âActually, most of them probably mind their own business. Us Cromwells have just been blessed with ones that are old and have nothing better to do than gossip. They didnât care as much before, but now that Iâm basically an adult I guess all bets are off,â Rose informed the male as she closed the door behind him and led the way upstairs.
Jon had been up in her room plenty of times for playdates and hangouts when they were younger, but being up there with him after so long was more bittersweet than anything else. A lot had changed in the last few years, including her room. The various childhood photos had been put up in what felt like another life, and had for a solid while had been constant reminders of a time sheâd had to leave behind. A few photos of her and Salem had since worked their way onto the wall too, though, serving as a strange foreshadowing for the merging of worlds that Rosemary had absolutely not seen coming. And now⌠the subject of the photos was there again.
And everything was going wrong.
âTime travel is the one thing Iâm really not allowed to do, so unfortunately I canât actually make that happen,â Rose admitted, doing her best to be helpful even though she had no clue where to begin. But the comforting needed to wait a second, because the hits just kept coming. âWait. What do you mean Jean cornered you? What are people saying?â Rose filed away the fairy thing for later, figuring that one stood a decent chance of disappearing with the right convincing, but if multiple people we seeing through things⌠yikes.
For not the first time, the alarm bells were blaring in Roseâs mind. Loudly. Almost deafeningly. Morally, she was all over the place with this one. She was helping a hunter, which in her mind was definitely not good⌠but she was also helping her childhood friend who she had a chance of helping to escape the hunter lifestyle. If there was even a chance that Jon could switch sides⌠she knew where she needed to stand.
So she sat down next to him on the bed, sure to leave a comfortable amount of space between them to give him the room to panic.
âI really wish I had an answer for you here, but this is entirely new to me. Besides just⌠killing people, which is not the move here, how has your family managed to stay in hiding for so long?â
Jon sat on the edge of her bed, looking at everything that once felt so normal, so serene. When they would come in here to play he always felt like he was entering some sort of fantasy realm where he wasnât being raised as a hunter and his best friend in the world was the only thing that mattered. He had kissed here under the windowsill when her parents werenât looking, some stupid childish game they were playing that was a cruel mockery of the true complexities of life and love in their messy mixed up worlds. He wanted everything to go back to then. He wanted to live out those fantasies where he could tell Rose heâd always loved her without complications and they could be here laying in her bed with the door cracked open so her parents wouldnât mind, sneaking kisses as they worked on homework neither of them were really paying attention to.
âOf course time travel isnât allowed. That would make it way too easy, wouldnât it?â He gave a half smile before looking at his hands. Could these really be the weapons of murder his family wanted to be? âJean doesnât think Iâm a hunter, she made that clear. But she thinks that I know something. Which I do. I guess the good news is that her and the rest of the fucking school are convinced Iâm too stupid to be able to kill anyone. Which is mostly true.â
When Rose sat down next to him, there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to reach out and take her hand, to pull her close and memorize the scent of her shampoo so he could forget about everything else for a little while. But that was not a luxury they were going to be afforded in this world.
âYou know how hunting animals requires a license of some kind, which restricts your area and how many you can get? Itâs the same sort of concept for us, expect itâs obviously not the government giving the okay. Itâs a familial thing. My parents were only called to hunt outside of our territory because they were asked to by another family for their assistance. If you think a Monster is a danger, you have to ask for permission from the head of the family to make that kill. Depending on if thereâs been any hunts recently youâre either given the okay, or told to keep surveillance and only interfere if you think theyâre about to hurt someone. It makes it so there isnât just some mass Monster murders happening constantly. So either Van is going rogue in some capacity, or someone in my family has given him the OK to go after Jake. Iâm not sure which of those is more terrifying. But the fact that he didnât finish the job is even worst. Rule number one, if itâs still breathing, youâre as good as dead.â
He couldnât fathom what the hell Van had been thinking. None of this was making any sense and his head hurt. He felt tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. What the hell was happening with his life?
