Jumbled Shoes (Sequel to Human Town)

Lerawna sat across from the girl wearing blue high-top Vanz. The girl had known Lerawna’s brother. Had known him better than Lerawna ever could. How would she? When she’d never had the chance to meet him.

All she had ever had of him was a battered and torn photograph, her name and his, inked into the back. Along with a mother she didn’t remember.

She had frozen when she picked up a newspaper, frozen when she saw a face from her photograph. A face that was older, grime spattered, and maybe a little bit broken, but it was the same.

Lerawna had searched everywhere for a source, talking to everybody she could find from the newspaper. Hunting down anyone even mentioned in the article. Since the one boy, or the man in the picture, was the only one unnamed.

Finally, after months and months, someone had reached out to her. A woman that had heard Lerawna was searching for someone, a boy with Werewolf eyes, and a Pack tattoo from a Pack that no longer existed printed on his shoulder.

It matched the one on Lerawna’s exactly.

The woman was Psyche Mardensen. One of the Mardensen generals, part of the legendary family from the first Ember town.

Psyche had invited her to talk. When Lerawna had found out that Psyche’s hometown had also become her brother’s, she had packed everything she owned and bought a house. Moving into a quiet sleepy neighborhood that hummed with the supernatural.

Psyche, the Psyche, who had been known by names like Emissary,

Traitorous Savior, and Deceiving Ethos, during the war. Had known Lerawna’s brother.

The general had told her about how it started. How the world had finally torn down the guardians, and destroyed every secret that had kept the supernatural as mere stories and bad pop culture movies.

How this town had always had more monsters than humans. That when the government had tried to come, had tried to slaughter everything with glowing eyes, the Mardensen family had finally stopped pretending to know nothing.

They had stood up and became the most legendary group of generals and leaders during the war. Everyone in the family leading different divisions of creatures that weren’t supposed to exist.

She told Lerawna about the Mardensen family.

The Generals.

The Trickster Isaac. His smiles forced shivers down people’s spines. He was the youngest in a family of six, and had always inspired love from everyone around him, and he knew how to use that love. A happy bright thing that people always made the mistake of trusting. But it was something that would turn dark and malicious the moment he got what he wanted.

The Whirlwind Kol. A man that grinned as he danced across battlefields, silver blades gripped tightly, and blood-stained boots that left crimson steps wherever he went. With a laugh that was just as horrific that seemed to slice through the tender skin of people’s throats and crack the triggers off their guns. 

The Courier Jeremy. Whose eyes seemed to never waiver or blink, people would whisper that he never slept, that he ran his deadly messages, delivering locations, execution orders, and letters ensconced in code. Never stopping, even when night came or rain poured, never needing rest, never letting anything get in his way.

The Administrators.

The Advocate, a woman known for her cold calculation and stone-cold disposition. She was as readable as an empty room and as sharp as obsidian. It was said that even the Fae folk feared her, for her words were spun like blown glass, and were as unbreakable as diamonds. 

The Contractor, a man that could get anything for the right price. But he preferred to construct, he built armaments, walls, and gates from seemingly nothing; coming to another’s work only to leave it as dust. What seemed like entire cities seemed to crumble in his wake.

Psyche told her all of this, but Lerawna already knew. Who didn’t? The stories and rumors surrounding The family, the one that had begun the Ember towns.

Those stories flowed like water, from every side of the war, swirling with half lies and cracked truths, stories soaked in so much blood and pain, that it didn’t seem possible for them to be fake.

Then Psyche told her of the time before the war. About what who the Mardensens used to be, before. Before history decided they were soulless monsters.

Before the bloodshed.

Before they knew what death smelled like.

When they were still children, and teenagers.

Psyche’s brothers.

Combat Boot Isaac, who never stopped smiling. Warm bright smiles that felt like sunshine and soft blankets, jokes that left everyone rolling on the floor, and someone you could always trust to have your back.

