Chapter 25 Wren #2
Gwen smiled genuinely for the first time since they’d started talking, then nodded. “Fix is a good choice. I always wanted him more heavily involved with Nexus.”
“But not Fix alone,” Wren said. “While I trust him to protect the kids, he will act on emotion first. So Hart as well.”
“Hart?”
“Hart is a rule abider to a fault. He won’t care who he’s looking at if they’re breaking the rules. I trust him to hold the instructors, and you, accountable.”
“Interesting.” She twirled her pen. “But I do see your point. If they agree, I will—”
“I have one more person,” Wren said, throwing a cheeky look at Teddy, who hadn’t expected this last one. “Eerie.”
Gwen visibly recoiled and dropped the pen. It clattered and rolled off the desk.
“Eerie,” she repeated. “Saint’s twin brother.”
“The one and only,” Wren said.
“Wren?” Teddy asked. “Why Eerie?”
“He is…unhinged,” Gwen said, coughing. “For lack of a better word.”
“Exactly,” Wren said. “We picked the judge and the jury. They need an executioner.”
“Oh, he’s gonna love this.” Teddy chuckled.
Wren grinned. “Counting on it.”
Gwen looked him in the eye and narrowed her own. “I feel like you both might be taking a bit too much pleasure in this,” she said, but it didn’t sound malicious.
“We might be.” Wren shrugged. “But I figure we’ve earned it. All things considered.”
“All things considered,” she agreed dryly. “Okay. Fix, Hart, and Eerie will be contacted and offered the new positions. Should they accept we can all sit together and decide what that would mean for Nexus.”
“Oh, with all due respect, I do not want to be involved beyond this point,” Wren said.
“But—”
“I’m not impartial. I see so many faults here it wouldn’t be productive keeping me on board. I just want things to be better, and I know people who can make it so.”
“And what about you?” Gwen asked Teddy. “You’re more than qualified for the position and you have excellent leadership skills—”
Teddy cut her off quickly. “I only want to make decisions for me for a while.”
Wren had never felt more proud.
Gwen stared at Teddy for a few seconds before turning back to Wren. “Don’t you want things for yourself?” she asked. “You can make real change.”
“I want what I have always wanted,” Wren said, squeezing Teddy’s hand.
“I want to help animals the way I feel they need to be helped. I want to run my sanctuary without having to justify my every move. I want to treat cursebreaking as a job I am willing to do because I’m good at it and it pays well, not because it’s all that I am and all I’m allowed to have. ”
“You’re still willing to be a cursebreaker?” she asked carefully.
“For now. If you grant me one more request.”
“Name it,” she said, looking resigned.
Wren looked at Teddy.
“I want to be allowed to love him. Not in dark corners or with hushed voices. I want to love him loudly and out in the open. For everyone to see.”
“Our rules seem to be…outdated,” she said. “I can make that happen. It’s the least I can do. Well, that and…”
She pulled out two files and handed one to each of them.
Wren recognized them immediately as the personal files Nexus kept on each of their placed cursebreakers.
He took his with shaking hands, looking at the photo of his eighteen-year-old self on the front of it, sunken cheeks and hollow eyes staring back at him.
He looked up and caught Gwen looking at him.
“Open it,” she said, and they both did so at the same time, Wren’s heart lodged inside his throat at the words.
Cursebreaker trainee ID: 28/32018
Specialty: Animal curses
Placement: Slatehollow
Registered name: Wren
He heard Teddy’s matching gasp and turned to look his way, finding him reading over a matching file and running a finger over his own registered name. Teddy.
“You…”
“Nexus owes you your true identities back,” she said. “You are owed a clean slate and a fresh start. So, Wren and Teddy, go live your lives. And make sure you clock in to work on time.”
They stood up, shaking her hand and thanking her before walking out of her office.
Wren knew Teddy might come back here someday. But for him, the door closed behind them on the last time he’d ever willingly step foot inside. He was done. He was free.
“Did you mean what you said in there?” Teddy asked, holding his hand as they walked toward the front door of the Nexus building.
“I meant everything I said, so you’ll have to be more specific,” Wren said, barely able to believe he was holding Teddy’s hand in his own, openly, so everyone could see.
“Do you really only have bad memories of this place?” Teddy asked and Wren froze in place, turning to look at him before moving until they were standing chest to chest.
“None of my memories with you were bad,” Wren said, reaching up to cup his face. “You know you were the only thing in this place that mattered to me. The only thing that made sense. The only one I wanted to keep.”
“And now you get to,” Teddy said with an elated smile.
Wren nodded with a wide smile of his own.
“I do,” he said. It still felt unreal.
“Will you come somewhere with me?” Teddy asked.
“To the ends of the earth, no questions asked,” Wren said, and Teddy smiled, taking his hand and pulling until they were running down an empty, dark hallway Wren could probably walk in his sleep.
They got to the end of it and pushed a large iron door open, stepping out and onto a narrow path leading into the field behind the building.
He knew where they were going. He’d known it the moment Teddy asked.
