eyes, and replies, “They were killed.”
The room goes completely silent, except for the snores coming from the teacher’s desk. The others are staring at Silas, eyes wide. Even Hunter seems to be both intrigued and scared.
“How?” Shade asks, the only one bold enough to break the silence. “I mean, who by?”
“Jeez, Shade,” snaps Landon.
Shade puts his hands up. “Sorry, sorry.”
Silas shifts in his seat, not seeming particularly bothered. “Humans,” he replies, swallowing before he continues. I’m surprised at how composed he is, considering what he’s discussing, but maybe that’s just how it is when enough time has passed after a tragedy. “My mom and dad were both pretty pro-shifter,” Silas says. “They were always suspicious of them--raised me in a shifter-only community, away from civilization. They were always telling me not to trust them, calling them violent and xenophobic. I kind of brushed it off. I mean, I was a kid back then, and I didn’t even know if I was going to end up with shifter powers, you know?”
The others nod.
“Anyway,” Silas continues, “my parents paranoia eventually started to get the better of them, I think. They started coming up with all these crazy conspiracy theories about how the humans who know about shifters don’t actually want to coexist with us. The humans apparently wanted to enslave us, or use us, experiment on us… It was a different story every day. It got to the point where they tried to stop interacting with humans at all. It went about as well as you’d expect.” He takes a breath, fidgeting. “At one point, I remember coming home every day to see a new group of shifters in our living room, discussing conspiracy theories and talking about how they were going to ‘escape enslavement’, or something like that.” He shakes his head.
“I can’t imagine that ended well,” says Landon.
“No,” Silas replies. “It didn’t. By the time I was ten, they had basically turned our lives upside-down. Then, one day, they pulled me out of school, packed up our stuff, and got in the car. They wouldn’t tell me why, or where we were going. It didn’t matter anyway--we hadn’t made it that far when we were stopped by a couple of humans. Apparently, the word had gotten out that my folks had been stirring the pot, and the governments needed to do damage control. So they took me out of the car, hauled my parents away, and that was the last time I ever saw them.”
There’s a long moment of silence as we process all this. Finally Landon turns to look at him. “You okay, Silas?”
He nods. “Yeah, I’m fine. It was a long time ago, and my parents were… unwell. That much was obvious.” He shakes himself, sitting up in his chair. “But enough about that. Let’s talk about something more fun, yeah?”
“Well,” Shade remarks, “I don’t think any of us are going to top that.”
Silas snorts and the others laugh, the tension in the room breaking up. I stay quiet, Silas’ story still bouncing around in my head like a pinball. The idea of having parents and then losing them… I didn’t think anything could be worse than not knowing one’s parents at all, but I’m realizing now that I’m wrong. Absently, I reach down into my boot, touching the necklace given to me by the only real family I’ve ever had. I do know what that’s like, I think, the memories of Mollie flooding back to me. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“What are you doing, Millie?” asks Shade.
The others turn to look at me with my hand in my boot, making me blush a little. “Sorry,” I respond. “I just…” I never talk about Mollie with anyone. She’s always been sort of an unspoken guardian angel, one I look to with a kind of superstition, as if one wrong step will corrupt her memory, too, leaving me alone for real. But now I find myself relaxing as I speak, the words coming out as easily as if I’ve known these guys my whole life. “That story of yours got me thinking, Silas,” I reply. “I never knew my parents, but one of my foster mothers gave me a necklace. I keep it in my shoe, since the clasp is broken.” There’s so much I want to say, want to explain, but somehow, none of it seems right--or necessary. “I was just thinking about family,” I say simply, shrugging.
I have no idea what’s compelling me to open up