Broken Blood (23 page)

I opened my mouth, but no sound came. My racing pulse suddenly had nothing to do with cardio. “Running,” I said, stepping back and shaking my head to clear it.

Alex grinned. “I knew I’d convert you eventually.”

I glared and started walking instead. Alex didn’t move.

“If you insist on staying, you can walk with me,” I threw over my shoulder.

Alex appeared at my side and fell into step without another word.

The trail was easy to follow here, winding but wide enough for two. The silence continued and the longer we walked, the more comfortable it became.

The woods began to change, the trees spreading farther apart. There were more pines and evergreens than oaks. Moss dotted the floor in a few places, untouched by the frosty winter.

I folded my arms, tucking my hands into my sides to keep them warm. Now that I wasn’t running, the chill seeped in. I glanced up at the sun wandering toward the center of the sky and sighed. We needed to start for home before they sent a search party. Alex knew it too from the way his eyes tracked my line of sight.

Stubbornly, I kept walking.

My stomach growled and I licked my dry lips on a heavy sigh. “We can head back now,” I said finally.

“Okay.”

I scowled. “Don’t be sarcastic.”

Alex’s lips twitched but he said nothing.

“Olivia’s dead,” I said a few minutes later as the pines faded back into oaks.

“I know.”

“It wasn’t an ambush, it was a rescue,” I added.

“I know,” he said again.

“She escaped to attack. She hurt Steppe because she knew it would hurt me,” I said.

“She was a sick person. Reminds me of her son.”

I glanced over and found him watching me. The concern in his slanted brows reminded me of memories I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Alex had been there for me when Miles had been stalking me. He’d saved me more than once. And he’d first kissed me right smack in the middle of a freak out I’d had over seeing Miles on school grounds.

My eyes fell from his knitted brows to the shape of his lips before I could stop myself. I looked away quickly and stared at my feet as they navigated the path. The air between our arms suddenly felt more like a magnet or a gravitational field of attraction.
He doesn’t love you. He loves the idea of you
.

Alex stopped walking and I felt my cheeks heat at whatever he was about to say. I braced myself for some teasing come-on or cheesy pick-up line, but he didn’t do either. Instead, he spread his arms wide and looked right and left. “Recognize it?” he asked quietly. 

“Recognize what?” I asked.

“We’re not far from Wood Point. We used to run through here.”

The moment he said it, I realized where we were. This was one of our favorite places—okay, favorite was a strong word for me when it came to working out—to run together back when Alex had been my trainer.

“Everything’s so much different now than it was then,” I said wistfully.

“Would you go back if you could?” he asked.

“Would you?”

He stared at me like he could see directly inside me. I shivered and he blinked, the spell broken. “Living in the past isn’t healthy,” he said.

“Well, the present isn’t very healthy either. In fact, it’s kind of a threat to my health—or life in general,” I said.

“Which is why I prefer to keep moving forward.”

“You think we have a future?” I asked. The second the words were out, my cheeks flamed. “I mean, that came out wrong. Do you think we could ... all of us, you know, win or live or whatever?” I mumbled.

Alex smiled. “I think your future is bright, Tara Godfrey,” he said. “I’m just happy to be in your orbit.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant but I was too afraid to ask. I started walking again. Alex joined me. “Kane wants Cambria, Logan, and Victoria to return to school,” I said for lack of something better.

“Do you think that’s wise?” he asked.

“I ... it’s not up to me,” I grumbled.

“Sure it is.”

“No, it’s not. Kane made that clear. So did Cambria, Cord, and my mother. I don’t run their lives. I can’t force anyone to do anything.”

“No one said anything about forcing. But you get to weigh in on—”

“Why?” I demanded. “Why should my opinion carry any weight, even a single ounce? Cord was right. Who died and left me in charge? No one, that’s who. And besides, I’d only screw it up. Screw them all up. I don’t have experience. I don’t know the right thing.”

