“I know you will.”
So many things to say. I was getting desperate. “You need to have faith in me.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I always do.”
I thought the leather was going to crack under my hands. “Just… don’t. Tell him you’ve got a business trip. Tell him you’re going on vacation. Don’t—just don’t act like a goddamn martyr. That’s not how this works.”
“Because that’s your job?”
All these words. It was getting dangerously close to sounding like the truth. Something he and I hadn’t had in a long time. “Yeah. Right. Because that’s my job. Don’t take it from me.”
“Listen, Gordo, it’s not—”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going to hear this. Not from you. You stow that shit right now, you get me? You want to break things off with him? Fine. That’s your choice. But you better not start that whole goodbye bullshit with anyone else. Especially not me.”
“Pappas—”
“Isn’t you!” I cried. I didn’t know if I was angry or scared or somewhere in between. I wanted to punch him in the mouth. I wanted to take him away from all of this. To force him in the truck and just drive until none of this mattered. Where we were nobody and nothing could ever hurt us. No pack. Nothing. Just him and me. “He’s not you. He doesn’t have what you have. He doesn’t have—”
I choked.
Me.
He doesn’t have me.
He reached out and put a hand over mine. My head was pounding. The bonds were twisting in my chest. There was blue, so much goddamn blue that I thought I was drowning in it. It pulsed along the threads, echoes of pain tinged with fear and anger. It wasn’t just coming from him. It was coming from all of them. I felt Kelly’s worry, Carter’s fury. There was Robbie, little bursts of red and lapis. Joe and Ox trying to remain calm for us, for each other, but it was interwoven with a dread that was almost cobalt. Elizabeth was singing somewhere, and it was all blue. Everything we had was blue.
The bonds were aching.
And Mark. Always Mark.
He said, “Maybe it will hit me. Maybe a day from now it’ll crash down upon me and I’ll crack right down the middle. Or maybe it won’t happen until I feel that first little tendril in my head. That pull toward the wolf that I won’t be able to stop. But for now, I’m going to do what I have to. And maybe it’s for the best. Maybe this is what was supposed to happen. He’s not like us. He’s not part of this. I don’t think he was ever supposed to be. I never felt like that with him. Not like I felt with—” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m not scared of much, Gordo. I’m not. I’m a wolf. I have a strong pack. But I never worried about losing him. It was… a distraction, I think. Something I didn’t even know I needed. There are more important things now. Things we have to do. Things I have to do. To make things right.” He squeezed my hand until my bones creaked. I didn’t want him to let go. I hated the way he felt in my head, the whisper of gordo gordo gordo like a heartbeat that would never stop. “I’m not scared of much. But I think I’m scared of this. What it could mean. What I could become. Who I could forget.”
I hung my head, trying to breathe through the ache in my chest.
He cleared his throat. “I know you’ll do what you can. And I’ll help you for as long as I’m able. But if something happens to me, if I’m—”
“Don’t,” I said hoarsely. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m scared,” he repeated. “Because even when all felt lost, even when our pack split and broke again and again and again, I always had my tether. Even when he didn’t want me back. And now that’s being taken away from me.”
He pulled away.
We breathed in and out.
I tried to find a single word to say.
There were too many. I could say none of them.
He rapped his knuckles against the door. “Okay,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all. I just—get some sleep, Gordo. We need you at your best.”
And then he was gone.
Eventually, as the sun peeked over the horizon, I turned the truck over and headed for home.
nevermore/can’t fight this
I DREAMED of ravens and wolves.