Doc Martin Kol, always filling the house with his singing as he painted his nails, his collection of nail polish was bigger than her own, and a grumpy disposition that did nothing to hide his gentle hugs and terrible clumsiness.

Yellow Converse Jeremy, never wanting to stop running. He loved it as much as he loved watching the sun and stars, never sitting still, always skipping, tapping, touching, learning. Always wandering and exploring the world with a wonderful curiosity.

Her mom and dad.

High-top Nikes Mom who was the best lawyer out there, she could have any job she wanted, instead she always took the ones from families that could barely afford to pay her, the ones that needed her the most. But she loved to create, with color and emotion, her paint splattered leaving smudges and handprints everywhere in their house.

Leather Oxfords Dad that loved to build, to create, to make things that would keep standing, that would always be there. He listened to the corniest country songs, singing them obnoxiously loud whenever his kids had friends over. And he never seemed to able to get just the right amount of sugar in his ice tea.

She told Lerawna about the game the original Mardensens had started, about a family leaderboard and pins that they used to keep track of who was what.

And Psyche told her about a boy.

He had come to school, yet another transfer student in an endless sea of them. Leather jacket over his shoulders, and a temporary Pack tattoo. Not the one Lerawna shared with him, that was hidden even as her own was.

The young Werewolf had easily been picked out by the human family, had been teased, and had his heart skyrocket, when they said things that seemed a little too close to the truth. 

But they became best friends, and he was the first to ever know their secret. He was a brother to all of them in everything but blood.

He’d taught Kol how to ride a motorcycle, everyone being pleasantly surprised when it didn’t end with a trip to the ER.

He had been thick as thieves with the youngest Mardensens, Isaac and Psyche. And all three seemed to share a permanent smirk, that made a person just a tad nervous about who their next pranking victim was.

Him and Jeremy had learned to cook together the summer of quarantine. Even managing to make things that actually resembled food a few times.

She talked about how seamlessly he blended with the family, he had none of his own, so they became his.

But the war hardened general also spoke to Lerawna of him during the war.

Her brother, the Werewolf, had marched with his family to battle.

He wasn’t known like the others; his name didn’t spread. But no one is ever completely forgotten.

The war did speak of another, a shadowy seventh that no one was sure actually existed. A soldier of death like the Mardensens.

A name floated around.

They called him.

Reaper.

A fast being that couldn’t be caught, covered in brindled fur that was too dark to be black.

There were mentions of a lurking figure that stalked at the edges of battle, like it was waiting to collect the souls of the dead.

He was sometimes called a Werewolf general, said to be stronger than even the alphas of his race. He answered to nothing and no one, living in the dark, showing his bright white fangs to any that dared approach.

Fitzavery was her brother’s name.

And he’d left the war when a bullet punched a hole in his chest.

Lerawna touched her face and realized she was crying. She didn’t know when she’d started but she knew it wouldn’t stop. Not as long as she lived.

Her brother was gone, closer than he’d ever been, but further than she could ever reach. She howled, mourning for the brother she would never know. For all that could never be, for the family her brother had loved so much. For the shattered pieces that remained of the happy people they used to be.

She sobbed, her pain, unable to articulate what it felt like losing him before she ever had the chance to find him.

Psyche hugged her. Bringing her to her feet and leading her to the somehow still intact, Mardensen house. Inside she pulled her past the people from her stories and into a room where a figure lay in bed, propped up, and covered in bandages.

Lerawna unfolded her photograph with trembling fingers, holding it up to the person in front of her.

Her brother started crying when he saw. He’d thought she had died with their mother and the rest of their Pack. She bared her shoulder to him, the Pack mark serving as a proof that could never be faked.

She sat down, finally feeling the ache of loss dissipate, the aching feeling that something was missing, finally disappearing.

They talked about family, born and found, about war and death, and who they were as people.

Fitzavery and Lerawna, he was an old inhabitant of this place who could firmly call it home. She was a new inhabitant, but on that already wanted to stay forever.