Chapter 32- Unresolved
Please review everyone! Sorry this is late!
Max
"What do you mean your mom's a shifter?" I jump away from him in shock. He looks surprised at my outburst.
"I get why this is surprising but I don't understand why you're so upset about it," he steps towards me hesitantly. I should've seen it before. He doesn't move like humans do. He's more graceful, quicker, stronger. But he doesn't move like a shifter either.
And then there's another question, "If she's a shifter, then why did she try to kill me and why did she kill all those other shifters?"
"I don't know, but isn't it great? I'm like you," Fang smiles.
He's right. He would have to be at least half-shifter if Marian really was a Cardinal. That doesn't even make any sense. If that was true… Jeremy would know because it would've been in the records right? I don't know how I feel about this. I couldn't agree to someone killing another Cardinal, right? But Marian didn't hesitate to kill us.
I frown.
"What's wrong, Max?"
I wave him off, "Nothing. It's nothing."
But it isn't nothing. This changes everything. If he's half-shifter, he should be able to shift. I've heard of half-shifters with a shifter parent and one of the humans from the Human Capitol and they can shift. But Fang seems completely oblivious to what he can do. And if he's the son of the Cardinal, he definitely should be able to shift into at least one form. Then again…
I think back to the Director's basement. When he got electrocuted, I knew I heard some kind of bird squawk. Fang? Was he a…?
"Come on, we have to get back to them," I tell him, taking him by the wrist and pulling him towards the group.
Fang
Something's bugging Max. I can tell. Her eyebrows draw together ever so slightly, her lips are vaguely pursed. When she took my wrist, her hands were hesitant, almost terrified to touch me. She's not scared of me, is she? We're in the same species now, that's a good thing, right?
"Hey, lovebirds," Iggy greeted us with Ella on his lap. I roll my eyes and Iggy grins. I hope he remembers his promise.
"So, you're Fang Jansen," Jeremy pipes up as Max pulls me to sit next to her.
I clenched my teeth and Max taps on my hand with her pointer finger. I look at her and she gives me a weak smile. I breathe out a sigh, "Just Fang," I tell him gruffly.
"How did you get back here after going to the Realm?" he asks.
"Is that any of your business?"
"He wants to go back to the Ream," Max explains.
"Why? Everyone's dead."
"Not everyone," Jeremy looks at Max probingly. I didn't like it. Max glares back and he chuckles. My hands fisted at my side.
"Right," Max looks back at me, "How did you get back? Not that I'm not happy you did come back but still."
"There's a doorway through the Director's basement that has a passageway into Marian's study," I say reluctantly.
Jeremy considers this. He nods, "Well, kiddos, I'm off."
He stands to leave, brushing off invisible dirt from his jeans. He walks off into the direction of the house. Max startles and jumps to her feet.
"Wait!" she runs after him. I grit my teeth. Something's going on between those two.
Max
"Wait!" I call after Jeremy.
He smirks coolly, "What, Maxie, can't stay away?"
I glare, "If what you said was true, then you knew Marian was the Cardinal South."
"So what if I did?"
"How can you still want to kill her?"
"How can you still sympathize with her?" he countered, "She killed your dad, your clan, your race."
"But she's a Cardinal!"
"She's not a Cardinal," he snarls, "Don't you understand? There's no such thing as Cardinals, there's no such thing as shifters."
"But we're shifters."
"And we're created by humans. We're just genetically altered humans!"
I swallowed to try to process this. He didn't let me. His pulled his hand up from his jacket pocket with his hand on the trigger, "Don't think too much. Don't come after me."
He winked and backed away slowly, the gun still pointed at me until he disappeared.
I huffed out a deep breath. At least Fang is safe.
"Just try again, Fang, come on," I plead. He was glaring at me from the ground below the tree, "It isn't that hard. I promise."
The past week, I've been trying to get him to shift. We tried everything. We tried pushing him off of a cliff so that he'd be pressured into shifting, hypnotizing him (although I could've told everybody it wasn't going to work. Iggy learned how to "hypnotize" out of a book he nicked from the library), and forcing him to shift. Right now, we were trying to get him to shift by throwing him out of a tree. I can't say that most of us weren't enjoying it.
It didn't hurt him. Shifters are more durable than humans are. It might give him a few scratches but he'll heal faster too. It wouldn't break any bones.
"No," he spat.
"I know you can shift. I saw you shift. You're some kind of bird. Just try a little harder," I seriously couldn't figure out why he couldn't shift.
"Give me a break, Max, so what if I can't shift!"
"What if you get into some trouble?"
"Stop! Just stop! You're not my dad."
"That's a little offensive," I retort, "Did I ever look like a man to you?"
"You know what I mean, Max," he just curled in a city position on the ground, refusing to get up. I changed into an ocelot and lept down next to him and shifted back.
"This comes natural to you, Max, it doesn't come natural to me," he complains. I lean towards him and kiss him gently.
"Please, for me?"
Okay, this is pretty short but I've been really obsessed with this idea for a story I might do on Fictionpress or something.
Here's a summary and tell me if I should do it.
"Red Lipstick"
The year was 1923, the 3rd year of the goddamned Prohibition and it was doing a number on poor old dad. This was supposed to be the year of dance-halls and soda parlors. It was supposed to be the best year of my adolescent life. I was 15, naïve, scared and desperate when I met and fell for Eddie Price (or some name). I guess you can say nothing's changed much.
Actually, I suck at summaries so here's the gist of the story:
Grace "Lace" Brady ran away from home at 15 in 1923, running from her abusive father and distant mother. She meets Doris Kapala, a taxi dancer who takes her under her wing. That's when she meets the notorious Eddie Price (again, name undecided), the biggest gangster on the East Coast. She gets pulled deeper and deeper into his crazy world. She sees things she never thought existed and probably never will. She's led into this dark underworld ruled by him. Will she stay, or will she come to her senses?
Good, bad, terrible? I don't know what it's going to be like exactly. But I don't really think it's Fanfiction material. Especially since I don't want to make Fang seem a) heartless b) ruthless c) a terrible person. I don't think Fang's really all that dangerous and he's not really gangster/ mobster material. He's got too much of a soft-side. Aaaand I revealed too much about the characters.
I've got so many story ideas and I think I should probably get it them on Fictionpress so I might start doing that instead of Fanfiction. I guess I'm pretty tired of writing the characters in the mold that another author set up for me. I know that it's not exactly like the books, and that's what I like about Fanfiction, but still. I think I want to do a lot more. My dream is to get published one day and I think I could do it. Then again, I went on Fictionpress and most of the stories has like one or two reviews if any, so it's not like I'll get good feedback or much reaction to my story and what I like about Fanfiction is that I get a response with each chapter so I know if I'm doing good or not.
I don't know if I'm going to do a sequel now that the Queen is as good as dead but I will finish this story. So I might add about 10 chapters to add more drama and fit in what I was originally going to put in the sequel. And I might be doing a Mortal Instrument fanfiction maybe.
What do you think?