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They told me that it was going to be all right.
I wished I could believe them, but I couldn’t take the chance that they were wrong.
Jessie sighed as she poured the line of silver across the basement, trapping me inside.
Kelly looked furious, standing near the stairs, hands in fists at his sides as rainwater dripped off him onto the floor.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Gordo muttered. He looked tired. “Until we can figure this out.” He shook his head. “I….” He’d spent the better part of an hour digging around in my head, saying he was shoring up whatever walls he could to keep his father out. I could see by the look on his face that he didn’t think it’d do much. It didn’t help that by the end I was snarling at him, telling him to get the fuck out of my head. The moon was pulling at me, and my emotions were all over the place. I wanted to curl up away from everyone. I wanted to lash out at all of them. I wanted them to leave me alone. I wanted to make them bleed.
“It’s not his fault,” Kelly muttered. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We know,” Joe told him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “But we can’t take the chance. Not until we can be certain he won’t hurt anyone—”
“Fuck you,” Kelly snapped. He shoved Joe off him. “You didn’t give two shits about him when he was taken, so don’t act like you give a damn about any of this now.”
“Kelly,” Joe said, eyes wide and wounded. “That’s not true. We were…. It was hard. On all of us.”
“Really?” Kelly said. He laughed, and it was such a heartbreakingly hollow thing. “Did you lift a finger to help me?” He looked around wildly. “Did any of you besides Gordo and Ox? Or were you too goddamn busy licking your own wounds to care that he was taken? Because I came to you. I begged you to do everything you could. To call everyone you knew. And do you remember what you told me?”
Joe clenched his jaw.
“You said maybe it was for the best,” Kelly said. “That maybe this was the way things were going to be. That you needed to help Chris and Tanner before you could even consider helping anyone else. I didn’t need my Alpha, I needed my goddamn brother, and you said no.”
“Uh-oh,” Tanner said. He inched toward the door. He didn’t make it very far before Chris grabbed his arm. He looked down at Chris’s hand before lifting his head again. He sighed. “I wish I wasn’t so used to being naked in front of a lot of people like I am now.”
“Thanks for sharing,” Chris muttered. “Now shut up so Kelly can yell at us some more. I think we kind of deserve it.”
“That’s not fair,” Joe said, sounding shocked, as if he’d never heard his brother speak to him this way before. And for all I knew, he hadn’t.
“Isn’t it?” Kelly asked. “Because it sounds to me like you’re making the same mistakes Dad did. Out of sight, out of mind. Isn’t that right, Gordo?”
“Kelly,” Ox said, the warning in his voice clear.
Gordo’s expression shuttered closed. “That’s…. Jesus, Kelly.”
Kelly ground his teeth as he started to pace. “Aileen said we were broken. Divided. That we couldn’t hope to do anything about this unless we fixed what was wrong with us. And you’re all standing there after you’ve put a fucking bandage on a gushing wound and congratulating yourselves because of it. We can’t do this. We can’t keep going on this way.”
Carter tried to reach for his brother, but Kelly glared at him. “Dude, I know you’re upset—and it’s pretty badass, if I’m being honest—and we’ve earned you yelling at us, but I don’t know if it’s fair that you say we didn’t care. We did.” He glanced at me. “I can’t speak for everyone. But I know I did.” He put a hand over his bare chest, right above his heart. “Right here. It hurt right here. And maybe we were confused, and maybe we were scared. I know that’s not an excuse, but there it is.” He shrugged as he dropped his hand. He looked at me again. “I’m sorry, Robbi
e. For everything. I should have done more for you. For him.”
Kelly nodded tightly, still riled up and rigid. “This isn’t working. It’s a half-life. It’s not real. We’re pretending like everything is as it used to be.” His voice broke. “And no matter how much I wish it was, it’s not. This is how we are now. This is our reality. And if we can’t do this together, then we’re going to die alone.”
And with that, he kicked apart the line of silver and crossed over it to me. I tried to protest, but he wouldn’t hear it. He sat down on the cot next to me, glaring defiantly at the pack as if waiting for them to tell him off.
They didn’t.
They just stood there for a long moment.
The timber wolf moved next. He huffed out a breath, sounding annoyed, before he left Carter’s side, walking toward Kelly and me. He stepped gingerly over the silver, snapping at his own back paw when it caught a small part of the powder. He came over to me. He looked me up and down, and I swore he rolled his eyes before he laid his head on my lap, blinking up at me slowly. I hesitated a moment before gingerly patting the top of his head.
“What the fuck,” Carter said faintly.
Elizabeth came next. She had a thin, worn robe wrapped around her shoulders. It was far too big for her, and it dragged on the floor. Ox bent over and lifted it as she crossed the line of silver before letting it fall once she was clear.
She sat down at her son’s feet, leaning against the cot. She looked out at the others, not saying a word. She didn’t need to. Her silence spoke volumes.
Gordo nodded slowly. “I’ll go get blankets.”
