us moved the body into the fridge. He was moving slower than I was, and I had to match his pace, but other than that, there wasn’t much sign he’d taken that bullet not long before.
“I’ve got my pack on the way,” he told me as the two of us headed back out into the sunshine. “Blake won’t have to shoulder a patrol for long.”
“No,” I said slowly, “but he’ll have to come here, won’t he?”
“Why?” Clearborn fixed me with a skeptical look.
“Well, he’s a shifter now.” And I’d barely talked about that with him. I owed him a long conversation, and I had no idea where to start.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it.
“You came here as part of a deal,” Clearborn reminded me. “Your brother didn’t make a deal. He didn’t get a choice.”
Clearborn’s harsh tone shocked me, even though it was true.
“I don’t know how to talk to him about it. How to begin to say I’m sorry.” That wasn’t true. I knew how to say sorry; the problem was that sometimes, sorry doesn’t matter.
I hesitated, pushing my hands in my pocket as I glanced away. I should shut up; Clearborn didn’t want to hear me whining.
“You know, none of the rest of us got a choice about being wolves,” Clearborn said, and his kind tone surprised me. “And we don’t resent being wolves.”
“But for all of you, there was never any other option,” I said bitterly.
“All of us experience things where we didn’t get a choice,” Clearborn said. “Life changes swiftly and irreversibly and we have no choice but to adapt.”
“Some of the packs seem to like being wolves a bit too much,” I said, since they’d aligned with the witches to keep their wolves while the rest of us suffered.
“Maybe,” Clearborn agreed. “Is Blake mad at you? Because he didn’t get a choice?”
“I haven’t even gotten the chance to talk to him yet, really. We were just worried about Skyla, and then….” I gestured vaguely at the disaster around us.
But I kept thinking about my own change, how terrified I’d been when I lay down in one of Dean McCauley’s guest rooms to be sedated. I didn’t remember anything else from that day, until I’d surfaced from a wolfish rage, trapped in the dean’s trashed garage. Maybe it was better that way.
“It didn’t feel like much of a choice for me. I couldn’t think of any other way to protect my little sister and brother.” My voice came out bitter. I hadn’t protected them. If I’d let Jen give up on all three of us and they’d gone into foster care, they would have been safe from Kit—from Alice Munroe—and the wolves that aligned with the Coven of the Day. Trying so hard to save my siblings had doomed them to the same life I took to save them.
“Maybe you should discuss how they feel before you decide to pickle yourself in guilt,” Clearborn said.
“Blake’s always pissed at me anyway,” I said. Nothing I did was good enough for my brother, who was always yelling at me because I wasn’t home all the time, because I wasn’t a good enough brother, because I wasn’t Mom.
“Maybe he’s not angry at you. Maybe he’s just angry, and you’re the one person he knows isn’t going anywhere,” Clearborn said. He clapped my shoulder and said, “Call me if you run into anything strange on your patrol. Anything.”
Then he was gone, moving to strategize with a few of the guards who were still there, who he trusted. Although I personally didn’t trust anyone that wasn’t on my team at the moment.
I kept thinking about what he’d said, though, as I headed to the infirmary to check on Blake and Skyla.
The empty academic building always felt haunted. Maddie insisted that it was, and it drove her a little nuts that I couldn’t believe in ghosts even though I’d come to very much believe in werewolves.
When I walked into the infirmary, Skyla was sitting up in bed playing Go Fish with Blake, who had the weary look on his face that card or board games always inspired. When he played Monopoly, he looked as if he might just collapse into a coma and that would be merciful for him. My little brother was a killjoy.
Skyla looked pink-cheeked and happy, despite the fact she was wearing a t-shirt five sizes too big for her and her brown hair looked stringy. It made my heart swell with relief. I’d always