Chapter 7 Wren
Wren
Regret didn’t taste like ash as everyone else said.
It tasted like nothing.
An absence of taste and sensation. A liminal space of emptiness highlighting just how cavernous the hole in Wren’s chest was.
Once, Wren had wished he felt nothing, that maybe it would be easier on him if his stupid heart didn’t feel too much all the time.
But the pain reminded him of everything he fought for.
Of everything he loved. This sudden numbness he’d been left with as he’d watched from the shadow of the precinct as Teddy pulled away from Slatehollow for the second time was worse.
Because he’d had the opportunity to go with him.
Wren groaned and ground his face deeper into the dirt under his face, feeling the hot wash of Sable’s breath breaking through the curtain of his messy hair as he copied him. They were lying belly down, only their faces perpendicular.
Wren peeked through the strands at those soulful yellow eyes between two massive paws, Blu nestled down between his ears.
Surrounding them on all sides were members of the Fluffy Cluck Hut and Friends, casually climbing all over Wren and Sable without a care like they were newly installed play equipment.
“It’ll be fine,” Wren murmured. “I have responsibilities here.”
“Teddy,” Blu chirped.
Wren’s heart ached. “Blu…”
“Where’s Teddy?”
“Gone…” Wren said. “He’s gone again.”
“Find Teddy. Where’s Teddy?”
Wren pushed himself up from the dirt, meeting Blu’s intelligent eyes while a rabbit climbed through the new gap, ears tickling his chin. “I couldn’t go… I couldn’t…”
Blu tilted his head. “Find Teddy.”
“Blu.” His tone was firmer now. “What do you want me to do? Leave everything and chase him?”
Blu’s chirp was very much an affirmative and Wren scowled.
“I can’t.”
Blu flapped his wings, making one of Sable’s ears twitch and his chest rumble.
“The attitude!” Wren exclaimed. “I know we don’t usually care about ‘can’t’ but this is different.”
Blu chirped again, once. Short and dry.
“It is! It’s complicated, okay? I spent years thinking he just left us.”
Another burst of twitters.
“I know we have the letters…” Wren murmured, “but it’s still been so long and there’s so much we don’t even know or understand. We can’t just pick up where we left off. I can’t just forget…”
“Find Tedd—” Blu cut his chirp off when they both heard the back door handle, the words turning into a twitter.
Wren cut his gaze left and saw Fix lumbering toward them dressed in a knitted half-zip sweater, his blue flannel peeking from underneath.
His salt and pepper hair was a little ruffled, his beard looking like someone had ran their hands through it recently.
He had a plate in hand that was steaming into the darkening sky, curling wisps disappearing behind him.
He walked over to the wire fence and rapped softly on the wooden frame. “Permission to enter?”
Wren nodded and watched him squeeze his bulk awkwardly through the Wren-sized door.
He was careful not to crush anyone as he sat down, sitting with his knees squeezed up before sliding the plate over to Wren’s side. “You didn’t come in for dinner.”
“I ate with the gang.”
Fix looked at the half-munched carrots, plants, and seeds scattered around. “I’m sure the roughage made a good appetizer, but you still need to eat a decent meal.”
Wren shook his head. “You don’t have to worry so much.”
“You got arrested today.”
“Half an arrest.”
“Wren.”
“It’s not even going on my record,” Wren said. “Which is a shame. Sable and Blu would have looked cool in the mug shot.”
“Please be serious.” Fix winced.
“I am being serious,” Wren said, face completely straight. “I don’t care about things like that.”
Fix sighed. “I know you don’t, but how about this: we do. Hart about had an aneurysm and I wasn’t far off. So maybe, for us, you could tone it down a little please? So we don’t go to an early grave?”
“You think I’m enough to tip you over the edge when you have the likes of Black and Ash roaming around Slatehollow?” Wren asked skeptically.
“Sometimes I worry about you more than the two of them combined,” Fix said. The honesty caught Wren off guard.
Fix reached out and grabbed Wren’s arm, sliding his hoodie up to show the bandages, the rest of the skin covered in various marks and scars. He rubbed a gentle thumb over them.
“Ash is reckless and Black is chaos sprinkled with glitter, yes…but you’ll walk into the lion’s den quite literally without a second thought.
You’re brave and selfless. You don’t think about yourself first. You don’t care how powerful something is or if the odds are against you, you always fight and won’t ever stop. ”
Wren swallowed at the assessment, unable to say anything back.
