ey both would, because I knew Carter was listening in.
“No,” I said, “I don’t. You kept shit from me. After. You acted like I wasn’t a part of this. A part of you. You made decisions without me.”
“You’d just lost your mother—”
“So you all decided the best thing was for me to lose the rest of you too?” I asked. “Because that’s what happened. I lost my mother. And my Alpha. And then my brothers and my… Joe. That’s what I lost. Because you all decided to—”
“We just wanted to keep you safe,” Kelly said, frustration bleeding through. “I know you don’t like it, but I sure as hell hope you can understand at least that.”
I laughed. “Understand? Sure. Why not. Do you understand why I’m so angry I can barely think straight? Do you understand why just the sight of you makes me happy and sick all at the same time? That I don’t know whether or not to hug you or kick your fucking ass?”
He bowed his head.
“Of course you don’t. Because you chose the path of least resistance. All you could think about, all he could think about, was revenge. Not the consequences of staying here. Of dealing with the grief of losing pack. Of losing your goddamned Alpha. And since the new Alpha made this decision that you all went right along with, we were forced to make good with all we had left. So yes. There is blood here. My blood. And your mother’s. And Mark’s. And every single other person in my pack. Because they bled here. For me. For you. And for him.”
Carter had stopped, hands fisted at his sides, shoulders tensed. Listening.
“We tried,” Kelly said in a broken voice. “We wanted—just. There wasn’t a day that went by, Ox. Okay? That we didn’t think of you. That we didn’t wish we were home with you. And Mom. And Mark. I know you lost your mother, Ox. And we lost our father, but when—we. When we left, it was the hardest thing we ever had to do. You think we didn’t grieve? We did. We grieved for our father. For our Alpha. But it was nothing compared to the grief of leaving you all behind.”
“You should have come home.”
“We should have.”
“You shouldn’t have cut us off.”
Kelly reached up and wiped his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. But I also know why we did. Gordo… he. Uh. He fought against that. Said it was stupid. That you… you wouldn’t understand. But it was different. For us. For the wolves. Because we were all tethered to you then, Ox, okay? And it hurt. It hurt. And we couldn’t do what we needed to do by being tied to you. By seeing your words on his phone. By—”
“Was it worth it?”
He looked out the window at his brother. “Some days, I think it was. Some days I don’t. Most days, I don’t know what to think. Because I don’t know how we fit. You can feel it, can’t you?”
He opened the door and got out.
I watched them both through the window.
Kelly went and stood next to his brother, shoulder to shoulder.
Carter looked tense. They both did.
I thought maybe they could be mistaken for twins now, not just for how they looked, but for the same haunted expressions on their faces. The way they wore their guilt.
It had hurt when they left.
When my mother died. When Thomas died.
But we grieved. For them. For all of them.
And it still hurt. But maybe not as sharply as it had before.
They hadn’t gotten that.
Because they’d been surrounded by it. By Richard Collins, and all that they’d done.
They’d made their choices, yes.
Whether by family or obligation.
And they’d never had a chance to stop. To rest. To mourn everything they’d lost.