I found her in Clarissa.
She’s beautiful and strong. Fluid and graceful. Intelligent and self-sufficient and everything I could’ve wanted in a woman. She stands up for what she believes is right and always takes the moral high ground. She commands a room the moment she walks into it, and people have no choice but to listen to her. And her voice. It’s like icing along my skin. Smooth and sweet, but a little sticky to force your attention toward it. She’s sharp, and I like that about her. Nothing gets by her. She can read a room before even speaking into it.
Primal females are nothing like her.
I should know.
I’ve encountered many of them.
Some Primals wander deep into the forest and find us back here. They are always welcomed, of course, but a few of them have been killed by our hands. Those who conspire against us and want to report us to the Council are eliminated. Our village out here has been a secret for decades. Josie says our secret has been compromised. That the Council has mapped out the forest and knows where we live. But I don’t believe her. We were patrolling the edges of the woods. If anything, they only have it mapped a few miles in.
Nothing more than that.
“Earth to Joel. You there?”
I glance down at Josie as a chuckle falls from my lips.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re staring off into space.”
“Not into space.”
“Then you’re staring off into the direction of the cottage,” she says.
“I am.”
“What for?”
“Clarissa and I had an interesting talk.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Brother, I know you’ve taken a liking to her. But you know she’s a Primal, right?” she asks.
“No, she’s not. She’s been enhanced to have attributes of a Primal, but she’s not actually one of them.”
“We can debate the logistics all day, but you know you can’t have her.”
“And why not? Why shouldn't we be the ones responsible for taking care of her and her unborn child?” I ask. “She’s human, Josie. She has some abilities we don’t because she was injected with something, but that doesn't make her any less human.”
“You gave her the car speech, didn’t you?”
“Because it’s got a point.”
“There’s another point to it you never take into account,” she says.
“Josie. Don’t.”
“If you continue to replace the parts of that car until there are no original parts on it, is it still the same car?”
“It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a damn car!”
“But it does alter whether or not it’s the original car in the first place. If you put a V8 engine in a car meant for a V6 engine, you’re going to blow something up. I don’t know how all the mechanics work, but I know it doesn’t work. It isn’t until you switch out the pipes and clean the cylinders and do all that stuff to it that the engine works with the car.”
“Josie.”