Fix smiled sadly at him. “I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand all the reasons why. I just hope you’ll be safe while you battle your way to whatever you’re trying to find so you can finally rest. That’s all.”
Wren’s tired eyes burned, the dark circles under them weighing heavier with the words.
“I can’t promise not to walk into a lion’s den, or fight,” Wren said quietly, not wanting to lie to him or give him platitudes. “But it’s easier when I have people like you to come home to.”
Fix smiled a little, not fully consoled but accepting the answer for what it was. “Black mentioned that cursebreakers from Arcstead were there. A familiar face…”
“Just ask.”
“I have nothing to ask. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I know everyone must have their guesses. There’s no way you don’t have questions,” Wren said, face hot.
“When you’re ready to give answers, I’ll ask questions,” Fix said simply. “All I will say is…be careful. Nexus has rules for a reason, and the stories that went around Nexus while I was there all those years about the consequences if you broke them—”
“I heard them,” Wren stated flatly.
“Then you know it’s dangerous. Forbidden,” Fix said, eyes glittering with well-meaning concern. “They don’t want cursebreakers to form bonds larger than family ties, it’s always been that way.”
“They make sure it stays that way,” Wren corrected.
“Gwen made sure the instructors drilled that into our skulls just the same as you, yes, but haven’t you ever questioned why it can’t be different?
Why they want us to fill brotherly and sisterly roles instead of anything else?
It’s because it upsets their perfect little nuclear family structures.
It’s all about efficiency for them. Families are more stable than romantic relationships.
That’s all it is. They don’t view us as humans. We’re tools to them.”
“The rules were there well before Gwen took over,” Fix said. “I don’t agree with them but I don’t know if she can change them just like that.”
Wren rolled his eyes. Gwen was a sore point between them that they might never agree on. Where Fix saw a mother figure, Wren saw a totalitarian leader upholding an institution he despised with all his being.
“We don’t even know if the stories are true or just an intimidation tactic,” Wren said. “Some of them were pretty wild.”
“Well, I don’t want to confirm one way or another. I don’t want to wake up one day and have you be gone without a trace. Halfway across the world. Or just…erased.”
“You think they’d do that?”
“Like I said, I don’t want you testing any of it.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore anyway,” Wren said. “We’re worlds apart. That’s all history.”
The words fell between them like a weight, kicking up dust that made it hard to draw in a breath.
The animals continued to rustle around them, providing a buffer with their innocence.
“Eat, please?” Fix said when the dust finally settled.
Wren nodded, then he watched Fix shimmy his way back up and out, knowing that Wren needed space. He turned back after a few steps.
“Oh, and the jaguar…”
Wren snuggled his and Sable’s faces together, pouting for show. “We’re having a sleepover.”
Fix rolled his eyes. “And is this sleepover going to last five years?”
“Undetermined.”
Fix snorted and waved before turning to trudge back inside. “Hart told me I should pick my battles as my morning affirmation. I didn’t realize how apt that would be.”
Wren blew out a deep breath once he was gone, pushing himself to sit up and chewing on his bottom lip.
He was full of restless energy, thoughts and memories of Teddy swirling around his head. He disposed of the food and crawled his way out of the enclosure, shutting it tightly after Sable and Blu.
He kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his hoodie, then he broke into a dead sprint directly toward the forest.
The almost inaudible flap of Blu’s wings and Sable’s footfalls behind him faded away as he broke through the tree line, losing himself in the lush green that blocked all sight of industry or humanity.
In here he was, just another animal, able to tap into that baser part of himself that always seemed so close to the surface, that tinged interactions with instinct.
Scents of dirt and musk filled his nose, the crisp bite of oak wood cutting through the top notes. Wren could find his way around the forest by smell alone. It could lead him to every nook and den, every small pond or lonely rock.
Sweat began to bead all over his body, his legs beginning to ache and falter the longer and farther he ran. It was only when he physically collapsed to his knees, unable to keep up the momentum that was driving him that he stopped.
And when he glanced up, he saw he was at the very edge of the forest, looking out at the road that led from Slatehollow to Arcstead.
A single tear rolled down his cheek and a small whimper escaped his chest. His blunt fingers dug into the ground desperately, like he could grab the fabric of the earth and pull it back toward him, closing the distance he knew was growing with every passing moment.
Sable licked the tears from his dirty cheeks as they kept falling, but despite wanting to, he couldn’t feel the comfort. His heart would not be soothed.