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“I stopped talking a long time ago,” she says. “I learned to talk when I was young, and it seemed like the easiest way to communicate with other people. Most of the pack don’t know ASL. I thought I could find a way to make friends if I could talk. It didn’t work out that way. They made fun of me, so I stopped trying to do things in a way that helped them. I didn’t talk again, until last night. I didn’t want to. I was afraid, but I realized the people who care about me won’t make fun of me, and I was right.”
“I already do not like this pack,” Scratch grumbles. “They do not treat our mate well.”
He is angry on behalf of our mate. It is not quite the reaction I was hoping for, but it is a start.
“People can be stupid,” I tell him. “It does not mean they are not capable of change.”
“What if they are too stupid to change?” he asks.
“Then they are missing out.”
He frowns at me. “You are talking about me.”
“Do you think you are too stupid to change?” I ask.
He sighs. “Change feels difficult. I do not like the thought of it.”
“This is a good change, Scratch. It does not have to be difficult.”
He is trying to understand what I’m saying, but I am not sure if it is really sinking in.
I don’t get a chance to try and convince him further.
The sound of our brothers at the door brings him quickly to his feet.
“I will let them in,” he tells me as he leaves the room.
I look back at Lita. She watches him go and turns back to me with a wry smile on her pink lips.
“I’m guessing that didn’t really work?” she asks.
I’m about to answer out loud, when I realize I’ll need to write it down.
I tell her it was helpful, but that he is still feeling strange about everything.
She nods as she reads the message. “These things take time.”
I can hear Fox arguing with Scratch in the hallway before our feline brother steps into the room and sinks quickly into the space next to Lita on the couch.
Snake looks around before he decides to sit on the floor at the side of the couch.
For a second, I’m not sure Scratch is coming back, but he steps back into the room a moment later, clearly just taking his time. I’m not sure what I’m worried about.
He can’t go back to The Abyss right now.
The portal is closed.
There is nothing to go back to.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lita
Theenergyintheroom changes almost instantly with the arrival of Fox and Snake. Scar has the calm, confident air of a true leader. Scratch is feeling anxious, but he seems less fraught than he did when they first arrived. Fox is playful from the moment he arrives, with Snake sort of echoing that energy in a slightly more toned-down way.
Fox leans in and rubs his head against mine.
It’s the lightest touch, but it wakes up all those primal urges I felt when we first met.
