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He was hurled off his feet as the air sparked and crackled around him. He flew across the dirt road and slammed into a tree. I heard the sharp crack of bone as his leg broke. He screamed, and I screamed with him as he fell to the ground at the base of the tree. He turned himself over and began to crawl toward me, leg dragging behind him.
“Such perseverance,” Livingstone marveled. “I see what you found in him, Robbie. I understand now. Mates. It’s a shame, really. Would you hear me, dear?”
I cried out again as the fog wrapped itself around my head.
“Fight it!” Kelly shouted. “Robbie, you fight it, goddammit!”
“He can’t,” Livingstone said. “I see what the witches have done to him. How they’ve locked him down. It’s only a matter of time. Robbie, dear, listen to me. Listen to my voice. There is a human next to you. He is a threat, much like your father was. Do you remember what your father did? This human will do the same. You can stop him.”
I turned my head toward Rico.
Rico took a step back. He raised the gun toward me. “Robbie. Please. Don’t make me do this.”
I stood slowly.
Rico stumbled back even as Kelly tried to push himself up, screaming again in pain as his bad leg gave out. But it was a distant thing, a faraway thing, lost in the fog.
I growled at the man before me with a gun.
This human.
I took another step toward him.
The barrel of the gun shook.
“No,” Kelly whispered. “Rico, don’t—”
I slapped the gun out of Rico’s hand before he could get off a shot. It landed on the ground, bouncing away from him. He raised his hands to ward me off.
It wouldn’t stop me.
It wouldn’t—
Kelly said, “I see you, you know?”
Kelly said, “I see you.”
Kelly said, “And I will never let you go.”
And I—
It was good between us. We took it slow. You smiled all the time. You brought me flowers once. Mom was pissed because you ripped them up from her flower bed and there were still roots and dirt hanging from the bottom, but you were so damn proud of yourself. You said it was romantic. And I believed you. There was something… I don’t know. Endless. About you and me. We came here sometimes. Just the two of us. And you would pretend to know all the stars. You would make up stories that absolutely weren’t true, and I remember looking at you, thinking how wonderful it was to be by your side. And if we were lucky, there’d be—ah. Look. Again.
“Fireflies,” I whispered.
“What was that?” Livingstone asked, his voice a whipcrack of warning.
“Fireflies,” I said again, louder, as the fog burned away. “It’s all fireflies and—”
Time slowed around me.
I tilted my head toward the sky.
She whispered, Little wolf, little wolf, can’t you see? You are the master of the forest, the guardian of the trees.
Quiet as a mouse no longer.
It started in my chest. This great bloom of fire.
