“Against Elena?”
“Well, at first they were more generic. There were rumors of a rival pack moving in to the area from the north, looking for a challenge, and Franco’s family were more than happy to fan the flames. They started spreading lies about my father, about his ability to manage and provide for the pack. Someone threw bricks through my parents’ windows painted with curses and crude, violent images. They cut the brake lines of my father’s car—fortunately, he’d only made it down the driveway before he figured it out. They slaughtered the chickens and cows on my parents’ land. My father started getting anonymous calls and emails demanding that my sister be tossed out of the pack, stripped of our protection. When he refused, the threats escalated. This went on for a couple years, but my parents always managed to stay on top of things, to not lose hope.
“Then one day, someone physically assaulted my sister in the grocery store parking lot, trying to get at the baby. She fought the guy off and Maya was unharmed, but that was the last straw. My father decided my sister and her family needed to go into protective custody.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered. “How did he even set that up?”
“Well, he was a cop—no surprise there, right?” I laughed, grateful for the chance to relieve some tension. “In our family, you were two things: a wolf first, an officer of the law second. He’d always known it was only a matter of time before Elena and I followed in his footsteps.”
I swallowed through another painful lump of emotion. My father hadn’t lived long enough to see either of his children follow in his footsteps.
“Anyway,” I said, “he had some help from a high-ranking shifter friend a few jurisdictions over, and they made all the arrangements. He and my sister staged a big public blow-up, and he officially disowned her, basically banishing her from the town. A few days later, we got them set up with new IDs in a small mountain town about an hour-and-a-half from where we lived. Other than my father and his friend, I was the only other person who knew the location. Even my mother couldn’t know—that’d been her choice. She was too worried she’d break down and go visit them, blowing their cover.”
Gray shook her head, her silky hair brushing against my skin. “That must’ve been the hardest thing for her to do. Especially after all the ups and downs she’d had with Elena, and finally getting close again, only to have to let her go…”
“Oh, she was miserable,” I said. “My father, too. Our family was torn apart, and there was nothing we could do about it—not if we wanted to keep them safe from the threats and attacks. My sister didn’t even dare send us letters or pictures—we were all so worried they’d be traced back. My mother started drinking. My father buried himself in his work, taking overnight shifts and walking beats he’d long since graduated from, just to avoid the emptiness at home.”
“What about you?” she asked.
What about me.
It was a loaded question, the answer weighted with so much guilt and pain I felt it now, eating away at my insides, flaring up all over again. For this was the root of it. The domino that fell and knocked down all the others.
My hand began to sting, and I realized Gray was gripping it so tightly, her fingernails were making half-moon indentations in my skin. Gently, I extracted myself from her grip, wrapping her hands in mine instead. It seemed we were both waiting for the other shoe in this painful story to drop. The difference was, I knew what was coming.
And I needed to anchor myself to her. To hold on for all I was worth as the memories came at me full force, the fiercest, most brutal waves that hit me full-on and pummeled me against the shore.
I could still feel the old resentments, the shamefully hot burning in my gut when I thought about what Elena’s choices had meant for our family. I loved her, I loved Maya, and even Jonah was starting to grow on me. But because she’d broken the rules, she’d broken our family, too. I lost my sister, but I also lost my parents. She’d cost me my sense of home and place and belonging. She’d cost me my friendships and dignity and standing in our pack. She’d cost me everything. That’s how it’d felt.
So when my friends—the guys who’d looked after me when Franco went crazy on me—started showing up again, I welcomed it. We were all a little older at that point, a bunch of wild-eyed wolves looking for trouble. I’d started drinking with them, staying out all night, looking for girls, generally disturbing the peace. There was always some party to go to, always some ruckus to cause.
Stupid boys.
Telling Gray about it now, I could see all the signs. All the fucking clues. But back then, I wasn’t much different from my sister with her friends—no one could’ve convinced me that any of it had been a bad idea.
“One night,” I went on, “the guys took me out to this expensive new club in downtown Buenos Aires, insisting they pay for everything, that they wanted to show me a good time since I’d been so down about my father disowning my sister. I drank a lot that night—more than I ever had—and we were all just letting off steam. I started opening up a little more about my fucked-up situation at home, and next thing I know, I’m telling them about the threats and how my sister wasn’t really disowned, just relocated for her protection.”
I felt the shift in Gray’s body immediately, her muscles tensing, her heartbeat kicking up. Even she could read the writing on the wall—the message it cost me absolutely everything to finally translate.
And by the time I had, it’d been far too late.
She pressed a kiss to my shoulder, warm and comforting. It was like she could sense me slipping under the waves and wanted to pull me back up again before I drown.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”
I gripped her hands tighter, and squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to watch the scene unfolding like a movie. It would be—I promised myself right there, right in her arms as the storm raged on outside our window and inside my heart—the very last time I watched that movie. The very last time I forced myself to relive it.
“They listened attentively,” I said, “asking for more details, their eyes full of fake concern. They said how sorry they were—that they’d had no idea I was dealing with all this shit at home. They reminded me how they’d had my back with Franco’s crew, and how I was like family to them. How that automatically made my parents and sister their family, too. How they wanted to help me protect her. A few more drinks, and I believed them. I’d felt like I’d been carrying that burden on my own for so long, it was a relief to get help. A relief to know that this big, strong, ragtag pack could fight for us. That they could put an end to the threats and bring my sister and her family home where they belonged.”
Silent tears leaked from my eyes again, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Like the ghosts, like the movies, they needed an outlet, too. And through it all, Gray just held me, kissed me, touched me, let me know without words that she wasn’t going anywhere. Wasn’t judging.
“By the time we left the club,” I said, “the boozy feelings had faded, but the sense of relief had only intensified. I felt damn near euphoric. I couldn’t wait to go home and talk to my parents—see what we could do to bring these guys into the fold, strengthen my father’s position as alpha, and put our family back together.
“They drove me back to the house, but as soon as we turned down my road, I knew something was wrong. Then we saw the firetrucks at the top of the driveway, and a blaze of orange that lit up the sky.” I reached for the bottled water on the bedside table, taking a long swig. The long-remembered taste of acrid smoke and the scent of burning animal flesh curdled in my mouth.
“The guys stayed by my side that whole night,” I continued, “waiting for the fire chief to come out of the ashes and tell me the answer to the only question I cared about—whether my parents were inside. But I knew before he’d even spoken the words. The house and outbuildings had been torched. The remaining animals had all burned alive. And my parents… my parents died in their bedroom closet, huddled together until the very end.”
By now, Gray’s tears were flowing, too, running like a tiny river down the side of my chest. My need to comfort her overwhelmed my own pain, and I stroked her cheek with my thumb, pressing a kiss into the top of her head. I would never be able to express how much this meant to me—that she’d been willing to listen, to feel this pain, to help me carry it.
