A/N: I hate this chapter. I've had writers block with this story for a while and I need to just push through it and get it done. So major apologies but this is rubbish. Haha!

'Two souls don't find each other by simple accident...' - Jorge Luis Borges

Chapter Nine

I scoured the scene in front of me as I drove along the road, ignoring the pull of the ocean view the other side of me. Thankfully it didn't take me long to come across Susannah. She was sitting on a boulder off the road, in relative safety. I ignored the prickle of awareness that put the hairs on my arms on end as I stopped the car and got out, watching as Susannah rose to her feet. I breathed a sigh of relief when she smiled at me. Like she had instantly taken the lead weight off my chest I feel whenever I think about her. Seeing her here, unharmed, was a potent emotion that threatened to leave me unstable on my feet.

One day, maybe even one day soon, I will examine this familiar and strong connection I feel for her. But right now, she needed me and that was just as addictive as the need to be around her every second of the day at the moment.

"Susannah, are you alright?" I asked, slamming my door and rushing to her side. I automatically reached out to run a hand down her arm, the need for contact just to settle my mind that she really was OK and really was standing in front of me. But I dropped my hand back to my side. She had done her best to sound fine on the phone but I could pick up on her almost underlying panic easily. Even now she was trying to be brave and strong, but the tension to her shoulders and tight fists gave away to her distress. I pressed my lips together to stop the barrage of questions I wanted to ask as I watched her warily eye the road my car was idling on.

"I'm fine, but can we go somewhere to get a drink or something, please?"

She didn't have to ask me twice. "Of course, let's go."

As soon as I started to pull away and head back in the general direction of town and the Coffee Clutch, Susannah visibly relaxed in her seat further. I didn't ask any more questions while I drove. I sensed that maybe she was lost in her own thoughts and I didn't want to pry them from her if she didn't want to talk. Besides that, I got the feeling that trying to pry anything out of her would result in her shutting down. I can be patient, even if my instincts were telling me she was far from OK and I needed to be there for her. Though when they haven't been telling me that since I met her, has been very few and far between. Still, I stayed silent and tried not to bask in the fact she had called me when she needed someone, even only knowing me for such a short amount of time.

I pulled into the coffee shop parking lot and killed the engine, almost making Susannah jump in her seat at the sudden quiet of the car. Though she hid her startled expression very quickly, shooting me one small smile to kill the tension seeping into every inch of the car. "Susannah," I began, reaching out to move a single lock of hair over the shoulder so I didn't have an obstruction to seeing her face. At least, that's what I told myself. I didn't dare touch her properly though and dropped her silken hair quickly. "Are you sure you're OK? You can tell me."

I watched slightly fascinated at the walls Susannah seemed to deliberately drop for me as the openness of her green eyes reeled me in. The smile she gave me was sincere, beautiful and felt like a punch to my chest causing my breath to halt in my throat. "Let's get a drink," she replied instead, breaking eye contact with me and getting out of the car before I had even unclicked my seat belt.

I scrambled out of the car as dignified as I could and met her by the door to the Coffee Clutch. She seemed surprised when I opened it for her and gestured for her to go first. I don't like to think too much about her boyfriend. But on the one occasion of meeting him I could almost straight away tell he wasn't the gentlemanly type. Is he the reason she was out on a lone road alone? Why she looked shook up and upset?

Pushing that aside for now I followed Susannah to a booth further into the café, private but with a view of the rest of the place. I slid onto the red vinyl opposite Susannah and studied her like she studied me. We could have been like that for several minutes, I don't recall. Time seems to move at a different pace when I am with Susannah. If we hadn't had been interrupted by the waitress, I'm sure we would have continued to be there like that longer still. So, we ordered our drinks and I sat still while I watched Susannah fiddle and turn sachets of sugar over and over in her fingers.

"Thank you for coming to pick me up. I could have called my brother or, well, anyone else. But, I - well, thank you." Susannah muttered towards the end, swallowing hesitantly.

"Any-time, Susannah. I'm pleased you called me for help. Do you want to talk about what has upset you?" I tried to make my tone friendly, tried to appear relaxed and not as on edge as I felt while sitting before her. But she assessed me anyway, her fidgety hands stilling for a second before she continued to spin the packets again.

