Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,67

neck, pressing my face against his stomach. I clutched at his hips, breathing heavily. “Yeah, yeah. Good to see you too. We’re going to have a long talk. You’re up to your neck in shit, man.” He stepped away, wiping his eyes. “Fucking werewolves. You self-sacrificing assholes.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Joe. Outside.”

And then he exited the cabin without looking back.

Joe hesitated before looking to Kelly, who stood at the window looking out. “Won’t be long.”

“It’s fine,” Kelly said stiffly. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Let them know.”

I thought Joe was going to argue, but he didn’t. He said, “Go easy, all right? We don’t…. Just go easy.”

Kelly didn’t speak.

Joe kissed my forehead. “We’re gonna have so many words,” he said. “You have no idea the hurt you’re in for. And you’re gonna take it with a smile on your face.” He followed Gordo out of the cabin, closing the door behind him.

Silence fell.

I looked to Kelly.

His back was to me.

I wanted to go to him.

I didn’t move.

He said, “You found him,” and it was tight, the words strained. “Gavin.”

“He’s… yeah. I did.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. With Livingstone the last time I saw him. I barely got away.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Carter.”

I looked down at my lap. I could feel him. His anger. His hurt. It was bright and harsh, but it was real, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Not-Kelly had been a void. A black hole sucking in light. This Kelly, the real one, felt like a galaxy of stars.

“Did he hurt you?”

I winced. “Gavin didn’t. It was Livingstone.”

“What did he do?”

I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to keep it locked away. I said, “He broke my back.”

Kelly made a wounded noise, leaning forward, pressing his forehead against the frosted glass. “Jesus Christ.”

“I healed.”

“You healed,” he spat. “Oh, thank god for that.”

“I had to, Kelly. I had to help him. I don’t know what Livingstone was doing, but he was hurting Gavin. It was like he was feeding off him somehow.”

“How long have you been here?”

I didn’t know. “What day is it?”

Kelly said, “Thursday.”

“The date.”

I could hear him grinding his teeth. “December 9.”

Fuck. I didn’t know so much time had passed. “A few weeks, then.”

He smelled like he was burning. “And you didn’t think to get a hold of us? To let us know you’d found him? To even give us some idea you were still alive?”

“Phone broke.”

“Oh,” he said, and it was mocking. “Burner, right? Because you left your other phone in your room. Wanna know how I know that? Because I called it. After watching your fucking video, after screaming for you outside the house, I called it. I should have known. I really should have. It would have been too easy to track you otherwise. But when I heard it ringing from in the house, I almost let myself believe you were still there. That even though I couldn’t hear you, you were in the house and you were going to pick up the phone.”

“I….”

“But you didn’t,” he said. “Because you were already gone. Like we hadn’t just spent a year trying to get Robbie back. Like you hadn’t witnessed just how much that destroyed me. No. Of course not. Because you got it in your head that you needed to go chasing after Gavin like he was the only thing that mattered.”

“I didn’t—”

He spun around. His eyes were orange. The thread between us, familiar and foreign all at the same time, thrummed as if plucked. “You want me to yell at you? You want me to scream at you? Fine. You asked for it. How could you? After everything we’ve been through, after everything that has been taken away from us, how the fuck could you?” He stalked over to me. I reached for him, but he knocked my hands away. His voice rose. “I asked you to trust me. I begged you to listen to me. That we would do all that we could to find him. That I wouldn’t let this go. I wouldn’t let him go. I told you to hold on to me as tightly as you could. And you walked away like it was nothing.”

“No. No, it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like that—”

“You didn’t trust me enough,” he said coldly. “You didn’t believe me when I said I’d do anything to help you.”

“You don’t understand.”

He laughed bitterly. “I don’t understand? That’s what you’re going with? Fuck you, Carter. I understood