I heard my father move.
Mark said, “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”
Dad said, “When you were little, I used to carry you on my shoulders. Do you remember?”
“No.”
“Lie. You would put your hands in my hair and tug until it hurt, but I never stopped you.”
“Get off me, get off me, get off—”
“I never wanted this to happen,” my father whispered, voice muffled. “Any of this. I wasn’t ready. For all that it would entail. Being an Alpha, it’s….”
“Hard,” Mark said begrudgingly.
“Yeah. It is. And I’m not a very good one. It should have been you.”
Mark sounded like he was choking. “Stop. Please. Stop.”
“I know you hate me,” Dad said. “And you have every right. But I did what I thought was good for all of us. I thought Gordo would—”
“Don’t. You don’t get to say his name.”
“I thought he would be better off without us. That he would get to live a life free of—”
“You abandoned him!” Mark cried. “You didn’t give him a choice! Get the fuck off me, you bastard. How dare you. I know what you did. I know you thought Livingstone did something to him, I know you thought it was in his tattoos, so don’t you dare try and spin this away.”
“How did you—did Lizzie say something to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mark retorted. “This isn’t about her or anyone else. This is about you. This is all on you. You always say we’re pack, but I don’t think you have a goddamn clue what that actually means. Fuck you. Fuck the Alpha of all.” He sucked in a sharp breath. Then, “Maybe it’s time for the reign of the Bennetts to end.”
“You can’t mean that—”
“I do. I mean every word. Let Michelle stay in charge. Let Osmond be her lapdog. You say you want to put Joe and Kelly and Carter first, then this is how you do it. Joe’s broken, Thomas. He’s broken. And believe me, I know what that feels like. You didn’t lift a fucking finger to help me. Don’t do the same to him.”
Mark stormed out of the office. His footsteps were loud as he stalked down the steps. He didn’t even notice me as he left the house, slamming the front door behind him.
Above me, my father stood still.
And all I felt from him was blue.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
Mom was setting up her studio.
Dad was putting books on the shelves.
Mark was upstairs, locked in his room.
Kelly and I were on the porch, his feet in my lap. He was reading. I closed my eyes, taking in the scents and sounds of the old-growth forest around us. In the driveway in front of us were three cars. Two trucks. An SUV. Two thirty-foot moving trucks. We were supposed to be moving more stuff in, but there was plenty of time for that later.
And then a voice came, one I hadn’t heard in a very long time.
He said, “Do you have your own room?”
My chest hitched.
Kelly sat up, eyes wet. “Is that—”