We didn’t move until we could no longer hear it.
Gavin rose above me, ears twitching. He was careful as he stepped off me, going toward the window, staring out into the forest.
“We can’t stay here,” I told him quietly.
He didn’t look at me.
I didn’t sleep much that night.
not fair/thump thump thump
Kelly said, “You have to make a choice.”
I pushed a branch out of my way. The snow crunched under my feet. The air was startlingly cold, and Kelly’s hoodie didn’t do much to keep the chill away. I had a coat, but I’d left it in the truck. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and everything was blue. The morning sun felt like a lie as I shivered, my breath trailing behind me in a stream.
Kelly said, “He’s not going to let you stay.”
“I know,” I muttered. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face.
Kelly said, “Then what are you going to do? I don’t get it, Carter. You tried. You really did. You made your case. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want to go with you. Leave before Livingstone kills you. Just leave them both and come home.”
I stopped and closed my eyes.
I felt him watching me. Even though he wasn’t real, even though I couldn’t hear his heartbeat, his gaze was boring into my back.
“Joe,” I said.
“What about him?” He sounded irritable, like he was done with my shit. This Not-Kelly was just a figment of my fevered imagination, but he felt like a truth I wasn’t ready to face.
“He told me that pack is everything. But then he looked at me with this weird expression on his face. He was… ten? It was after he’d shifted for the first time. That fire was back. I could see it in his eyes. He said that he didn’t agree with some of the things Dad told him.”
“Like….”
“The need of the pack outweighs the need of everyone else. He didn’t like that. He said that if a member of his pack was in danger and he had to choose between them and the rest of the pack, he knew what he’d do.”
“What?”
I held a branch out of the way for him. “He would do everything he could to save everyone. That no one would be left behind, no matter what.”
“That’s not—”
“Gavin is a member of our pack.”
Kelly hung his head, looking down at his boots. “Shit.”
“I’m not an Alpha,” I told my brother, needing him to understand. “But I have to do everything I can to—”
“Because he’s your mate.”
I winced. I wasn’t ready for that. It was locked away in a box wrapped in chains in the back of my mind. It was dangerous. “I would do the same for anyone.”
“Except Robbie.” And there it was. Faint, but on the tip of my tongue. The anger. He was a ghost, but I could taste it. “Robbie was a member of our pack, and you didn’t do shit to help me find him.”
“I know,” I whispered, and a bird took flight, its belly red against the blue sky. “And I’ll never forgive myself for that. I should have done more.”
Kelly waved me away. “It doesn’t matter. Robbie is… he’s safe now.”
“Because you never gave up on him.”