onto my feet I was at the other side of the grassy area, and he was already coming back at me.

He punched. I blocked. He kicked. I blocked. Punch, punch, punch. Block, block, block. Then, just when I was expecting a kick, his arms clasped around me, pinning my elbows to my side, and he tossed me. I’m pretty sure his plan involved me being on the ground with him towering above, but it didn’t work out quite that way. I hooked my foot behind his ankle as I went, which caused us both to tumble.

I could feel the shift as I rolled; my senses got sharper as my mind was overtaken. The human part of me remembered Jase’s advice to pull back, but I couldn’t. Wolf Scout was already in control, and, if the snarls were anything to go by, Liam wasn’t thinking with his human half either.

We rolled on the ground like animals. After over a decade of martial arts training, I knew at least a dozen different moves I could execute from the ground, but I didn’t use any of them. Instead, teeth and fingernails came into play. I could smell Liam’s blood on the air as well as my own.

I wasn’t aware of the screaming until someone ripped me off Liam. I tried to lash out at the arms around me, but that’s when Talley’s shouts of “Stop!” and Jase’s assurances of “I’ve got you” started clicking in my brain.

“It’s okay, Scout. I’ve got you,” Jase cooed into my ear. “I’ve got you.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, pushing myself back and only accomplishing landing on my butt.

Jase looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was. “You were crying.”

Crying…?

“I was laughing, you idiot.” I caught sight of Liam behind Jase. He was grinning like he just found out he was getting an extra Christmas this year. “We were having fun.”

“Fun? You’ve got blood gushing from your lip!”

“And you broke something when you hit the tree,” Talley said. “I heard it.”

“The only thing broken is the tree, and it shouldn’t have gotten in my way.” I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe off my mouth. “New demand,” I called over Jase’s shoulder. “We’re going to start doing this on a regular basis, or I walk, deal?”

Liam’s smile was blood-tinted. “Deal.”

Chapter 13

Less than twenty-four hours after trying to kill my brother, I found myself fighting back tears as I told him goodbye.

“Do you still consider me your Pack Leader?” We were alone in the bedroom, the television blaring to cover our voices.

“As long as I live,” he said without a hint of irony.

“Good. Then consider this an order. Do what you can to aide Liam’s rebellion, but when it comes down to it, your loyalty is to our family. Protect them and yourself, even if it means turning your back on everything else.” I didn’t have to explain how I was including Charlie and Talley in my definition of “family”. Jase knew.

He ducked his head and offered his throat in the Shifter’s sign of submission. “Understood.”

I wasn’t sure how Shifter custom dictated I respond - amazingly, Liam hadn’t covered that aspect of our world yet - but after a few seconds of Jase standing in such an awkward pose I had to do something, so I grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

“I’m lost without you,” I muttered into his shoulder.

“I don’t care what our blood says,” he responded. “You’re my sister. My twin. My other half.” My rib cage threatened to collapse from the pressure his arms. “I would die without you, so please stay the hell alive.”

“I’ll try.”

He released his hold enough that he could pull back and see my face. “Pinkie promise?”

My eyes pricked, but I blinked the tears back. “Pinkie promise,” I said, as my little finger slipped around his.

***

Like most families, our vacations always included cars and planes, although we once rode a train to New Orleans. Traveling via Greyhound was new to me, but I've traveled on charter buses for long school trips, and the bus Liam and I boarded in Lexington three hours later was much the same. The floor was a little stickier, the seats a bit more worn and stained, and the smell just a hair on the wrong side of pleasant, but if you’ve seen one big bus, you’ve seen them all: High-back seats covered with loud, patterned fabric were arranged in two rows of two. Long, tinted windows stretched the entire length. A small closet-type thing occupied the back corner and was the source of the odor.

Liam led me straight to the back and motioned for me to take the window seat. There were plenty of empty seats available, but he parked himself in the one beside me. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking picking the seats closest to the bathroom when we both had super-smelling abilities, but then I noticed how the other passengers would get near the back, notice the smell, and then head closer to the front.

As we pulled out of the city and onto the Interstate, neither of us spoke. We were both perfectly happy being lost in our own head space. I would have also enjoyed being lost in my own physical space, but even though Liam in no way spilled over onto my seat, his size and power made me feel dwarfed as I pressed as tightly to the window as possible.

We were already leaving Cincinnati, the first of a million stops, when Liam asked, “What are you thinking about?”

My eyebrows shot up. Liam was starting a conversation? One that wasn’t a lecture? And he was doing so by expressing interest in what I was thinking?

Since I was sitting down with a seat back behind me, knocking me over with a feather would have been impossible, but you could’ve stabbed me with the pointy end without me noticing.