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“Good,” Travis said. “And actually listen to her and what she says. Don’t go in ready to fight or argue—really fucking listen to her, man.”
I nodded and sighed. “Yeah. All right. I will.”
I studied him again. He looked so pale, and there were dark circles around his eyes. I tried to imagine how I would feel seeing Marley convulse and scream and bleed. Just thinking about it had bile rising up my throat.
I needed to think of something else, so I decided to get some insight instead. “You said it sucks to be a human among shifters. But why did it suck for you? We’ve never treated you any differently.”
Travis shook his head. “Nope. Never. You guys were always good to me. Probably too good, considering.” He chuckled. “But yeah, it still sucked being around everyone else who could shift and change and grow while I was stuck as a human. It made me feel like I was missing out and that no matter how hard I tried or how much I accomplished, I would always be inferior to you and Sylvia. To your parents. You know that protective urge you have for Marley? I have that urge for Lana, but I can’t protect her as a human. If another shifter came after her, I could never do anything to protect her. All I could do was watch as she got torn to shreds. And that is fucking awful, man. I mean, shit, why do you think I get so cagey about you getting aggro?”
“I thought it was because you were frightened of me,” I said.
“A little, sure,” he said. “It’s also because if you get in a fight, I’m so weak that I can’t back you up like your best friend should. For a long time, I felt like an outsider. Even though you guys welcomed me with open arms, it still stung. It made me feel like less than them. Less than a shifter. And I hated that feeling.”
I nodded. “You think Marley feels that way?”
“I can’t even speculate what Marley feels,” he said. “And the fact that you’re asking me tells me that you haven’t discussed this enough with her to make a fair judgment over why she wants to transition. If you don’t know, then you have no right to be pissed about anything because you haven’t even let her talk.”
With that, Travis closed his eyes, settled back onto his pillows, and let out a deep breath. I could see the exhaustion etched into every line of his face, and I knew he needed rest more than anything. But I couldn’t stop myself from probing further.
“Why do you think she wants to become a shifter?” I asked. “What is it about the lifestyle that appeals to her so much?”
Travis opened his eyes again, looking at me with a mixture of frustration and sadness. “Isn’t it obvious? Shifters are stronger, faster, smarter. They can take control of their lives and bodies in ways humans can’t. If you’re going to spend your life with someone who can shape-shift, it only makes sense to have the same abilities. Besides, who wouldn’t want to experience the thrill of becoming a wolf? Of running through the forest with your pack?”
I thought of the night in Georgia when I ran with the other shifters. I’d left Marley alone only to have a stranger make a pass at me while we were apart. What if the roles had been reversed? How would I have felt if Marley had run off in the forest and told me later that a man had tried to touch her naked body? How would I have felt if she’d simply told me not to worry about it because she’d put him in his place?
I felt so ashamed because I would never have been okay with that. The truth was that I’d been expecting Marley to operate in a way that relied on her implicit trust in me, and I hadn’t extended the same courtesy to her. Instead, I’d expected her to behave a certain way because that was what I wanted, not because that was who she was. Not because that was the type of woman she aspired to be. No, I’d expected her to stay within the boundaries I’d set, to act in accordance with my desires rather than hers for my personal comfort. And while those desires were borne out of wanting to protect her, they’d made me act like an asshole. I’d never even given her the opportunity to talk things out with me.
God, I’d been such a selfish dick. I’d allowed myself to forget that she was her own person, capable of making her own decisions.
As these thoughts swirled around my head, I found myself growing angrier and angrier. Not at her, but at myself.
“Calm down, big guy,” Travis muttered. “You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to beat yourself up. When you know better, you do better.”
His words were enough to bring me out of my self-loathing spiral. I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “You’re right.”
“I’m always right,” Travis said.
“And so very humble,” I said with a grin. “I told Marley and Lana that I’d call when you woke up. Want me to do that?”
“Nah,” Travis said, getting more comfortable in his bed. “I think I’m gonna pass out again. Why don’t you just hang out with me till I conk out and head back home to get some rest yourself? Maybe have some makeup sex with Marley or whatever?”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” I said. “But yeah, I think I’ll hang out here with you for the rest of the night. It’s probably a good idea to give Marley some space, and I’ve got meetings tomorrow to scout for a location for headquarters.”
“Fair enough,” Travis said. “Since you’re staying, why don’t you grab the nurse and see if she can pull some strings to get me a slice of that good ol’ hospital meatloaf? I’m fucking starving.”
“Your wish is my command,” I said. “Just don’t let this go to your head.”
* * *
I only caught a few hours of sleep after arranging for a hospital meal to be brought to Travis. The lounge chair in the room pulled out into a bed, but it was about a foot and a half too short for me to sleep on comfortably.
Rehashing the fight with Marley wasn’t doing me any favors, either.
I called Lana early in the morning, just after the sun came up, to tell her that Travis was awake and lucid. She said she’d be over soon with Marley. I made myself scarce before they arrived because I wasn’t ready to see Marley. If I saw her, I’d want to have it out with her right there, and I still needed to process what exactly I wanted to say to her after my conversation with Travis. So I left the hospital, using the excuse of needing to scout a location for the pack headquarters and citing that I’d had to cut my search short the day before.
I drove aimlessly for hours, lost in thought. The memory of the argument with Marley replayed itself over and over again in my mind until it became a loop. Finally, I remembered what I was supposed to be doing.
I pulled over to the side of the road, taking out the piece of paper Sylvia had given me. There were three potential locations listed—an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town, an old military base further north, and an abandoned hotel that some mogul had started to build but never finished because he went bankrupt.