“Being a leader isn’t about knowing the right thing,” he shot back. His voice rose until it was a perfect match for my own angry words. His eyes blazed with conviction and, just like Cord had, he poked my shoulder with his finger as he talked. “You don’t need to know everything or be everything to everyone. Being a leader means you care. You care more about who you’re leading than you do about yourself sometimes. You’d lay down your life for your friends. Regardless of whether they want your help, they’re getting it, because you care. And nothing’s going to keep you from protecting those you love. And in the middle of all that, because you care, you do the whole thing with integrity and love and compassion. All of that makes you a leader. All of that makes you a badass. The kind of badass that kicks her trainer in the crotch in order to show him they’re equal. In order to make him love her.”

I opened my mouth—though I had no idea what I should say—but he cut me off and kept talking. “Cord was wrong. She was angry so she was being a bitch and she was wrong. When do you listen to her, anyway?”

“I—”

“Victoria had it right. You’ve always been a leader. We’ve always been waiting for you to see it. But it’s time now. No more waiting.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” he interrupted. “Remember Vera’s visions of you? You can do this.”

I eyed him, frowning. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“I don’t need to. Whatever it is, you can. I’ve known that about you since the day we rolled down that hill together. If you want to lead, you can. If you want to save everyone, you can. If you want to kiss me again, you can.”

“Alex,” I warned.

His mouth quirked. “It’s a hard choice, I know.”

“It’s not a hard choice,” I said.

“Right. I forgot. You said you’ve always known.”

I gave him an apologetic look, but he shook his head. “That wasn’t meant to be a dig or anything. I mean it. As far as choosing a path to lead from, you’ve always known that too. You’re just afraid.”

“How do you know?”

“Please. I’ve never needed to get inside your head to know what you’re thinking. I knew it that first day I ever kissed you. And the second.” He grinned but it fell away quickly. “And in the hotel, I knew then,” he said quietly.

“But you kissed me anyway. You tried, anyway,” I said.

“What would we be without our convictions and our efforts?”

It sounded like something Professor Kane would say. Or Vera. I scowled because, once again, we were talking about two things at once.

“Not as hopeless,” I muttered.

“I’m not hopeless,” he said. He reached up and smoothed my hair away from my face, his fingertips brushing a cold trail down my cheek. “Sometimes love is temporary, for a purpose. Doesn’t make it an ounce less worth it.”

My head snapped up and I stared at him. The wind pricked at the edges of my eyes, drawing moisture to the corners. Or that’s what I told myself. His expression was so calm, so serene. I stumbled over my words, feeling awkward but unable to keep from asking.

“You don’t love me anymore?” I whispered and the old panic from earlier threatened to climb up my chest and into my mouth. I stepped closer, willing him to argue. To swear things. For some reason, this felt scarier than that. This felt new, like turning a corner. I didn’t want to see what lay around it.

But he shook his head and whispered, “You don’t need me to.”

When his hand dropped away, my skin went cold. Was he right? Did I not need that from him? If that were true, why had I ever needed it in the first place?

I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

“Don’t be, Godfrey. Don’t ever be sorry.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, thick tears leaking into my eyes as I admitted the thing I’d been terrified to say. This was the reason for my guilt and my shame. And my temper.

With Olivia gone and Cord stubbornly resolved, I had no idea what to do next.

Alex took my hand, squeezed, and led the way back onto the path that would take us home.  “My advice,” he said casually as we walked, “is to get that weasel out of your head.”

“Right, because that’s easy enough.” I snorted. But it worked. I no longer felt ready to cry.

Alex glanced sideways at me. “Have you talked to your boyfriend lately?”

Something about his voice told me he already knew the answer. “Why?” I asked.

“The only person on this planet more determined than you is him.” Alex shook his head and I watched in a sort of awe at the lack of animosity in him as he spoke of Wes. When the heck had that happened?

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means he’s been sweet talking crazy Uncle Astor to pretty please up his genius and figure out a way separate you from your basement-squatting brain buddy.”

“That’s not possible,” I began, but Alex squeezed my hand.

“I’ve learned nothing is impossible,” he said, his words an exact replay of the ones Wes had spoken. “Especially for you.”

Hearing them from Alex made me smile, but it was nothing compared to the feeling I had when Wes had said them. Alex had always believed in me. From day one. Sort of an innocent until proven guilty. With Wes, I’d had to earn it.

