“Except Dad’s been punishing me for years. Telling the city to deny me the permits to open The Spoke. Refusing to come to the restaurant even after it opened. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised you went to such lengths to keep me and Lacey apart, or that you’re clearly not supporting us now.”
She didn’t try to deny it.
“It’s not that I dislike Lacey. It’s that I’m not convinced either of you is good for the other.”
I barked out a laugh. “Wow. Got it.”
“You have to realize what an impossible situation Ben and I were in. You were seventeen. Lacey was a child. Underage. What happened that night was a terrible accident. But she had been changed in our territory. At your hand. And we were therefore responsible for ensuring she was safe.”
I ground my teeth until I was pretty sure I heard a molar crack. That night in the barn came rushing back. Dad looming over me, the belt whistling in his hand. Splinters in my cheek from the barn floor. Moths swarming the light high up in the rafters as my vision swam in and out. The sharp metallic taste of blood—
“And so you sent me away.” The wind gusted. Sharp blades of silver-tipped grass swirled in the moonlight. “Do you have any idea what that was like, being exiled from everything I’d ever known?”
For an endless moment, no one in the clearing breathed. My mother took a cautious step towards me, like I was a rabid animal. Right now, that didn’t feel far from the truth.
“We never meant to hurt you. Either of you. It’s common for sires to develop a strong bond with the wolves they change, a bond that often turns sexual. Ben and I couldn’t be sure what either of you were telling us was the truth, or just the bond’s influence. Lacey was my responsibility until I could safely return her to her mother, delivered out of her transition and no longer a danger to humans. It wasn’t until much, much later that I realized how deeply she cared for you, that you loved her in return, and I came to regret keeping you apart for so long.”
“I never would have forced her—”
“You can’t know that. I’m not saying you ever would have willingly, just that… you two were very young, the connection between you was intense, and I couldn’t allow Lacey to be put in a position where she would be made further vulnerable after everything that had already happened to her.” She paused, and I could feel her weighing her words. “I understand you’re angry with me, that you’ve been angry for a very long time, but look at it from an outsider’s perspective. What happened that night was a freak accident, so far outside what should have been possible none of us could have predicted it. It had to be due to your age, a spike in hormones that boosted your viral load enough to cause infection outside the normal transmission window. But regardless, you changed Lacey. No matter how much it killed us to send you away, in the immediate aftermath, we had to focus on her.”
I stared up at the night sky. It was a truth I’d accepted from the moment I’d seen my dad’s eyes that night in the barn, the shame there a knife to the gut every time I’d called home only to be told I’d be in Calgary another six months, then a year. Until I’d finally stopped asking entirely.
A decade later and I was finally coming to understand that it was never going to matter how sorry I was. It would never matter how much I punished myself or how many times I apologized. All the hours I volunteered out in the community and donations I made to the pack might as well have been for naught. In Ben Caldwell’s eyes, I would always be ruined.
My heartrate picked up, my hands shaking at my sides, something my mother had said just now clicking in my head.
I’m not convinced either of you is good for the other.
Not was. Is.
Fuck, I needed a drink.
“You’re like me,” my mother said quietly. “You always have been. A fighter. When you get kicked in the teeth, you claw your way back up. You built The Spoke. It’s in your blood. Your sweat. I didn’t step in when you got home because I knew you needed to earn your way back. You put your life back together. No one shares the credit for that. Not me. Not your father. Only you.”
But I didn’t hear anything she said. Something cold had settled in my chest. “I need to ask you about something that feels… off, but I can’t put my finger on what. Lacey’s blood tests came back negative for any pathogens. And now it’s like the Council just wants to drop the whole thing. I can’t get anyone on the phone. They won’t send anyone out to investigate.”
“They’re overwhelmed right now. The bombing. The video getting out—”
“Sure, but if the vampires are developing some sort of bioweapon that can stop us from shifting, imagine if they could aerosolize that and deploy it during a major battle, or somehow get it into the water supply. They could wipe out entire packs, one territory at a time.”
“Right now all the Council has is one person’s word, a civilian’s at that, and a blood test that came back negative for everything they tried to test for.” When I started to protest, she held up a hand. “I believe you. Both of you. But if you want the Council to listen, you and Lacey are going to have to do the legwork, get evidence to back up this theory of yours.” She began working her way up the craggy rock face. “One last thing. Many see your uncle’s methods as uncompromising. They judge what River and the Tracers have to do as unforgivable. But none of us wants to see the Blood Wars restarted. So many lives lost, and countless more if the Nationwide Database Act is passed.”
“You really think it will come to that?”
“August told you he thinks we have a mole?”
I nodded.
Her eyes grew hard. “Trust no one.”
8
Lacey
BEFORE I KNEW IT, WE WERE HALFWAY THROUGH DECEMBER. Christmas music played non-stop on the radio. Every store I entered had decided to stack baskets of cinnamon pinecones at its entrance, which due to my still malfunctioning wolf senses made me want to run back out onto the street and gag. In between hot-gluing Major’s antlers for the pet costume contest on the last night of the Yule Festival (which Brody insisted he wasn’t entering) and baking seasonal-themed cupcakes to sell while dressed up as a five foot nine holiday elf (I so rocked the ears), I’d been making contact with other packs, seeking out information on the mysterious weapon the vampires had used against me. My only problem?
That would be the sudden and conspicuous absence of my best friend. Oh, he was there on paper. Half a pound of chicken with all my favorite sides showed up at noon on the dot on Mondays. His Tuesday offering, a deluxe brisket platter, caused half the people in line for sandwiches at Blair’s to shoot guilty looks at the door before sneaking across the street to The Spoke. After that we had words, but on Wednesday, an order of ribs still showed up, along with the daily special, Mac and Bleu, just the way I liked it.
I rearranged The Spoke’s reindeer this year so they were eating giant tinfoil pies. He stole the snowman off the front stoop of Blair’s, dressed it up in one of the signature t-shirts from his gift shop, and parked it in the front lobby. And every night he wasn’t on pit duty, he disappeared. I knew he was following up on leads, too, which so far hadn’t panned out. But it was impossible to dismiss the feeling that ever since Thanksgiving, we’d been slowly drifting apart.