“Seriously,” Kelly said with a frown. “I thought there’d be a lot more posturing.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what that is.”
“He means he thought we’d actually have to drag your ass,” Carter said.
“Oh. So. You were going to kidnap me—”
“Not kidnap. You can’t kidnap someone your size, what the fuck—”
“—kidnap me, and what? Sit here and stare?” I shook my head. “Jesus, how the hell did you guys survive this long on your own?”
They glared at me.
I glared right back and felt something settle in my chest. Like a crack filled.
I gave them an out. “Right. So. I have work to do. If we could get this started? So it’ll be finished.”
“You’re not going back to work,” Kelly said. “Not today.”
“Gordo’s already there,” Carter said, turning back around and pulling away from the curb. “Decided now would be a good time to get back to the shop. Lucky us, because now we have all the time in the world.”
“Did he?” I asked, unsure whether to be amused or irritated. A little of both seemed right. “Seemed he forgot to mention that to me.” Probably for good reason too. While we were on the mend, I don’t know if I’d have agreed to this had I known ahead of time. And I think everyone knew that. I was a stubborn ass when I needed to be.
“Well, the shop is called Gordo’s,” Carter said. “I’m sure he didn’t think he had to.”
“He’ll probably need to relearn a few things,” I said. “Three years is a long time to be away.”
They both winced at that.
“He’s been doing it for years,” Carter muttered.
“It’s not like he would have forgotten,” Kelly mumbled. “It wasn’t that lo—”
“Don’t,” I said, my voice deeper than it normally was. “Don’t you dare say it wasn’t that long. You have no idea what it was like here. So don’t you say that.”
The rest of the trip was silent.
I WAS surprised when the SUV stopped and I found we were out by the old covered bridge. It was in the middle of the day on a weekday, so we were alone. Carter got out first, slamming the door behind him. We watched as he paced in front of the SUV, glaring at the bridge. He was growling, something I could hear even though the windows weren’t rolled down.
“We can smell them,” Kelly said. The Omegas.
“There was a lot of blood.”
Kelly watched his brother. “Mark told us. Not everything. Some parts. Said the rest needed to come from you. Joe wasn’t too happy about that.”
I snorted. “I don’t expect he was.”
“It was hard for him. For all of us.”
“Just as hard for us who were left behind.”
“We didn’t want to leave.”
“You did.”
“Joe… no. That’s not fair. We all made the same choice. He didn’t make us.” Kelly sighed. “I can smell your blood too. Here. And my mother’s.”
“It happens when you’re fighting against fang and claw.”
“Do you understand?”
“What?” I asked, watching Carter as he stalked the area where we’d fought, stopping every now and then to glare at the dirt.
“Why we made the choices we made.”
I could lie, but he would know. They 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.
It hurt my heart.