"What makes you think I'm upset?" she asked, tilting her head slightly in wonder.

I blinked at her a little surprised. "Your body language is tense. Your tone on the phone sounded . . . uncomfortable. And honestly? I just feel as though I know, even if you do a good job of trying to hide it." I once again surprised myself, my frank honesty making me take a deep breath. Something about being around Susannah strips me of my common sense, as though I have no filter anymore. And I suspect that maybe she has the same problem too. And that is something we are either going to have to confront at some point, or go our separate ways soon, because I don't know how much more I can behave this way.

Susannah leaned on the table and stared at me. "You know all my life I have felt nothing. Like my emotional switch was flicked to off or something. I didn't feel pain, sadness, I didn't feel bothered about things I saw or heard that I should've had a reaction to. I've just been detached to everything and everyone. I gave up wondering if I was broken a long time ago. I even thought maybe it was a side effect to being a mediator, you know? That dealing with the dead regularly maybe zapped something out of me. I don't even care about the guy I've been dating for the better part of a year. He hasn't unlocked anything in me.

But then I met you. And all of a sudden everything is more focused, sharper, I'm suddenly wide awake and feeling all this stuff I have never ever felt before and it's exhausting. I feel Anna's pain. I feel pissed off that my - as of right now ex - boyfriend is a jerk to my best friends. I feel in a way I never have before. And I can't look too closely at that right now because my same asshole ex has just done something to me that I will never forget or forgive him for and I'm a little muddled from that. And that Anna is still crying her eyes out to me almost daily. And suddenly feeling everything is also showing me that having so much going on at once is a little too much for me to deal with.

So as much as I want to just sit with you and get to know this strange connection we have, it's going to have to wait. And I'm sorry."

Susannah sat back in her seat with a huff and nodded thanks to the waitress who slid her cappuccino across the table to her. I accepted my own without breaking eye contact once again with Susannah and tried to process everything she had just told me. To say I was taken aback by her shocking honesty was an understatement. But there were a couple of key parts to her little speech that had my knee jerking beneath the table with rage. I couldn't see any physical signs of a struggle on her, but warning bells were blaring in my mind with this so-called boyfriend she spoke of.

"I can see you're pissed right now, the scar in your eyebrow is almost glowing. And I'm sure you've got questions," Susannah twisted her full lips in contemplation, taking a deep breath as she seemed to be trying to come to a conclusion about something. Finally, she slipped her hands around her cup and came to a decision. I still didn't trust myself to say something heinous about her boyfriend so wisely kept my mouth shut and tried to be patient.

"I wasn't going to tell you this at first. I don't know why, maybe I'm just trying to process it myself. But you have the right to know what I learned today too," she watched me for a reaction, her eyes flitting over me rapidly. I didn't know how I was supposed to react to that so I continued to bounce my knee beneath the table and inclined my head for her to go on. "Have you ever heard of us being called a, Shifter? Because according to my creepy as fuck ex, that's what we are. Or me anyway. And we've got these super powers to go along with that. Things we can do that other 'mediators' can't." Susannah paused, her hand shaking slightly as she gripped her cup tightly and raised it to her lips to take a sip.

My knee had stopped bouncing beneath the table at the word Shifter, something jogging loose in my memory somewhere from long ago. But the more I tried to chase it the further the memory skipped from me. But my expression must have showed some recognition because Susannah lowered her cup to the table with a slight bang and leaned forward.

"You've heard of it?"

I shook my head, blowing out a frustrated breath. "The term is jogging my memory, but I can't grasp what it is. What kind of powers, were you told we supposedly have?" I leaned forward too, pulled into Susannah's orbit, blocking the rest of the café out as the historian and scientist in me beckoned for the thirst of knowledge.

Susannah's tongue ran over her bottom lip as she contemplated me, my eyes drawn to it for longer than it should before I tore my eyes back to hers. Hoping she didn't see the tint to my cheeks I knew was there as I felt the blood rushing through my body. Never have I reacted so strongly to someone before. But reassuring to know I really am not alone in this stupor, that Susannah feels it just as strongly as I do. If not more so if what she told me is to be believed.

