Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-two
CHRISTIAN
As the scraping of chairs and clang of dishes being piled together filled the yard, Christian stood, letting the noise wash past him. He’d been watching Tony, Barton, and the other higher-ups talk at the far end of the table, trying to memorize the faces of his new pack.
One of them stood out to Christian. He didn’t look like much, lean, with pale eyes that didn’t blink often, but there was something about him, a sense of menace that made Christian’s wolf growl uneasily.
He’d sat at Barton’s right, two seats down from Tony.
He hadn’t spoken once during the entire meal, but Christian had felt him watching.
When Christian’s gaze snagged on his, the guy didn’t look away. He tipped his chin a fraction, acknowledging him. Or marking him. It was hard to say.
Christian dragged his eyes away from those pale blue ones when Tony approached.
“Practice is at the factory in one hour,” he said. “Stefan will give you a ride.”
He turned on his heel and walked off. Christian was just wondering how to fill the next hour when he became aware of two young kids peering around the end of the table at him.
Their eyes were bright and curious, and at about the same height as his hip.
He hadn’t been around kids for years, but it came back to him as he crouched down and looked at them. “Hi,” he said.
Emboldened, they snuck around the table and stood in front of him.
“You’re new,” the older one announced, and promptly got an elbow in his side from the shorter one.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “Weren’t you listening to Uncle Tony? He’s here to fight. Are you a good fighter?”
“Yeah,” Christian said, because he was.
“Have you got a girlfriend? Arianna likes you.”
“I’ve got a—” And then he remembered. He didn’t have Dave. Not anymore.
His breath caught. He pushed to his feet too fast, like movement could hide his reaction.
“I gotta go. Need to unpack my shi—stuff,” he said, voice too sharp.
“You said shit,” the smaller one said, grinning.
Christian barely noticed his words. His chest was tight, and his eyes burned as everything he’d pushed down inside him rose up, threatening to break open. Dave was—
“Beat it, you two.”
The kids scrambled away, laughing and shoving at each other as they went, and Christian turned around to find Bear there.
“You want to see around the place?”
“It’s like you read my mind,” he said with an attempt at a grin. If it didn’t quite come off, Bear didn’t call him on it.
“It’ll give you something to do before I wipe the floor with you later.”
“In your dreams, asshole.” And this time, his grin was real. He knew how to do this. It was how he’d lived every day before Dave—laughing it off, throwing the first punch, and making sure no one ever saw how deep the bruises really went.
Christian dodged the friendly punch Bear threw his way and followed him.
DAVE
The summer sun sparkled on the ocean. It was so bright that Dave had to screw his eyes up to see Seb and Brody riding the face of the wave, flying free right up until they got dumped.
He watched them surface, Seb laughing and flinging his long hair back, dazzling drops caught by the sun to form a rainbow around him as Brody grinned, bright and reckless.
Long summer days out on the ocean had them all feeling invincible—no one could best them except the occasional wave, and that was all part of the game.
Dave had never truly known what it was to be happy until now, when he spent the days on his board and the nights sharing Seb and Brody’s bed.
Others came and went from the old caretaker’s cottage they’d stumbled on, behind an empty holiday home.
Anyone was welcome, so long as they saw life the same way and didn’t want trouble.
Dave was the only one who stayed longer than a couple of weeks.
He took some shifts at the surf shop on the beachfront when he needed a little cash, and he thought that this was how life would always be.
He stayed there the whole long Californian summer after Morgan had told him he was old enough to make his own way in the world.
It had felt like everything he’d ever wanted—freedom, friends, and nights tangled in warmth and laughter.
Seb and Brody were coming out of the water now and he moved to meet them.
But the sand beneath his feet seemed to be turning to quicksand.
Every step became harder and heavier, until they were moving away.
He called after them, but they didn’t hear him.
He was held, fixed in place as they disappeared into the distance.
He came to with a jolt and realized he’d been dreaming.
He hadn’t thought of that summer for so long, of how perfect those long months of sun and surf had been, and how he hadn’t seen the end coming.
He hadn’t realized that once summer died, the friends he’d found would melt away like snow.
Seb and Brody didn’t even suggest that Dave go with them as they chased the sun down to Mexico.
And when Dave had asked if he could come, they’d laughed as if he was joking.
He hadn’t asked a second time, and they’d left the next day.
It had taught him—like he’d needed the reminder—that asking for anything pushed people away. His mom had gone first. She’d left him with Morgan “for a few weeks” that turned into forever. Maybe she hadn’t meant to. Maybe she just found something better and didn’t look back.
Morgan hadn’t been cruel, just practical. “You’re an easy kid,” she’d told him once. But maybe he’d asked for too much, in the end.
Damn, his mouth was parched. It must have been a hell of a night last night because his head was pounding like hell.
He licked at his lips—cracked and unpleasant—and rolled over, expecting to see Christian there beside him, snoring the way he always did if he’d drunk too much.
Instead, he squinted into bright sunlight as rocks dug into his back.
As his eyes began to clear, memory of where he was returned, and he realized there was a snake sunning itself just yards from him.
His strangled gasp sent the snake flowing over the rock away from him until it disappeared into a tiny hole.
He wasn’t scared of snakes, exactly, but he’d never woken up right next to one before, and his heart thudded.
He thought it had only been a coachwhip but he wasn’t sure, and where there was one, there might be more.
Ignoring the aches in his body, he pushed up, determined to get onto his feet. But his ankle buckled under him, and he crashed back down, crying out as agony flooded through him. It dumped him harder than any wave ever had, until he was lost and rolling in its depths.