Chapter 26
Archer
Silas catches my eye from across the counter. His hands move in quick, fluid signs.
“Good idea, teaching Blue to defend herself,” I translate aloud.
Elias nods from where he’s leaning against the fridge, pretending to be helpful. “She seemed to enjoy it. Almost took my head off with that roundhouse kick.”
“That was the point,” I say. “Figured it would help her feel safer here.”
We work preparing dinner for a while without talking, but Darius’s absence sits in the room like a fifth chair nobody wants to acknowledge.
We’ve always been a unit, the four of us, ever since the coup.
Even when things were at their worst, we ate together.
Trained together and held the pack together by showing up and being in the same room.
He’s been pulling away since the discovery of Blue’s wires. Since he realized what he’d done by refusing to let Blue shift. The guilt is eating him, and instead of dealing with it, he’s disappearing into the woods with an axe and pretending that’s the same thing as fixing the problem.
He needs to get his shit together and apologize to Blue before he loses her for good. Because if she decides she can’t trust one of us, that doubt bleeds into the rest.
Silas signs again. I read his hands.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know. I’ll talk to him.”
Elias opens his mouth to ask what Silas said, but before he can, footsteps pad into the kitchen.
Blue. Barefoot. Hair still damp from the shower, leaving wet patches on the oversized t-shirt she’s wearing. My t-shirt. I try not to smile and fail.
She looks comfortable. Relaxed in a way I haven’t seen from her before. There is no tension in her shoulders, no scanning for exits, no clenched jaw. Just padding into the kitchen as she belongs here.
And she does.
“Smells good,” she says, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s for dinner?”
“Stir fry,” Elias says. “Hope you like bell peppers, ‘cause Archer here got a little carried away.”
He flips him off without looking up from the cutting board. “You’ll eat what I give you and like it, asshole.”
Blue laughs, easy and warm. “Careful, Elias. He might poison your portion.”
“Nah, that’s more Darius’s style,” Elias says, and then his face falls as he hears what just came out of his mouth.
An awkward beat, but Blue just rolls her eyes. “Speaking of your illustrious leader, where is His Royal Assholeness?”
I shrug. “Not sure exactly. It’s unlike him to miss a meal.”
“His loss,” Blue says, snagging a piece of carrot from my cutting board. She pops it in her mouth and makes a face. Then she nods. “Okay, this is going to be good.”
I try not to smile, but fail again.
Silas is already setting the table. Four places, not five. He catches my eye, and I see the question there. I give him a small shake of my head. Darius will eat when he’s ready. Or he won’t. Either way, I’m not dragging him back tonight.
We sit down. Blue takes her usual spot between Silas and Elias. I’m across from her, where I can see the full table. Old habit—the second-in-command always faces the door.
The food is good. I say that without ego. It’s just a fact. And Blue eats like she’s enjoying it, not like she’s starving, not like she’s shovelling it in to survive. She eats slowly, chewing, tasting. She even takes seconds without being offered.
Elias says something about the training earlier, and Blue shoots back a response that makes him choke on his food. Silas shakes with laughter across the table. I watch Blue’s face as she tries not to grin at Elias’s sputtering.
It’s a perfectly mundane evening. Four people eating dinner, talking shit, and laughing at Elias.
Normal.
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
Not for Blue specifically. I didn’t know she existed until she came tearing through our territory with enough fury to set the whole forest on fire.
But this feeling, this sense that the pack might actually be whole again.
That the hole we’ve been working around for ten years might finally have something to fill it.
I’m careful not to let any of that show on my face. Blue doesn’t need the pressure. She’s not here to fix us. She’s here because we dragged her here, and the fact that she’s choosing to stay is already more than we deserve.
After dinner, Elias pulls out a deck of cards, and we migrate to the couch. Blue tucks herself in next to Silas, not seeming to notice how close she is, but Silas sure does. I can tell by the way his breathing changes. But he stays perfectly still, not wanting to spook her.
Smart man.
“That’s not a real rule,” Blue says, pointing at the card Elias just played.
“It is now,” he says, grinning.
I sigh. “It’s not.”
Silas reaches across and flicks Elias’s card off the table. Elias clutches his chest in mock outrage, and Blue laughs.
Elias leans in to see my hand, his shoulder pressing against hers, and stays there.
She shoves him. “Personal space, Dandelion.”
He moves back exactly one inch.
We play until the fire burns low. Blue wins two rounds, which she lords over Elias with the kind of glee usually reserved for children and supervillains.
Elias demands a rematch, and Silas flicks his card off the table.
Blue laughs so hard she snorts, making her laugh harder, which makes all of us crack up.
The best night I’ve had in years.
I don’t say that out loud, but from the look on Silas’s face, he’s thinking the same thing. Elias, too, underneath all the clowning. We’ve been surviving for a long time. Going through the motions and keeping the pack alive because that’s what we do.
This is different. This is the part that comes after surviving.
This might be living.
I glance at the front door. Darius is still out there somewhere, missing all of it. And I know—with absolute certainty—that when he finally comes back and sees what he missed, it’s going to be the thing that either breaks him open or breaks him for good.
I hope it’s the first one.
For his sake. And for hers.