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While we all failed to escape to The End during their attack, Simon apparently still wants to reach it. The direction of his little dot on the map makes that clear, but so did some of the things he’s said to me during our fights. I realize now that he’s mentioned The End multiple times. Perhaps it was a clue to me. Perhaps he was always telling me where he was going to go.
But why? I haven’t a clue. Some poetic sense of resolution, I muse, staring out the window while Max drives us from one shifter town to the next.
The closer we get, the stronger I can feel him, the more I know we’re heading into a storm. The fact that I sent my other pack members home haunts me, and I hope Simon doesn’t find them. Or whoever else has been rebuilding the town.
My pack doesn’t have money. They were in rough shape. It’d take them longer to get here than us.
I hope.
I’ve only just started reconciling with my past guilt. I couldn’t bear their loss on my conscience. If Simon kills them, there’ll be no one left. A cruel finish to the sad saga of the Blood Pack.
So much death…
A hand gently caresses my thigh. I turn and look at Max, who spares me a reassuring glance. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He struggles to hit the right tone, the correct arrangement of eyes and mouth, unaccustomed to the art of consolation. It’s cute, I think, almost as good as if he was telling the truth but doesn’t know how to get that across. He’s learning though. Maybe I’m teaching them something, just like they’re teaching me so much.
Braxton reaches up from the backseat and squeezes my shoulder. “We’re going to get through this.”
I didn’t think he could be less convincing than his brother, but he manages it. A man used to reassuring his dog, but not anyone else. Maybe he would’ve done better if he’d pet my head. I flash him a soft smile, anyway.A for effort, boys.
“My worst days in the cooler,” Orson says, “when the darkness of my fate closed in around me, and threatened to choke me, do you know what hurt worst of all?”
I’m surprised. Orson doesn’t talk a lot about his time in prison. If anything, he acts like it was just something small that occurred in his life, like a minor car accident.
I turn around to meet his eye. “What was the worst part of it?”
“Hope. The shadows grew so much darker when I went looking for a ray of sunshine to banish them. But it was no better than when I focused on what could be. My thoughts capitalized on my distraction, conjured the worst possible scenarios to haunt me with. But when I turned back to them, when I faced down my day to vanquish it one hour at a time, I passed through to the other side.”
After a beat of silence in the SUV, Braxton says, “That’s depressing, man.”
It was, but he’s not wrong. No matter what happens from here, I’m going to have to face my brother. There’s no way around it, so all I can do is face this situation in the healthiest way possible.
“It makes sense,” I reply. Quit focusing on the worst possible case scenario. Don’t let my imagination rush fate. Put my head down and deal with the moment. It helps. “Thank you, Orson.”
Trouble caps this all off by crawling over the center console to curl up in my lap.Mangy mutt. He knows he’s won me over. I stroke his back as he closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.
“Of course,” Orson says, and our eyes meet, that strange connection burning between us.
“And if at any point you just want the Enforcers to handle him…” Max trails off.
I shake my head. “This is my battle to fight.”
It is. Maybe there are supernaturals amongst the Enforcers that could handle my brother, but I won’t let them. I started this whole thing. I need to be the one to finish it.
“You are the most equipped to handle it,” Braxton says, surprising me.
“How?” I ask with a laugh. I’m a few steps away from becoming my brother. I canbetthere are better people than me to handle him.
Braxton doesn’t hesitate. “You have magic just as powerful as his, but you still have your soul.”
I stare back at him. “I’m not that different from my brother and the rest of the Blood Pack.” He has to know that, right?
He lifts a brow. “Are you kidding me?”
I swear I see the wisps of dark magic at the corners of vision, calling to me, mocking me. Inviting me to see the power inside of me for what it’s meant for. “The magic calls to me too,” I admit softly.
No one speaks.
