Page 69 of Wolfsbane

“That’s fine,” Aleks said.

I knelt forward and put my arms beneath Mother’s knees, around her shoulders.

“I can do that,” Viktor said.

I shook my head and picked her up myself. “Show me where?”

Leo and Altair led the way. Cash caught up and Viktor took the shovel.

We found a spot and I carried her there. I only put her down so I could take the shovel from Viktor, who frowned when I took it from him, but then Altair stepped up. “I could move the dirt for you?”

I couldn’t meet his eye. “No, thank you.”

I sank the shovel’s edge into the ground. It was squishy and soft, and made a wet noise as I lifted it up.

I dug and dug. When I was hip-deep in the hole, it started to fill with water, but it wasn’t deep enough. They had to be six feet, right? Taller than me, then.

I kept digging as long as I could, until the water made it impossible to go any deeper. That’d have to be enough.

Viktor took the shovel when I handed it up, and he set it aside.

“Could you . . . pass her down?” I didn’t just want to roll her across the ground and let her drop.

Leo handed her to me, and I set her down in the pooled water. Her face disappeared beneath it, and I stood there, staring, until Viktor said my name. When I reached up, he helped me climb out.

Filling the hole back in was easier, if only because it was easier to breathe standing near the rest of them. They stayed, silent, the whole time, as though in solidarity even as I insisted on doing all the work myself. It still took a long time, but I was a werewolf, and I could keep going forever, couldn’t I?

When I was finished, I packed the earth down as tight as I could and stood there, dumbfounded, unsure what to do next.

Altair bumped against my arm gently. “Do you want to say anything?”

I swallowed. My throat felt hot and tight, and I had to swallow again. Even then, it was impossible to open my mouth.

But as I stared at the upturned earth and thought about all the time I’d spent hoping for the future, all the nights I’d curled up in my room with Mariah and tried to make myself smaller because I thought that was the best thing I could be. Unimposing. Out of the way. Obedient.

Mother might’ve let a werewolf awaken me, but she never would’ve invited Viktor to dinner. She’d have hated him. Tried to kill him.

She had tried to kill him.

I let out a sigh that had my shoulders slumping and my head hanging low. With my eyes on the mud, I shrugged. “I wish I’d been enough how I was.”

But I hadn’t been. Not for one minute. Not for her.

I clutched the shaft of the shovel tight and turned back toward the pack houses. It wasn’t like there was anywhere else for me to go.

Again, there was no tug on the magical tether. Viktor must’ve resigned himself to following me around all night, but it was nice to know he was with me.

The others hung back, and I felt a rumbling of the earth beneath my feet that I suspected had something to do with Altair’s power, but I didn’t care to turn around and find out. Mother was buried, and all that I needed right then was to be away from all of it.

Viktor didn’t say anything on the way back, but when we got to Katya’s home, he eased the shovel out of my grip and set it upright on the porch. Katya came to the door. She must’ve brought candles out onto the porch, because they flickered on a low table near the door.

“There’s a bath around the side of the house if you want it,” she said softly, sending me a look that broke my heart a little bit.

She felt sorry for me, and that was wrong. I’d killed my mom. I didn’t deserve pity. I⁠—

Frankly, I probably deserved whatever Destiny had in mind.

But when I looked down at myself, skin caked in mud, I realized Katya was probably right. I didn’t need to drag the muck all through her house.