We Walk As Wolves

Chapter 34

Redd

Dells's violent scream clouded Redd's head. Pieces of the island's shattered heart ripped open her veins. It sat heavy on her chest, spun in her mind until everything warped into blurs and the only clear thing was Wilder. Sitting in the center of it all. Wilder was clear.

Even though his dagger was deep in Dells's chest. Even though Poe and Cass were screaming beside her. Even though Dells's life was spilling out all over his lap.

Again. Again. How had she not seen it before?

He was so clear she ached.

Redd wanted to drive a dagger into her own traitorous heart.

"The island's love for you is strong," Wilder was telling Dells. "And love is a selfish thing. Do you want to know the worst part about it all? Because the island loves you, it doesn't want you to leave. It's going to try to keep you alive as long as it possibly can."

Dells struggled under his hold. He didn't get more than one kick in before he whimpered and coughed up red. Cass's body jolted with every splatter of blood.

"There it is," Wilder crooned as the first tear slid down Dells's cheek. "Make no mistake, little brother. No matter how many decades you waste training to become that perfect solider," his fingers folded around the rabbit's foot hanging from Dells's neck; with a quick pop, the little bones shattered beneath his touch, "no matter how hard you try to redeem yourself, you will always be that same little boy terrified of his own shadow."

With a slight toss of his wrist, Wilder shoved Dells away. Dells struggled to keep his feet beneath him, then slipped in his own blood, his wrist bending in all the wrong ways as he landed.

Red saw Cass run to him, but it was distant - like she was watching something that had already happened.

Something else crawled through her head instead, something that made her heart slow and then speed ahead until it fell into step with the island's once again. She turned her eyes to Wilder, only to find that he was already looking.

The moment their eyes met, she stilled.

She knew why he was different.

Why he was the only clear thing on the vast battlefield. It wasn't because of the love they had for each other. The hate. One look at his face told her he knew it too. A chill ran through her, her bones ached with it.

The knot of fate binding shut.

"Go," she told Cass and Poe. It kissed the air as a whisper, barely there. "Get Dells to the ocean."

She didn't know if they'd left. Didn't know if they'd heard her or not. Didn't know if the ocean would even do its job. Wilder stared at her like she'd just plunged one of her arrows through his heart. Her bow felt heavy against her back, dragging her shoulders to the floor.

Dells drooled out a laugh as Cass and Poe hauled him to his feet, teeth so stained Redd wasn't sure it would ever come out. "Don't think you're safe because she loves you." He choked, spit out something that landed near Wilder's boots. "Love is a selfish thing."

Wilder's eyes never strayed from Redd's face as the boys dragged Dells away, like watching her would convince time it needed to stop. Just for a moment. Like it would change what the world had set in stone for them decades ago. Eras.

You remember the story I told you? Don't you?

"The story," she started.

I found you unconscious in the woods.

"My story."

I couldn't leave you there.

It took her a moment to finish the haunting question, took her a moment to understand that with just a simple answer, he'd be a different person. Not the one who traced his fingers over her scars like they were diamonds and kissed her under the sky he'd made. Not the one who whispered his mother's name in fevered nightmares. The one everyone else knew. The one she'd been blind to.

The monster, the murderer, the wolf.

The one who lied and killed because it was an easy way to stay on top. "Was it true? Any of it?"

Please, something in her begged. Something pathetic. Please, show me you're not what they say.

He never looked away. "No."

She watched his mouth as her world crumbled around her. Watched, and then wondered how something so beautiful could spit out so much damage. From his lips, she'd learned that the darkest parts of the night had a flavor. As did the moon, and lies, and stars.

It had all been a lie.

The bow slid from her back, down to her hand. Numb. He just stared, pain slipping through his eyes as she loaded an arrow. She asked the question, the one that had been haunting her like a tortured ghost, ever since her meeting with Dells. "Am I real, Wilder?"

He was silent. Then, with a shake of his head, the words ripped from his throat in a low rasp. "I don't know."

She took a step closer, tried to shove the arrow in his face. It wobbled in her hand like a broken neck. "Am I real?"

He lurched up from his knees at her desperate cry, grabbing the arrow's shaft with his palm. With a soft snap, he broke it in two and flung it across the battlefield. His other hand cupped her cheek, held her eyes steady against his own. "You're real to me."

Each of her nerves sparked, desperate to convince her he was wrong. Every pulse of her heart, every rush of blood through her veins - it all felt like a lie. She was like the wolves. She was a creation, she was a nightmare, she was a dream.

"It's not enough," she whispered against his hand, because she needed to make sure he knew.

"I know."

"I want it to be," she whispered, because he needed to know that too.

His hand snaked around to her spine, slipping an arrow out of the wooden sack. He pressed it into her fingers as she searched his face. "You want to die?"

He helped her slide it into the bow nock, watching her with eyes like shattered gemstones as the arrow fastened with an audible click. "Don't ask me that."

She shrunk away from him, the bow trembling in her grip. "Fight!" she screamed at him. Fat, silent tears rolled down her cheeks. Tears that felt like nothing and everything all at once. "Fight back! You're supposed to fight back. That's who you are. You're not supposed to die for me."

"I won't fight you." He shook his head, voice hoarse. "Not you."

Her heart was screaming but her body had already raised the bow. His eyes followed it as she aligned the silver tip with his bloody chest. Her fingers twitched, her mind begged them to stop. Her eyes shifted from his own to the snarling mouth of the wolf coat, she forced herself to look back again. "Don't make me do this."

He reached one hand out to steady her bow. "This is how it was always supposed to end, love."

A wolf is a wolf, she told herself. Even with a smile that said come closer. Even with gentle hands and eyes that gleamed.

They still gleamed, even then, the stars in the wicked black sky above her reflecting in his irises.

"You and I. Equals in every way."

A reminder, those stars were, that all bright things still had dark centers. The island's stars shone for them, were made of bright smiles, of happy thoughts. Of the good pieces of him and the real parts of her.

It made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Before she'd fallen for the boy in the wolf coat, she'd fallen for the stars he put in the sky.

"We are one of a kind."

A wolf is a wolf.