Page 86 of Psycho Shifters

“Yes,” Aran said beside me and jolted me out of my staring contest.

I looked over at him in surprise. I thought he had acted homicidal in a show of solidarity. The blue-haired beta was always grinning and laughing like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Now he looked pensive and worried, like he was also suffering from violent thoughts. I guessed no one was truly what they seemed. We were all a little messed up.

“What does it feel like, Sadie, when you sometimes want to kill people?” Auntie asked me.

“It feels like…nothing,” I said honestly as I thought about it. “There are no feelings, just a voice inside me that whispers to kill and blissful emptiness.”

The room was unnaturally quiet as both Auntie and Aran stared at me with raised eyebrows.

Maybe now they would realize how messed up I was. These therapy sessions weren’t going to do anything. I didn’t suffer from the numb; I embraced it. It was the only thing that had kept me alive this long.

“And what does it feel like to you, Aran?” Auntie asked him, and turned.

There was a long pause, and I thought Aran wasn’t going to say anything. When he finally spoke, it was in a soft hush.

“Rage consumes me completely until I feel like I’m burning alive. But it’s not a fiery rage, it’s icy and jagged. It stabs at me like icicles until I act on my impulses.” He slumped forward like he was ashamed of himself.

I wondered how often the rage overwhelmed him. Was it like the numb, or was it constant? I reached over, put my hand on his shoulder, and smiled at him grimly. He wasn’t alone.

Auntie opened her mouth, but instead of her normal breathless prattle, a deep voice bellowed out,

“Blood and ice will fall the lie,

Color and white to break the queen,

Heir and friend join and tie,

A reborn quad the fates foreseen.”

Suddenly, Auntie’s wrinkly mouth slammed shut and her head slumped forward. With a crack, her forehead hit the desk.

I leaned backward in shock. What the fuck had just happened? Icy fear gripped my heart.

As the shock receded, my mind spun. What were the odds that I had just seen a map labeled “quad” and now it was mentioned in a fae poem?

Everyone knew the fae talked in riddles. Their language was built on rhymes. And the fae queen led the never-ending war. Was the poem about her?

“What in the moon goddess was that?” I turned to Aran.

Instead of looking confused, the blue-haired beta visibly shook in his chair. He was terrified.

“What just happened?” I asked with more urgency.

He blinked slowly, and he grabbed my hand with his long fingers. “Tha-tha-that was a famous fae prophecy. It’s titled ‘The Apocalypse.’” Aran looked at me with sheer horror, his soft features ashen and tense.

“Why does it matter that she just read it to us?” I whispered softly, my raspy voice too loud in the quiet room that now reeked of fear.

“I have no idea. That shouldn’t have just happened,” Aran whispered back.

“What are the chances that she’s just crazy? It’s a popular poem. Maybe she suffered some type of psychotic episode.”

Aran paled further and my stomach plummeted. He wasn’t telling me something.

He gripped my hand. “Fae prophecies tend to have lives of their own. They aren’t just words. The rhymes themselves are enchanted and...alive. Her voice changed.”

We both looked at Auntie, who was just now blinking her eyes open. The implication of what he was saying hit me like a beta punch to the face.