None of them were Elliot—or the Hills.
I narrowed my eyes at them, trying to remember faces and names from sixteen years ago.
There was one older man, my parents’ age, but I didn’t recognize him as an Elder. The other two were younger, thewoman maybe Elliot’s age or a little older, the other man… Simon Ellis. He was a year older than Noah and me. We’d been in school together, and I remembered that Simon had struggled with math—the basics, not calculus. We’d barely even learned algebra in the Community school.
He’d been better at memorizing doctrine and divine law. Enthusiastically better.
This did not make me feel better about the fact that they were clearly waiting on my porch for someone—presumably me—to show up.
I made my way over to the stairs, then looked up.
Now that I’d identified Simon, I recognized his father, Peter Ellis. I’d also worked out who the woman was—Martha Pannell. She’d still been in school when Noah and I were little, eight, maybe nine years older than we were. She looked older than that.
It was Peter Ellis who stepped forward. “Seth Mays?”
“What do you want, Mr. Ellis?” I replied, trying very hard to keep my voice even. I hadn’t missed the flare of Simon’s nostrils, the slight nod at his father. Or the fact that Simon was staying a few paces away and upwind.
I could still smell him, anyway. Faint, but it was there.
“Have you come back to us, Seth?” Peter Ellis asked me, and there was something in his voice that might have been hope, although I wasn’t sure what for. It was pretty clear to me that the Elders were firmly convinced that I deserved death.
“There’s nothing for me here,” I answered.Nothing but death. And that wasn’t what I was looking for.
“You have been chosen by God,” Peter Ellis said, sounding awed. “Chosen. You must accept the gift for what it is. You must become worthy of it.”
I met his gaze squarely, his grey eyes wide and unfocused with religious zeal. “I am worthy of it,” I answered him, and Iwas surprised to find that not only did I sound confident, but I actuallyfeltit. I’d been distracted from my hatred of being a shifter by loving Elliot, and, somewhere in there, I’d actually started liking it.
I pulled myself up to my full height, meeting Peter Ellis’s gaze squarely.
“Now get off my property.”
All three of them stared at me.
“This—this is Bartholomew’s property,” Simon argued.
I wanted to cross my arms over my chest, but given that I had crutches under them, that wasn’t going to happen. I settled for a glare. “Then he can come and claim it.”
I don’t know where the aggression came from. Anger, maybe, at the fact that Noah was still in prison and that my father—my own fucking father—had tried to have me killed and nearly killed the love of my life while letting his other son rot in jail for what he’d done.
And Simon was suggesting that this land belonged to him.
Fuck him.
And fuck Simon.
And Peter, too, for that matter.
And the Elders.
The whole damn Community.
Fuck all of them.
I snarled at the three figures on the porch, baring teeth that I knew were too big for the mouth they were in. I was getting much,muchbetter at control. “Get. Off. My. Property.”
Martha grabbed Peter’s arm, her fingers tight on the translucent white of his sweaty button-down shirt. “Come, husband. He’s not willing to listen to God’s truth.”
Husband. Peter Ellis was easily twenty years her senior. Martha was much closer in age to Simon and I than she was to Peter. I didn’t bother keeping the disapproval off my face,moving back out of the way to allow them to walk down the stairs and past me down the gravel drive.
