Chapter Twenty
Cross
The fight is vicious. I can't tell exactly where it's coming from.
A steady chorus of chilling growls bounces from tree to tree and echoes all around us.
A high-pitched yelp rips through the air, followed by another menacing snarl.
There are more than two wolves fighting. It sounds like at least half a dozen.
A branch snaps from somewhere in the opposite direction and Parker and I turn to exchange a look.
We're surrounded. I don't care about being caught.
That's the point of this exercise. I don't want to lose and I definitely don't want to be the first ones captured, but if that fight tells me anything, it's that we shouldn't be wearing these collars.
“Stay behind me,” Parker says.
“No,” I scoff. “We stand together.”
“It's my job to protect you,” he insists.
“We're not supposed to be in real danger,” I remind him.
“That,” he says, jutting his chin toward the fighting, “sounds dangerous enough. Let's go back, call it a night.”
The fight intensifies and then goes abruptly and eerily silent. Another sound comes from further in the forest, followed by a low howl.
“I don't think that's an option,” I tell him. “We need to get these things off.” My wolf, who has been completely silent since we got to Recovery, is pacing inside me, growing angrier by the second, snapping his teeth and muttering the words defenseless and idiot over and over.
Something moves in the forest, coming closer, not hiding their approach. Parker angles his body in front of mine and I let him because now isn't the time to argue over who protects who. Seconds pass while we wait for someone to appear from the brush nearest or from the trees further out.
The distinct sound of shifting comes from the brush and then Eugenia steps out into the opening, furious and breathing hard. She doesn't even look at me. She marches straight to Parker and holds out her hand.
“What?” he asks.
“Give me your shirt,” she barks. “Now.”
“Why? Nobody cares about your tits.”
She glares at him. “We don't have time for you to be a dick right now, Parker. There is a group of three males closing in on you. We need to go back. Give me your fucking shirt.”
“Here,” I say, reaching for my hem. “Take mine.” I actually do care about her tits. I am wholly unprepared to see her naked body, much less walk through this forest with her.
Her eyes land on me long enough to travel down my body in pure disgust before she goes back to ignoring me. “Parker.” She holds her hand out again, waving her fingers expectantly.
He sighs but takes off his shirt and hands it to her. “What are you even doing? You have a better chance of fending them off in wolf form.”
“You and Drew are capturing me. We're going back. We need to go.” She pauses to shove the shirt over her head. “Right now. Blow your whistle or whatever they told you to do.”
Parker looks at me, confusion raising his brows. “Whistle?” he asks.
“To alert the staff that you're coming back,” she says.
“There is no whistle,” Parker says.
The feel of eyes on me makes my skin crawl. Then a flicker of movement catches my attention but it's gone before I can focus on it. “Why wouldn't you attack?” I ask her. “Why give yourself up like this?”
“I don't like this game,” she says, eyes trained on the darkness between the trees.
“The rules are strange. They don't make sense.
I don't like the collars. This isn't beneficial and it isn't healing anything.
I don't care how it looks if you capture me.
It doesn't matter. Something bad will happen if we don't go back right now.”
Parker and I exchange another look but he ultimately shrugs and lifts his hand toward the buildings that make up the Recovery campus. “After you.”
Our trek back to the courtyard is closely watched. We pass two staff members who I don't recognize on the way. They both nod as if they expected to see us. Eugenia doesn't say anything else the whole way until we get back to the courtyard.
“I'm not participating in another hunt like this. Something about it...” she trails off, glancing around us like someone might be listening. “I don't know how long I'm staying here.” Then she walks away in Parker's shirt, leaving us to stare after her.
“We're staying in your room tonight,” I tell Parker and he nods. There are no rules against it, not really, and even if there were we would still be sleeping in his room. I am entirely too on edge right now.
Part of me even wants to go get Eugenia and keep her with us tonight even though it's a terrible idea and she'd probably refuse anyway because she's right.
The hunt felt strange from the start. The collars.
The concept. The bizarre rules. It all seems so unnecessary, and dangerous.
She'll be alright. We can't possibly be the only ones who feel like things are off here. She'll be okay.
When we get back to Parker's room he puts on a clean shirt and lays back on his bed.
