But now I had responsibilities of my own. I couldn’t stay out of this, even if I wanted to—not for Ali, not for Chase, not for anyone—and I loved her for knowing that and for not asking me to, even if a part of her felt like she’d failed me because at sixteen I had the weight of the world on my back.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. Admitting that was nearly impossible, but this was Ali, and I couldn’t hold the words back. “No matter what I decide, someone gets hurt.”
Not emotionally hurt. Not kiss-it-and-make-it-all-better hurt. Dead.
“If we don’t help Lucas, he’s going to die, and if we do …” I searched Ali’s eyes. “Did Mitch tell you? About the … family of people with … knacks?”
“Psychics,” Ali corrected absentmindedly. “Humans with special abilities are called psychics.”
Somehow, the word psychic didn’t seem to do justice to the whole “burn you while you sleep” thing, but I didn’t see much point in arguing semantics.
“Okay, so there’s a family of psychics, and if we don’t hand Lucas over in the next seven days, I’m pretty sure they’re going to come after us, and even if we can take them, it won’t be pretty.”
There would be losses, and the idea of digging a hole in the forest and burying Devon or Lake or Chase—or, God forbid, one of the younger kids—was insurmountable.
“It’s an impossible choice, Bryn, and if you want me or Mitch to make it for you, if you want us to be the ones who make the call, and you just deliver it …” Ali tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and the casual gesture of affection almost brought me to my knees. “Say the word, Bryn. You have to do this, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
What kind of alpha was I that her offer tempted me? What kind of daughter was I that part of me would rather have Ali’s hands bloodied than my own?
“No,” I said softly. There was no getting out of this, no way to un-become what I was.
Ali sighed. “Color me shocked.”
“I have to do this, Ali. I’m the reason Lucas is here. I’m the reason Shay beat him down and gave him to a bunch of psychics to use as a pincushion. I’m the one the kids look to, and I’m the one who’s supposed to protect them.”
Ali folded her arms over her chest. “And who’s the one who’s supposed to protect you?”
That seemed to be a popular question lately.
“Who’s the parent?” she asked. “Who’s the wise and benevolent Cool Mom type?”
I cracked a smile—the first in what felt like forever. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Ali pretended to be offended. “Are you trying to say that I’m not cool?”
“Fine. You’re cool. You’re the epitome of cool. Everyone wishes they could have mom hair just like yours.”
Ali hooked an arm around my neck. “I do not have mom hair,” she said, “and you don’t have to do this on your own. I know you—you’ll look for other choices. Ways to keep Lucas safe without endangering the pack. And I hope to God you find one, kiddo, but either way, deal me in. They’re my family, too, and you have no idea how dangerous some psychics can be.”
Between Caroline’s little demonstration at lunch and the fading burn on my skin, I was fairly certain I did have some idea of what we were dealing with, but I didn’t argue with Ali—mainly because my foster mother telling me that I didn’t know how dangerous people like this could be meant that for some reason, she did.
“You have experience with psychics?” I asked.
Ali pressed her lips together in a thin line and then wiped her hands on her jeans and nodded. “You could say that.”
Her words hung in the air between us, and Ali turned toward the kitchen. “If they lay a hand on you, I’ll kill them myself.”
“And how, exactly, are you going to take on a whole family of psychics?” I asked, aiming for a light, teasing tone and failing miserably.
Ali shrugged. “For you, I’d find a way, and technically, a group of psychics isn’t called a family.” Ali started walking toward the kitchen. “It’s called a coven.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THAT NIGHT, I SLATHERED MY SKIN WITH A THICK coat of aloe vera and slept with a fire extinguisher next to my bed. I might have been promised a seven-day cease-fire at lunch, but the psychics would have to forgive me if I was hesitant to take the word of a bunch of superpowered psychopaths who got their jollies from torturing teenage werewolves.
I think you’ll find us reasonable, Caroline had said.
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, turning over in bed. Despite the risks, I needed to get some rest. A sleep-deprived alpha was nobody’s friend.
Closing my eyes, I let my alpha-sense take over, reached out through the bond, and found the others. I let their thoughts and senses flood my own.
Alex. Lily. Katie. Mitch.
Devon, Maddy, Lake, and Chase.
The peripherals at the very edge of our territory. The rest of the kids at the Wayfarer.
We were safe. We were together. We were fine.
The dream started with Callum. He was standing in my old workshop—the one place in Stone River territory that I’d carved out as my own. Callum was watching something, a soft smile creasing a face that had never aged past thirty, relaxed, but leaking power all the same. I followed his gaze and saw myself standing there—a younger Bryn, though not by much, peeling dried glue off her fingertips as she stared with nearly comical concentration at the result of an afternoon’s work: a sculpture, maybe, or a mobile. What I was working on was fuzzy. It didn’t matter.
The look on Callum’s face did.
I couldn’t put words to the emotion, couldn’t describe it, except to say that during the course of my childhood, I’d caught him looking at me that way a hundred thousand times: like I was a puzzle, like I was precious.
Like he didn’t want me to grow up, because things would change forever once I did.
As if he could hear my thoughts, the dream Callum turned to look at me—the real me, not the memory of the girl I’d been a year or two before. He moved his lips, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, couldn’t make out the words or the familiar tone of his low and steady voice.
I wanted to so badly it hurt.
He took my shoulders gently in his hands, bent down to my level. I opened my mouth but could not say a word. Everything began to go dark and fuzzy, but I held on, fought to hear what he was saying, wished he could look at me like I was little, like I was his—just one more time. But Callum faded away, to darkness, to nothing, leaving me staring at my younger self, this dream Bryn so caught up in things that didn’t matter. She turned, saw me. She pointed.
She smiled.
I glanced down to see what she was smiling at, and that was when I realized—I was bleeding. There were three deep wounds in my side, parallel lines.
The Mark.
I watched in horror as the gashes spread across my torso, leaving me unable to move until the sound of clapping broke me from my stupor. Young Bryn faded away, the way Callum had, and a new form took shape on my workbench.
Archer.
“Bravo,” he said. “Encore, encore! The angst. The drama. The symbolism. You’re first-class entertainment, little Bryn.”
Little Bryn should have sounded like an improvement over mutt-lover, but it didn’t.
“What?” The trespasser smiled sardonically. “No she-wolf this time?”
I found myself looking for her, even though I didn’t want to. The dreamworld shifted on its axis, the workshop giving way all around me to the forest, the snow. My body rebelled against the sudden change, nausea taking me down to my knees. The snow was wet and cold under my fingertips.
It melted under Archer’s feet.
So much for a cease-fire.
“Hey now,” he said, looming over me and sounding almost offended. “I’m not doing anything unsavory here. This is a dream of your making, not mine, wolf girl. I’m just along for the ride.”
Pain chipped away at my temple, like a metal pick striking ice. I fought my way through it, getting to my feet, fists clenched and thirsting for this psychic’s blood, but suddenly and without warning, I couldn’t breathe.