Page 287 of Sorrow & Strangers

I nod. There’s no sense in denying it anymore.

“So are we committing to him?” she asks, her nose wrinkling at the word.

I nod again.

“Yeah? That’s huge, Sum!” Alice says with a bright smile.

I quirk a brow. “I thought you didn’t trust him.”

Alice slurps blood from the bag and shrugs. “I trust you, and I can see the light in your eyes when you talk about him. It’s not even a light you had when you were with Connor.”

I exhale heavily. “We’ll see,” I say with a shrug, though I can’t keep the smile from my lips.

“You don’t sound too optimistic,” she says, arching a brow.

“I still feel a lot of guilt.”

“About Con?” I nod, and Alice shifts closer, knowing I need comfort. “Do you ever wish you’d never given him a chance?” she asks. “Con, I mean.”

“What?” I ask with a frown.

Alice shrugs, looking a little sheepish.

“If I hadn’t, he’d still be alive,” I say, tears filling my eyes as something inside me unravels.

Alice shakes her head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, do you regret how he changed you?”

“No,” I say without a beat of hesitation.

Alice studies my face. “Not even a little?”

“No,” I repeat immediately. “I have conflicting feelings about other things, but not that.”

“Okay, but what if . . .” Alice takes my hand. “What if the stranger is the next person to change you for the better?”

There is that feeling again, the one that has been active in me since I unraveled that lie with the stranger, though I have no fucking idea what it is.

“What if he doesn’t?” Will Alice and Rafe still love me if I allow myself to sink into that part of me? To explore the darkness that has always lived within? Will Farrah and Uriel still want me in their family?

“In this house, we support females’ wrongs, and if you want, I’ll figure out how to kill him.”

Deep down, I know Alice will still love me. She has something akin to darkness within her, a lethal and sinister energy that she doesn’t even try to shy away from. Rafe has it too, now that I think about it, but I don’t have the answers yet, and I don’t feel confident enough in my future to guess about it.

“Let’s watch trashy television,” I say, knowing we both need the distraction. Alice taps the space bar on her laptop, and one of her new shows starts to play. It’s called Shifter Wars, and it’s as trashy as that other one she used to watch, though this one is less scandalous, given the nature of the packs.

“Sum?” Alice says after a few quiet moments.

“Hm?”

“Your bad parts? I love those too, you know.” I feel my eyes burn with tears. How did she know that’s exactly what I wanted to hear? But then I remember that I’ve known all along we are cut from similar cloths, formed from torn pieces we desperately stitched together, and some of those pieces are dark.

“Don’t be afraid of them,” she whispers, and I curl more into her. “No matter who you uncover within yourself, within your past. It is always going to be me by your side.”

Chapter One Hundred Eighteen

The Stranger

Unknown