Jacob stood at the back window watching Jessie dig up the grass to start her kitchen garden plots. He knew she was fighting the disintegration of her world by creating something she could hope was permanent, something she might see blossom and grow.
In the past week Jessie Taylor had disappeared. She had resigned from her job, saying she needed to start a new life somewhere else after the traumas she'd experienced in the last months. She'd sold her car, cancelled her driver's license, received her house insurance settlement and then cleared out her bank accounts. A lawyer was looking after the sale of the lot where her family home had been. There was no longer any credit card, debit card, or online account in her name. She was no longer a tenant at Connor and Don Elliott's house - her new contact address was a P.O. Box.
Liz Fielding was now living indefinitely with her cousins Connor and Don, who conveniently had a guest suite for her in their home. She had a small hybrid vehicle and was between jobs at the moment. Liz found it easier to have a P.O. Box as an address as well. Jessie had shoulder length dark hair; Liz had short blond hair and glasses. Liz Fielding was also ready to run at a moment's notice - she had go-bags at her front door and in her car at all times, she carried her phone with her everywhere she went. She had almost nothing she couldn't leave behind.
Jacob knew they were taking a chance by staying put for now. The neighbourhood knew who Jessie was, as did her friends (none of whom she could see any longer), and the police officers, ambulance personnel and hospital staff Jessie had interacted with in the past few months. Helen's group had extensively researched all who knew her looking for anyone who might have reason to see the search request and betray her, finding nothing now that Darren was dead. Helen hoped that by restricting her to the neighbourhood, avoiding any trouble that would bring in the authorities, erasing her paper trail, and removing photographs of her from everywhere they could, that anyone with that dash cam image from the search request would have little chance of finding her.
The remains of Darren's van had been found after the industrial building fire was extinguished and his disappearance, assumed death, had been blamed on his gang ties. A black truck had been seen entering and leaving the area but could not be traced. The investigation had stalled, and Helen made sure it stayed that way. Liam had taken the cover off the back of their truck, changed the license plates, added some pinstripes to the body, patched the bullet holes, and had a discrete repair done on the windshield by someone Helen had recommended. The brothers were back in business, though taking on just one renovation contract at a time for a while.
So now they waited and watched, living careful, restricted lives. Jessie's emotions were swinging wildly and she was beginning to feel the restrictions smothering her. Jacob and Liam understood and tried to keep her busy, focused on things she could do. Jessie didn't want to lose the family photos and documents in her second bedroom if they had to run, so they were setting up a space in the garage where she could air them out and digitize them. Uploading them to cloud storage, they would be accessible no matter where she was. Helen had put them in phone contact with one of her group who was walking Jessie through the current names and locations of werewolf packs in North America, discussing other kinds of Were she might encounter, and educating her on safe ways to travel and find shelter if she needed to.
Jacob and Liam were trying to help Jessie shift into her other half, walking her through how to think about doing it every night, but nothing was working - not one part of her changed. It seemed she couldn't feel her other half like the brothers could feel their coywolf part. Jessie couldn't draw forward something she couldn't find.
It
, whatever
it
was, was buried deep inside her.
Jacob walked out of the house to where Jessie was digging. Picking up a spare shovel, he asked "Can I help?"
Jessie looked over at him. "You can go to work ... help Liam ... you don't have to stay with me. It's like having a jailer, one of you hovering all the time."
Jacob sighed. "I know, I'm sorry, but for now it's better if one of us is here with you."
Jessie rolled her eyes, "Better for me? Or better for you? You are both obsessively protective right now. I am not going to spontaneously combust or get dragged off again. I'm not trying to change on my own. I'm jumping at every sound - nobody is going to sneak up on me."
Jacob started turning over shovel-fulls of sod and chopping them into small pieces. "Have patience, it's going to take a few weeks to be confident that we've done the right things. Keep learning, take time to absorb it all. Think of it as being on a professional development sabbatical, without all the report writing and presentations at the end."
Jessie groaned. "Or a job at the end ... I have a small amount of savings and the money from the house but that won't support me for the rest of my life, especially if I'm going to live longer than normal. Will I ever be able to go back to doing what I trained to do, work that I enjoyed? ... I can't use my former employers as references when I no longer have my real name."
