Howl

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Throughout the day, Lukas had quite a few visitors. Some of them were from people he expected to see, like Jason, Amber, Patrick, and his roommates. Even members of the pack he hardly knew came to wish him a speedy recovery, and most surprising of all was Talon.

Although Lukas knew Talon had been there to help him, he knew that was only because it was a matter of life and death. Now that he was in the clear, he expected Talon to act like his normal self.

“You want something?” Lukas asked, as that was the only reason he could imagine his cousin coming to visit him.

“You need your bandages changed.”

“Not by you, I don’t.”

“And I thought we were getting close to being friends again,” he replied, half sarcastically. Yesterday had almost felt like old times to Talon, only just a bit more perilous than anything they got into as children.

“You’re the one who’s been pissy ever since I got back.”

“Thanks to you,” Talon said as he removed the sheet over his body and started to take off the old bandage.

“Do we have to have this discussion now?”

“Only time to have it,” Talon said. “You can’t go anywhere. You have to listen to me.”

“I can tune you out."

“You know Sophia and Emma have been trying to figure out why we don’t like each other, right?”

“I thought they might.”

“Apparently, Emma got you to talk. Then she told Sophia and she talked to me about it. At the time, I didn’t really give a shit that you had everything all wrong in that stupid head of yours. But after yesterday, I realized we need to get things straight between us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not pissed off because you broke my legs,” Talon said. He finished cleaning the wound and started to apply a clean bandage to his chest. “Well, I suppose I am a bit sore over that, but that doesn’t matter anymore.”

“So you hate me just because?” Lukas couldn’t think of any other reason for Talon to have been so upset with him.

“Because you left.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Everything went to hell for me and Sophie and Jason after you left. You were always the strong one. The one who could take Anthony’s abuse and not let it faze you. You kept our spirits up.”

 “That was Paul,” Lukas argued, remembering how his older brother always seemed ready to take on the packs former alpha.

“You too. Anthony never liked us or our family, but well, it got worse. He set your parents up, Lukas. He had them killed. And Jason and I found out about it. We told my parents but when they confronted Anthony, he just destroyed the evidence and no one was going to believe us. And then we couldn’t even leave. Well, my parents could have but he wasn’t going to let me and Sophia and Jason go.

“You really were the only one that ever stood up to Anthony, Lukas. Things got bad. Really bad. To be honest, I didn’t really know this was why I hated you until yesterday when I actually thought about it. It seems so stupid now that I’m actually saying it. I guess I felt that you could have somehow prevented some of that stuff from happening.”