"Powers like time travel, tossing out a soul from a body to put another one in there. Shifting to the shadowland where souls go before, they move on. You know, the kinds of powers that you see in a movie and would think are totally bogus. If I hadn't had been shoved in to that shadowland against my will this afternoon, I would have said it was bogus and told you to get off the weed. But I've seen the research into us, seen this place that I never want to go to again and now I'm not so sure time travel and soul hopping isn't that bogus at all." she glanced down at her drink, pulling her lip between her teeth.

I furrowed my brow, watching her and trying to process everything she had just told me. What these, honestly abusive powers, could mean for people like us. For ghosts if they became aware of what was possible; how it would change the way I have always viewed death. But much more than that, the part that was like acid churning in my gut, like gasoline to the flames of my rage, was hearing her going to this 'shadowland' against her will. By this supposed boyfriend she has been with for almost a year. A guy who is supposed to protect and care for her, but instead forcing her to somewhere that has so obviously shaken her deeply, leaving her distressed and scared. I reached across the short distance between us and tucked a finger beneath her chin to raise her face so I could see her.

"Did he do anything else against your will, Susannah?" My voice was low and rumbly, dangerous to my own ears as I stared into Susannah's defenceless eyes, willing her to be honest with me. I saw a flash of something before she shuttered the emotion away again. I saw the steely strength return to her eyes just as fast as the fear I had seen before. Would she be honest with me? Would I be able to stay sitting here if she tells me what I fear she might have encountered?

Susannah's small hand wrapped around my wrist and just held on. "No, at least nothing I couldn't take care of myself. I just hated being there, it was - " she shuddered under my touch. "dead. Cold, like a void. I wasn't supposed to be there, everything in me was screaming to get out. It wasn't natural. Everything he told me wasn't natural. I mean sure, we see the dead on a daily basis and can touch them. But this, going there, time travel? My instincts are telling me it's wrong. So, I got the hell out of there and I won't be going back."

She dropped my wrist and sat back against the booth with a squeak of the vinyl, her eyes roaming around the coffee shop idly.

I watched her for a moment more, wondering again if I should push on, dig deeper. But I knew as well as felt she was being honest with me so I shelved it for now and tried to focus on this new information instead. "If the other parts were true, and there's no reason not to believe they aren't - we see the dead on a daily basis as you say - then it sounds as though your boy - "

"Ex."

" - friend could be a very dangerous person. How long has he known this information? Why is he only now coming to you with it? What will he do with it? And what are the repercussions of using these powers? Why have we never heard of this before now?" I reeled off, alternating between tapping my fingers on the table and rotating my cup in my other hand. Restless energy surging through me as my mind tried to work through all the outcomes of this news. I'm sure I should be more shocked to hear of this. But surprisingly I'm not. I've held late night conversations with people who have passed tragically, peacefully, after a long life and short ones. I think I have become slightly desensitised to fantastical knowledge.

"Crap, I need to go, I'm going to be late for dinner with my family," Susannah suddenly said, rummaging through her bag for something. The sudden panic that she was going to leave filled me with an ice-cold shock of awareness. Before I could think about it, I was standing and pulling money from my pocket to toss on the table to cover our drinks, my hand outstretched to her where she looked up at me from her bag surprised.

"I'll drive you home," I offered, my hand still there, palm up in as non-threatening a way as possible. After what she's been through today the last thing, I wanted to do was frighten her more or give her reason to not trust me. Connection or not, I got the impression Susannah didn't trust too easily and I didn't want to make her even more skittish than she already was. I felt the immense relief warm me again as she slipped her hand into mine without hesitation as I helped her out of the booth. She didn't drop my hand as we walked to the door and I didn't loosen my grip. Maybe we both needed the extra contact after what was a tense and highly charged encounter between us, in more ways than one. Holding her small hand in mine, her body close to my side as I led her to my car and opened her door for her, felt like a balm across my frayed nerves.

I felt the loss almost straight away as I closed her door and walked to my side. But she smiled at me as I climbed inside, her head tilted back against the head rest, her legs stretched out, her hands resting in her lap. She looked relaxed and at ease and I felt honoured she would feel that way around me, in such close confines after what she'd been through. I started the car without a word and headed in the direction of her house.