Their spot.
Their sanctuary within the cruel walls they’d grown up behind.
The gigantic tree looked the same as it did the last time Wren saw it.
A decade meant little in a life that spanned centuries.
The branches had barely felt the passage of it, or the absence of the two of them.
They’d been a home to birds and bugs and forgotten all about them.
But there were traces of them still there.
In the little nest-like platform Wren had built. In the stick figures they’d carved and placed around it to decorate it. In the small shiny things Wren’s crows would bring them, and the remains of old blankets and pillows torn apart by the animals and the elements they were exposed to.
“I missed this place,” Wren said, realizing it no longer ached to be there the way it had after Teddy left. “I tried coming here after you were gone, but it wasn’t the same without you. It wasn’t safe anymore, for my heart or my sanity.”
“I’m sorry,” Teddy whispered, and Wren squeezed his hand.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe.” Teddy shrugged. “But it hurt you and I am sorry for any pain you were forced to feel. I wish I could turn back time. I wish we could go back to that moment and relive the years that were stolen from us.”
“Me too,” Wren said softly. “But we have time now. We have the rest of our lives, and I guess we’ll have to make that count.”
“Come here,” Teddy said, sitting down on the prickly branch floor, resting his back against the rough trunk and beckoning Wren over until he was sitting between his legs, head on his chest.
Wren felt a soft hiss at his temple and nuzzled closer, wrapping Teddy’s arms around his waist.
“You know I wrote to you.”
“Mhm.” Wren nodded, warm at the thought of Teddy putting his words down on paper for him, despite thinking he’d never get to read them.
“I wished, so many times, that I could tell you in person instead of writing, and so…I thought maybe I could read them to you now. Maybe I could read you one letter a day until we’re all caught up.
Until the past blends with the present and we are where we would have been if they’d never forced us apart.
One letter a day until we have a lifetime together.
Until you know all of my days without you as if you were with me. ”
Wren’s eyes watered and he nodded, lifting one of Teddy’s hands to kiss the back of it. “I would love that.”
Teddy kissed his hair. “I brought the first letter.”
“You planned this?” Wren asked.
Teddy gave a small shrug as he pulled a yellowed, worn envelope from his pocket. “I might have. I wrote this one after my first night at the house in Arcstead. It…it isn’t a happy one.”
“No, but it’s real,” Wren said. “And knowing we get a happy ending will help.”
“I love you,” Teddy declared softly, for the world and for himself. “I always have and I always will.”
“You are mine,” Wren said. “Always.”
Teddy ripped the envelope open and pulled Wren closer.
Little Bird,
It’s my first night away from Nexus and all I can think about is you. By now you’ve realized I’m gone, and as much as I know you’re hurting, I can’t help but wish you’d forget about me as soon as possible. Because if the pain you’re feeling is even a fraction of mine, I don’t want you to feel it.
I wanted to say so many things to you. I thought we’d have more time, even when I could see the sand trickling down on us.
I fooled myself into thinking I would get the chance.
To tell you how beautiful you are. To tell you how much better the world is with you in it.
To tell you how much I love you. I carry you with me, Wren, and I will carry you with me forever.
But maybe you won’t have to. Maybe your heart and mind will let you let me go.
Maybe you will get a chance to be happy without me.
It’s all I want for you.
To be happy.
Yours forever,
Teddy
“You’re an idiot,” Wren said, his voice shaking from tears, cheek wet where it rested against Teddy’s chest. “There is no happiness without you. There never would be.”
“I think deep down I knew that,” Teddy said, drying Wren’s tears. “But I was hurting so much every day, and the thought of you feeling the same was killing me. Imagining you living a life where you barely remembered my name was easier.”
“We gifted each other names when we first met. I was never going to forget. Despite the hurt, I still choose the name Wren for myself. I wanted to be your Little Bird forever.”
Teddy looked floored by the admission, eyes glistening. “You always were. And I was always your Teddy Bear.”
“Come live with me,” Wren said suddenly.
“What?” Teddy asked.
“You asked me before and you said I could choose. My sanctuary is roughly halfway between your house and mine. I built a little cottage there. It’s not fancy. It’s a tiny living room and kitchen…”
“…with a bedroom and a bathroom and not much else.” Teddy finished for him in breathless awe.
“You remember.” Wren smiled.
“Of course I remember. You actually built it?”
“Well, had it built. But I’ve never lived there. I couldn’t, because…”
“Because it was our dream,” Teddy murmured.
Wren nodded. “I had it made exactly the way I used to describe it to you and then locked it away. I used to tell myself I had to do it for closure and so I could move on, but I think I always hoped you would somehow come back to me. And we could…”
“We could live the dream,” Teddy said.
“Yes.” Wren swallowed, feeling nervous for the first time in a long time. “So…it’s there…if you still want…”
“Of course I want,” Teddy said, cupping his face, his gorgeous eyes shining. “There is nothing I want more.”
“Okay,” Wren said. He stood up and pulled Teddy up behind him. “Then let’s go home.”