And it looked like I finally had.

Maybe Alex was right about my being a leader, but he was wrong about one thing. And so was Cord and Victoria and all of them. I hadn’t always been this dormant badass leader just waiting to realize it. I’d been a normal teenager, clueless, unworthy, and fumbling. But, somewhere along the way, I’d been molded.

Shaped and sculpted through trials and fires and loss. And now I was something capable. If Alex was right about my caring, if love and commitment to the safety of my friends and family qualified me, I could lead whomever and whatever.

And maybe I couldn’t save us a single individual. But that’s not what leaders did. Leaders stood at the head of the line and marched everyone through the battle to the safety on the other side. We’d do this thing as a team.

One army. One family. One race.

I smiled, squeezed Alex’s hand, and let him lead me home.

––––––––

F
rom the hill at the edge of the woods, Professor Flaherty’s house was a deceiving Stepford. The view from the back looked quiet and serene—if you pretended not to notice the two broken windows and the patches of bloody fur matted to the grass in places. But from a distance, it was utterly uniform. A carbon copy of the rest of the street: unassuming suburbia at its best. I still had no idea why Flaherty would choose a place like this when she was so completely unlike the picture she was creating for herself. Or maybe that was my answer.

Alex and I got as far as the woods’ edge before we ran into company. I sensed him before I saw him and judging from the way the hair on Alex’s arms stood up, he did too. But, unlike Alex, I recognized the flash of fur as it darted among the holly bushes bordering the ravine below.

“It’s just us, Derek,” I called.

Alex’s hand, which had been inching toward the stake I knew he kept in his boot, relaxed and hung back at his side again.

A second later, Derek appeared as a brown wolf, his paws silently falling as he came to meet us. “Hey.” He frowned at my appearance and I remembered the cabin, the borrowed clothes. “That’s why we lost your trail,” he muttered.

I didn’t feel like getting into it. “Have you seen Wes?” I asked.

Derek cast a long look into the woods. “He’s not back yet. Still out looking for you.”

Guilt worked its way in, but I didn’t feel like getting into that either. Derek glanced to Alex. “How’d you find her?” he asked suspiciously.

“I don’t rely on scent,” Alex said with more than a little smugness coating his words. Derek’s eyes narrowed and Alex sighed like he knew better than to keep goading him. “I’m a tracker. I followed her trail.”

“Huh,” Derek grunted, and his gaze cut back to me. “Glad you’re safe. Your mom was looking for you.”

“Thanks.” I started to go, but then remembered the other concern. It wasn’t one I felt like asking the others. “Did Olivia’s body...? I mean, someone should—”

“Jack and Cord took care of it,” he said. Cord. Of course she did.

“And Steppe?” Alex asked.

“They moved him into a room upstairs with a bed. He’s bruised and has a nice hole in his stomach, but he’ll mend.”

“I’ll be out later to relieve you,” I said.

He grunted again and moved on, breaking into a swift stride as he continued his patrol of the woods. Alex and I slipped through the back gate and made our way to the house.

The back door clicked closed behind us just as the front door opened and slammed shut again. Across the space, I spotted Wes. He saw me and halted in his hurry, his eyes cutting from me to Alex and back. He wore a pair of ragged sweats that, even from here, smelled like someone else and an oversized sweatshirt. A leaf was stuck to his hair and I wondered how long he’d been on two legs.

“I’m going to check on Steppe,” Alex said.

“No, stay,” Wes said in a tight voice. He came over and pulled me into a quick hug. I picked the leaf out of his hair and hugged him back. “I was worried,” he said quietly. And before I could offer an explanation, he stepped back and gestured for us to follow. “Come on.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, trailing behind him. His expression was harried—and it looked like more than just worry over my personal time.

“We need to find Edie and the others,” he said without stopping.

“For what?” I asked.

But he didn’t answer. He crossed the empty kitchen and circled back around to the living room and down the back hall. In one hand, he held a large rock. With the other, he pushed open doors and, when he found the room empty, ducked out again, intent on his search. I caught Alex’s eye and he shrugged.