Fatal Justice

† Chapter Twenty-Eight †

That's the thing about pain, it breaks you. 

He stayed silent. 

Because somehow, he already understood what Fox would say next. He knew exactly what had happened based on the raw grief that flickered across Fox's face. His silence seemed to give Fox the courage to continue. Or perhaps it was what Fox had said before--that someone cared. 

"I met my mate when I was eighteen," Fox said quietly, as if he was afraid the world would hear, "But I wasn't ready. I was a violent man, I ran with a bunch of warriors who took advantage of their power, and we did a lot of wrong things because nobody could touch us. We even went against our Alpha a few times. I still remember how I got each scar," Fox's fingers twitched, almost in the memory of those dark times, "She was innocent and she hadn't done a single thing bad, it felt like the Moon Goddess was mocking me by giving me a mate like her. But, the mate bond induced these feelings... and I found myself unworthy of her. I feared her judgment of me. I feared she would reject me and I had blown my only chance at happiness by choosing violence for the majority of my life..." 

Fox trailed off, eyes watching the flames dance their destructive path, "I pushed her away in fear of myself, of what I brought with me from the past, and I didn't want her to get hurt. But this woman," He briefly closed his eyes in soft memory, "She had the biggest heart. She didn't give up on me, no matter how far I tried to run, and she found her way to me. I ended up falling in love harder than I ever respected by the time I turned nineteen." 

He flinched a little, remembering the time he was nineteen, and the hell that had ensued, but he continued to listen without speaking a single word as Fox told his story. 

"A few years after that, we had a pup together. My firstborn son," Fox exhaled, looking down at his clenched hands, "The warriors I had called brothers showed up on my doorstep one day, they were pretty pissed I had chosen to settle down. I remember one of the other warriors had rejected his mate so he could stay in the group, it was a cult type of thing, I don't really know, but I turned them all away," Fox inhaled, "I told them to never come back because I didn't need them anymore. It was the stupidest fucking thing I ever said, I made a horrible mistake that day, and they went away with rage in their eyes." 

"I should have realized they would come back," Fox's eyes met his across the fire, hardened anger and hatred reflected in those pained eyes, "I knew those damned mutts, I knew they always got revenge when they felt wronged, I had run with them for years and I still made the worst mistake of my life. They gave me three days, I thought I would live happily ever after, you know? Meet your mate and life is good, right?" 

"They came back in the dead of night, my son's scream was the first thing I heard as they snatched him from his crib," Fox grew haunted with the horrific memory, skin paling as if he was reliving the moment, "I didn't stand a chance when they came for my mate. There were too many and they dragged us out into the yard. After they... raped my mate before my very eyes... they tore them apart." Fox's breath stuttered, growing uneven with each heave of his chest, "Right before my eyes, those fucking monsters made me watch as they murdered my family, limb for limb. I can't..." 

Fox tried to compose himself but his voice with thick with agonizing pain, "I can't remember what happened after that. I blacked out from blood loss and the feeling of the mate bond being torn from my body... I-I can't explain the pain... but I think my wolf took control because when I came back to, every single one of those monsters was headless and limbless. It was a bloodbath and I didn't stick around to explain to my pack that I was a monster, I couldn't even look at the mutilated bodies of my family, so I took off and never looked back." 

"I've been out here for a few months, running. Starving. I didn't want to live but suicide seemed too easy because I deserved to fucking suffer. So, I was waiting for the loss of my mate to kill me, slowly and painfully. It was what I deserved, the whole thing was my fucking fault because I made a horrible mistake. I had gotten the only people I loved murdered and then I became the monster by murdering them, too," Fox trailed off, his throat was slowly closing up, "Everything is my fault and now they're dead. They didn't deserve any of it. My pup was only four months old..." 

Even he knew that remembering the past brought pain and he watched with a pinched heart as Fox struggled to breathe. He saw the glisten of tears on Fox's cheeks right before Fox buried his head in his hands. Fox clenched his fists in his hair, a broken, strained sob breaking the silence that had engulfed them. They were both broken men, lost in the wilderness. 

Without a thought, he moved across the fire and then he quietly sat down next to Fox. It was awkward, he was rubbing his sweaty palms together unconsciously, but it felt like the right thing to do. He had never received comfort and he had no idea how to express it, so he let his presence speak for itself; and hopefully, Fox wouldn't feel so alone anymore. 

There was an unspoken understanding between them. 

Fox took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself, but the tears never stopped. All the unspoken agony that he had bottled inside was finally too much to handle. The pain of his past had caught up, no matter how far he had run because he couldn't forget those memories that haunted him. Fox had finally broken but he didn't have to pick up the pieces alone this time, he had found someone that cared; and now they had each other. 

While Fox struggled to control himself, he sat there as an understanding presence. He knew it wasn't an easy process to revisit the past but he knew exactly what Fox felt. They both knew the pain of losing their mate. However, he couldn't imagine what it was like to lose a child. An innocent child that had gotten caught in the web of revenge. 

Eventually, Fox settled into an exhaustive state. Every emotion had taken its toll until Fox was numb and he laid back and threw an arm over his eyes. There were no words spoken, there wasn't anything else that needed to be said. Only a few moments had passed before Fox fell asleep and he stayed where he was, unmoving as he felt the body heat radiating from Fox. 

He had decided that this was a form of trust between them. They hadn't crossed each other's boundaries until now and he found himself contemplating the future, for both of them. They shared pain and suffering, and somehow that strengthened the beginning of their brotherhood as their walls crumbled beneath the dark of night. 

He kept watch all night while Fox slept. 

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Damn, I forgot how heartbreaking Fox's story was. This had me choked up. 

 Oh, and by the way, we don't do toxic masculinity here. Men can cry, too, and it's okay. It doesn't make them less of a man, emotion makes them human, and I fully support it. So if you hate on my babies here, I will attack you. Aggressively.