I sit on the foot of it and take off his shoes before toeing off my own.
Even though it's been so long since we've been with each other like this, it's so easy to fall into our old habits.
He never cared about putting his shoes on the bed and I couldn't stand it, so it became standard practice for me to get rid of the shoes before laying down with him.
But now I feel like I'm stuck in limbo. He's been gone a long time and the most time we've had to spend like this is a few scattered minutes over the past two weeks.
“She has my shirt,” Parker announces.
Yes. That's the biggest problem in front of us right now. The fact that Eugenia Barrett is wearing his shirt is at the top of his list.
“Do you need it right now?” I ask, twisting back to look at him.
He gives me a flat look. “I don't need it back at all.”
“I tried to give her mine.”
His eyes narrow. “That would be worse.”
I turn all the way around to smirk at him. “Would it?”
He rolls his eyes.
Fuck it. I crawl up and lay down next to him. I can feel his warmth seeping into me and it's so good that I just lay there for a while. I can't relax, though. Too many things are spinning around in my mind, most of them having to do with Eugenia.
“I can feel you thinking,” Parker says.
I let out a halfhearted laugh. “There's a lot to think about.”
He nods. “No more hunts, Cross. Something bad will happen.”
“No more hunts,” I agree. “I can't see the point if they're like tonight. If it's just a regular hunt, sure, but nothing like tonight.”
“I've been thinking,” he says after a few minutes. “What did we know about Recovery before we agreed to come here? Like, what did we really know? Do you know anyone who has been through the program? Have you actually talked to anyone with experience about it?”
That gives me pause. Recovery has been around since before I was born. Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows what it is. But I don't know a single person who has physically been here. “No. But people obviously come here. People are here now.”
A lot more people than I anticipated seeing, to be perfectly honest.
“Right,” he says and falls back into silence.
I can agonize over the things I don't know about Recovery all night, but it won't change anything.
I'm still here, and I came for a reason.
I don't have to participate in anything that isn't absolutely required.
The hunts and Middle Ground aren't requirements.
They're supposed to be recreational ways to burn off the stress we build up over the course of the week.
What I can agonize over is Eugenia.“Hey,” I say.
“What?”
Bracing myself, I ask about the thing I shouldn't even be thinking about. “You didn't tell me she was so...” I stop talking without finishing the sentence. What can I say that doesn't make me sound stupid and wouldn't make him feel inadequate?
“So hot?” he asks. “I didn't think it would help the situation. But yeah, she's a fucking smoke show.”
I groan. It wouldn't change anything, but damn.
“She's always been pretty, Cross. Even back then.
If you had seen her, I don't think you would have rejected her.
She's exactly all of your favorite things.
I hated her more because of it. She's grown into herself now, though. Sometimes I think...” He sighs.
“Sometimes I think we could have had it good with her. I mean, not we, not like that. I just mean I knew you would want her and you could have had her. It could have been good.” He pauses again and glances at me from the corner of his eye. “I've thought about it. You and her.”
“Me and her?”
“How it would be. Regardless of how I feel about her, she's gorgeous. You and her together...”
I turn to face him. “Are you really laying there telling me that you've thought about me and Eugenia fucking?”
He huffs. “It would be hot.”
“Really?”
“Obviously.”
I bite back a grin. “Did you ever...”
His eyes narrow. “Did I ever what?”
I have always loved teasing him. He hates it in the best way. I especially enjoy teasing him when it has the potential to make him blush. “Did you ever act on those thoughts?”
“We are too old to be talking about what I think about when I jerk off.”
He didn't blush. He just said it like the fact it is. That makes it so much better. “That's hot.”
He huffs again and closes his eyes. “Does that bother you?”
“No.” My answer is instant. It doesn't bother me. It's the opposite. I like the thought of him thinking about me and my mate together. I like it a lot, more than I have any right to.
Except she isn't my mate, I remind myself, and my smile drops away.
“Do you ever think about her?” Parker asks.
“I can't,” I answer honestly.
He opens his eyes and turns his head towards me. “What does that mean?”
“I can't let myself think about her. It hurts. I don't want to talk about it.”
He licks his lips. “You need to.”