Free Time Mends by Tammy Blackwell

Pack. She was
originally supposed to go back to the Matthews Pack on her
fifteenth birthday, but —”
    “ But her powers hadn’t
developed yet.” I handed Talley a paper towel, unable to locate a
tissue.
    “ Yeah. They still wanted
her, but since she wasn’t able to See, they didn’t fight too hard
when Toby petitioned to keep her. In the end, they accepted a
monetary compensation for their loss.”
    “ You bought
her?”
    “ The Hagan Pack bought
her,” Jase answered, still fuming. “And it was a conditional
purchase. She was to stay in the Hagan Pack. Now that she’s left,
they’ll see the contract as null and void—”
    “ And they’ll want her
back, Super-Seer skills and all.”
    Jase’s smile wasn’t pleasant. “You always
were the smart one.”
    I looked down at Talley, who was finally
pulling herself together. “Are they exaggerating?”
    She shook her head, eyes downcast.
    In all the years Talley and I’ve known each
other, I’ve met her father exactly once. There were about three
years where Mr. Matthews decided he wanted his daughter to spend
six weeks of the summer with him in addition to the week she spent
in Eastern Kentucky every Christmas. At the age of eleven, six
weeks seemed like a lifetime, and I was convinced I would shrivel
up and perish while she was away. My parents, being the kind of
loving folks who don’t want to see their child die from loneliness,
arranged a family vacation touring the eastern half of the state
with a special stop in Frenchburg to visit with Talley.
    Angel was a baby, so Mom stayed in the motel
room that smelled like rotten eggs while Dad drove Jase and I out
to the Matthews’ compound. It was unlike anything I had ever seen
before. The whole family lived in a cluster of houses at the end of
a road that wound between two mountains. Talley said they called it
Matthews Holler, and I wondered if it was because all you had to do
was holler out your door to talk to any of your family members.
    Mr. Matthews was a rough looking man. His
hair was dark and wavy like Talley’s, but it looked like someone in
a bad mood attacked it with kitchen shears. His face was
weather-worn and etched with a hundred tiny lines. Talley always
said her dad was old, much older than her mom, but I never imagined
him to be grandpa old. Yet, despite his rough appearance, his blue
eyes shone with kindness as I ran up the porch steps and flung my
arms around my long-lost best friend.
    While Mr. Matthews seemed to like me and my
dad well enough, he had very little patience for Jase, who grew
fidgety the moment we stopped the car. He refused to sit down,
preferring to pace around, constantly looking over his shoulder
like he thought a black bear was going to come charging down the
mountainside at any given moment. The second time Mr. Matthews
snapped at Jase, Dad announced it was time to go.
    We took Talley out to dinner at a local
restaurant called “Cantuckee Cookin’”, the purposeful misspelling
causing major annoyance on my part. Surprisingly, it was Jase who
spent the majority of the meal trying to talk our parents into
taking Talley back home with us. He was convinced she didn’t belong
in that world. Dad patiently tried to explain that just because
Appalachian culture was somewhat different than what we were used
to, it wasn’t necessarily wrong.
    In the end we dropped Talley off at her
father’s house, she and I in tears and Jase pouting in the
backseat. When Talley told him goodbye, he wrapped his arms around
her in a bone-crushing hug and said, “You belong with us, not
them.”
    At the time I thought he was being really
sweet, telling her we were her true family. Of course, I had no
knowledge of Shifters, Seers, and Packs at the time. I didn’t
realize he was talking about her as if she was a piece of
property.
    Crap. I honestly didn’t know what we were
dealing with, but I did know my best friend wasn’t something to be
owned.
    “ Tal, where do you want to
be?”
    “