He looked pained at that. “Ox, I—”
I didn’t want to hear it. I was done with apologies. They didn’t help us, not anymore. “We’re good, Joe.”
“Are we?”
“We’re getting there,” I amended, because it was closer to the truth.
“Which is why it’s up to me to fix it,” he said. “It’s not you, Ox. Why you can’t feel them. Not yet. It’s me. I divided us. And I’m trying to fix it.”
“How?”
He grinned. “Communing with nature, of course.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said, thinking about my father.
He said, “Hey, Ox. That’s okay. I get it enough for the both of us. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix everything. You trust me, right?”
Most might not have heard the doubt in his voice, the little sliver that pushed its way in at the end. But I’d known him since he was ten years old. We were just Ox and Joe and I knew him, probably better than anyone else. Even if he wasn’t the boy who’d left that day years ago.
There really was only one answer to his question.
So I said, “Yeah, Joe. I guess I do.”
SOMETIMES WHEN I couldn’t sleep, even with Joe beside me, I’d walk out into the trees. Gordo didn’t like that I did that, but I’d told him I wasn’t worried, because I had faith in his wards, that I had faith in him.
He’d said he would deny till his dying day if I told anyone that he got choked up over that.
On nights like that, I’d put on some shorts and one of Joe’s shirts. I’d kiss him on the forehead as he slept on. I’d head outside into the dark, the air cool on my skin.
And I’d just walk.
It usually took less than an hour before a white wolf would catch up to me, padding along beside me, brushing up against me. We didn’t speak much, but he was always there until we crawled back up into bed. Sometimes, he’d shift back. Other times, he’d stay as a wolf and we’d lie on the floor since the bed was too small. I’d take the blankets down and he’d curl up next to me, his gigantic head on my chest, rising and falling with every breath I took, red eyes watching me until I drifted off back to sleep.
NOTHING CAME for us in that first month.
Or the second.
There were rumors. Whispers.
“They tracked him north,” Michelle Hughes told us over Skype, “toward Canada.”
I frowned at the screen. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would he be heading away from us?”
“He’s not,” Joe said, a faraway look in his eyes.
“No,” Michelle said. “I don’t think he is.”
“A distraction,” I said.
“Misdirection, more like,” Michelle said. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but it’s not anything good. My teams went north, but the trail just… ended. One moment they thought they were close, and the next there was nothing there.”
“How can he do that?” I asked. “Can you fake a specific wolf’s scent?”
“Magic,” Joe said.
“Robert Livingstone,” Michelle agreed. “Most likely. Joe, are you sure we can’t come to—”
“We’ve already talked about this,” Joe said, eyes flashing crimson.