"So, cliff notes version of all this, Paul knows all of this because the man who did the research in Egypt, who found a dusty old book about it and wrote a thesis on shifters, is his grandfather. Someone called Dr Slaski," Susannah spoke as I started through the intersection lacking traffic lights, wary of any tourists not used to the roads. "According to Paul, his grandfather is one too, and he found out how to time travel, that it's part of the reason his family are so wealthy. But he was shunned for his theories because who wouldn't think he was crazy." she sardonically shrugged.

"I didn't really get a good look at the book, and Paul was brief about it. Too busy trying to prove its true to me by ripping my soul from my body, I guess. Which, by the way, leaves a killer headache behind, go figure. Sorry I don't have the answers to your other questions," Susannah muttered, her hands rubbing her temples. My hands gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white hearing her quip about what he did to her. The protective instinct I feel in general has always been strong. But with Susannah it's deadly and I hope I never come across her ex any time soon. He sounds dangerous and unhinged. Has he come looking for her since she left? Will he force her to go there again? Can I somehow find a way to protect her?

"We'll figure it out as we go along," I forced my hands to relax. "Susannah, do you know how to protect yourself if he tries to do that with you again?" I flicked my eyes to her, trying to focus on her and the road as I climbed the hill to her house at the top.

I could feel her eyes on me as I pulled up beside the drive of her home and put the car in park. When I turned to look at her, I was surprised to see her smiling at me, a small soft tilt of her lips like she was looking at me properly for the first time since I picked her up over an hour ago. Where had the time gone?

I'd turned my body so my back was to her house, my full attention on her. Susannah reached out and traced a finger down my birthmark through my eyebrow. Her touch leaving a trail of heat where it had been before she dropped her hand back to her lap. "Trust me Jesse, I can take care of myself. But thanks for the thought. I should get in before my stepdad sends a search party. Thanks for picking me up today and not telling me I'm crazy."

It was my turn to smile back at her and I took in the flush to her cheeks as I did with pride. "Well, if you are then so am I, querida," I chuckled, the pet name slipping from my mouth before I could help myself. The shiver and deeper flush it caused was interesting though and I loved the relief I felt at saying it. I have had to restrain myself from saying it a few times since I first met Susannah. And I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit part of the hesitation was due to her boyfriend. And I would be just as insensitive and callous as her ex if I was to do anything by acting on these strong emotions, she elicits in me a mere couple of hours since he traumatised her.

But the nickname has been sitting on the end of my tongue just burning to be said. And now I have and the positive reaction from Susannah, I'll be less aware of keeping it to myself too much going forward, unless I see or feel she would prefer otherwise. I've taken Susannah's lead up until this point and I will continue to do so for as long as I feel it's necessary.

"If you ever need help you only need to call, I promise."

"OK," she nodded, reaching down to grab her bag by her feet before she swung out of my car. "Bye," she waved lightly before she closed the passenger door and walked around the front of my car. I waited, watching her until she walked through her front door, waving once more before she closed it. Then I took a deep breath and relaxed into my seat, my eyes sweeping over the front of her house. I'd been here before, when I dropped her off late the night we met in the cemetery. But that was very dark and I couldn't make out anything in the moonless evening. But now I could and my eyes took in the rambling old house with fascination and a little bit of - was that recognition? Maybe I'd seen it in a picture at the Historical Society while helping Clive. Anyone could see it was very old, 19th century at least. I'm sure it's rich with history like much of Salinas County.

But this . . . I couldn't put my finger on it, this felt more than a familiarity of seeing a picture.

My eyes were drawn to a window far to the left of the house, a window open and softly blowing the curtains into the room. There, something about that was tugging at me, like a physical pull in my chest. But why and what is it? Maybe I would ask Susannah about the house next time I see her. It must just be because of my help at the Historical Society, that's the only explanation, because I know I have never been here before.

Shaking the thought off I put the car into gear before someone came out to ask why I was idling outside the house. My thoughts quickly going to the term Shifter and what this could mean for Susannah and I going forward. One thing was certain, I wouldn't be advertising it to anyone anytime soon.

Dead or alive.