to her full height. Her one silver eye blazed white. “Show him who the fuck we are,” she said softer.
The pain was excruciating now, and Wes couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything. “Summer, I’m hurt. Get in the truck and get out of here.”
“Why can I hear you!” Bones screamed, pressing his hands tighter over his ears. “Get out of my head!” He turned a furious glare on Wes and strode for him.
And then there was Wolf. Black as night, fur standing up in a mohawk down her entire back, snarl in her throat as she placed herself between Bones and Wes, blocking his vision of his brother.
Desperately, Wes tried to stand so he could protect her, but his body didn’t work. So much red. He’d painted the road under him. He wasn’t okay. The edge of his vision was collapsing, and he was running out of time. “Summer, run!”
“Show him what you told us,” Wolf murmured. “Show him what Leif did.”
Oh, God, please breathe long enough to do this. Wes closed his eyes and pried open that sizzling, ugly bond to Bones. And he pushed the awful vision into his brother. He pushed the truth into his mind.
Leif’s red wolf was standing over Wes. The sick sound of him ripping into him filled his head, and pain seared through his shoulder. Hunter’s weak voice as he begged for help somewhere in the woods behind Wes. Sam ripping Leif off of Wes and slashing at him with an old pocketknife Dad had given him for his sixteenth birthday. Leif going straight for Sam’s face. Sam’s scream. Wes panting as he tried to get to Sam in time. The fear. The confusion. Why had their friend done this to them? Leif was a wolf? A wolf? Why was he killing them? Wes cradling his dead brother, Sam, in his arms and crying for the first time since he was a kid. The endless black hole of his heart breaking at the loss. The loss of Sam. The loss of his brother.
Wes couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t hold on. “Summer…please run. I need you safe.”
Couldn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Wolf moved to the side just enough for Wes to see him—Sam. Not Bones. Sam. He was on his knees in the middle of the road, eyes wide and rimmed with moisture, lips parted in shock, fists clenched on his knees. He looked like him, just scarred to hell.
His voice was full of horror and anger when he whispered, “You’ve ruined everything.”
And then the world went dark.
Chapter Nine
This wasn’t what she’d wanted.
For the tenth time, Summer glanced at the blood-soaked rags overflowing the small motel trashcan. She couldn’t stop looking, and every time she looked at the blood—Wes’s blood—it pierced her heart deeper.
She’d come here bitter, unafraid of him getting hurt by Sam or Leif, snowballing down a dark path her therapist hadn’t even been able to stop. And now that she was here, now that she’d seen him at war with Sam, now that she’d seen him hurt, she felt like her heart was breaking all over again.
The chair she sat in creaked as she leaned forward to pull the corner of the sheets over Wes’s leg. She’d done all she could to put humpty dumpty back together again, and now it was up to Wes and his wolf to dig him out of the unconscious state he’d been in for the last twelve hours.
Every time she’d changed the bandages on his arm, his shoulder, his ribs, his thigh, his neck… he’d healed so fast. Now his injuries were angry-looking scars. Scars given to him by his brother, and Sam would bear the same.
This wasn’t what she’d wanted.
Wes was lying on his side, his chin-length hair fallen forward over his face. When she smoothed it out of the way, he didn’t even flinch, just kept on with the slow, deep breaths that had become the soundtrack to her peace in this old hotel room.
He’d scared her with how hurt he’d been. Scared her so bad she was shaken to her core and changed from the inside out.
She’d loved him infinitely before their worlds had been demolished and, now that she’d almost lost him, she realized she loved him deeply still.
Her world wouldn’t mean much if he didn’t exist.
Beautiful, broken boy. Begging her to run while he was dying. Trying to save her with those visions he put in Sam’s head. Using his last scraps of energy to make her safe.
Beautiful, beautiful, broken boy.
Wolf sat