Chapter 6

She shocks herself with her words. She almost covers her mouth with her hand after they slip out.

What magnetism does Jayden have that drew them out of her chest? What drugs are in the air in this town that could make her voice things she had never shared with anyone but Will?

She doesn't know, but it makes her hands sweat. She shoves them into her pockets, too ashamed to watch Jayden work after saying such a thing, so she turns away.

Jayden, though, stands. "Violent?"

"I shouldn't have said anything," mutters Kira.

"He's barely cold in his grave."

"Sounds like it's the best place for him," says Jayden, and the words are so harsh, so icy, that they shouldn't feel like a warm blanket settled over Kira's shoulders.

"I don't buy into this. Don't speak ill of the dead crap."

None of that should sound comforting, but it does. Kira wraps her arms around herself and sits back against the hood of the truck while Jayden works.

"Tell me about this party, at the full moon. Don't tell me it's out in the woods?"

Jayden laughs. "You're going to have to get used to our traditions, Akira. The woods are part of this town, like our grandparents. We were raised by them. Do you know, I traveled to the city once, and I couldn't find my way around all those streets. Every block looked the same. The lights were blinding and there were so many people that I couldn't even see them as individuals anymore. Meanwhile, in the woods, I'm never lost. Every tree has a characteristic; I know them all."

Kira thinks of her unease arriving in the town, and the contrast with Jayden's security here. "I understand. I felt weird coming here, away from the city, so I understand it. It's what we know."

"We can just hang out at my place if you aren't comfortable out in the woods. Like you said, people tend to... follow me. If I say the party's at mine, then the party's at mine."

Jayden fits the new lock with ease, as if he carries fittings everywhere he goes. Upon examination of the back of the truck, she finds that he's something of a walking hardware store, which makes sense because there can't be that many tradespeople in town.

Despite the cool air, he shrugs off the shirt that he was wearing and works in his tank. His shoulders are nice to look at.

Kira scratches that thought from her mind as soon as it crosses it.

"See? Now you have a lock," grins Jayden. He throws the key to Kira.

"You don't need to lock your door here – trust me, our crime rate is at zero – but I know you city people like to feel like there's a barrier between you and everyone else while you sleep."

"You haven't seen the inside. I don't think it's habitable."

"Nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of elbow grease," he grins, and then his smile falls when he pushes open the newly fitted door and examines the hallway beyond.

During the rest of the morning, Kira thought that Jayden was going to take the house all by himself.

Though Kira could help, sweeping away the dust and collecting up the few possessions left behind, she felt idle in comparison to Jayden, who heaved around the remaining furniture without breaking a sweat.

He wouldn't let Kira do anything that involved lifting, which made Kira feel both annoyed that he thought her feeble, and very pleased that she was freed from the responsibility of physical labor.

Jayden seemed determined to strip the whole house alone by lunchtime, but the plan became clearer at midday, when his friends arrived.

They pile through the door one by one, Frank at the front carrying a drinks cooler and steaming bag of hot food, and Noel at the rear.

They are minus Ezra in their numbers, but Ezra is talking to two strangers that she does not know yet, one guy and one girl, both of whom look a couple of years younger than them.

"This is Liam, Akira," Noel says cheerily, "and this is Zoe."

Kira bows her head in greeting.

Liam looked across at Jayden. "This is her?"

The throwaway manner in which he says it makes Kira bristle. In her experience, it isn't good manners to speak to someone you have just met in such a way, and he doesn't bow either, despite the fact that Kira is sure she is older.

If she had taken a friendly dislike to Jayden the first time she met him, the kind that could be fixed with an early morning truck ride and a favor thrown her way, then she took an unfriendly dislike to Liam.

"Mhmm," says Jayden, not looking up. "I thought she'd be taller."

Noel rolls his eyes and shoves Liam out of the way as he joins Frank to unpack the food and the sodas.

Kira is blessed, she knows, to have inherited the best physical features from both of her parents.

She took her mother's full lips and keen eyes, and her father's sharp bone structure. Her father was tall, very tall, such that he was clumsy, while Kira grew into her mother's frame, more well-balanced, more well-proportioned.

Most importantly, she inherited her temperament.

"We need to tear up the floors and take out any walls you don't want before we do anything else," says Jayden, ignoring him and addressing Kira instead.

"What do you think of the layout?"

"The layout?" Kira laughs. "I'm not going to be living here, Jayden."

"Humour me."

"This is an old house. If you go knocking down walls the whole place might collapse around us."

"Well that's why we have Frank," he smiles. "He studied engineering."

What Noel said is true. While Kira thought he must be the anomaly, leaving the town to study, it seems that half of the kids here traveled away to go through university, yet all of them have returned.

Everyone comes back here. Even her father, not six feet under the hard-falling earth. Even Kira. And she has to ask Jayden a question, so she takes him aside while the others get to work.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything you want."

"You said that I was born here, that I should check the records. Did you mean it?"

Jayden looks at her curiously.

"Of course I meant it. Akira Wilder, Fair Woods, Nineteen ninety Five"

"You looked me up?"

"It's a small town. Nothing much exciting happens here. Your family has been here for generations, just like all of ours. Your father, your father's parents, their parents. Your mother, her parents, and her parents' parents. Then you. That's how things go."

Kira laughs. "My mother wasn't born here."

Lifting an eyebrow, Jayden surveys her.

"That's what you think?"

"She never even mentioned this place. It's my father's town. They met in stone brick."

"Walk with me," says Jayden, taking her by the forearm to lead her up the stairs, away from where the others are eating.

"You really don't know that this is where your mom grew up?"

Kira runs her hands through her hair in disbelief. This is the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard, but something at the back of her mind stops her from arguing.

After the funeral, Noel told her that it couldn't have been easy, losing her father so soon after her mother.

It means they knew. The people in this town knew she'd died. And yet none of them had mentioned her name to her, busy telling gushing stories about her father.

"She can't have done it. I would have known."

"I don't want you to think I know more about you than you do, Kira, but people here talk."

"Tell me," whispers Kira. "Tell me everything you know about my family."