Chapter Twenty-One – Tristan
Wolf deactivates my collar and lets me take it off for the first time since my arrival here. My neck feels weird without its weight, without the collar pressing against my throat. After all this time, I got used to it.
And the mere fact that he takes it off makes me think tonight is a test for me.
I know, I know. Another fucking test. When will Wolf quit with the fucking tests?
Wolf makes me sit in the front seat with him. It means I can’t touch Mabel at all, can’t even hold her fucking hand. It’s enough to drive me crazy—or drive me crazier. It takes everything in me to not keep glancing back at her as we drive along.
She looks good in the outfit she chose. More than good. So good that I’m wrestling with my old self and that green thing called jealousy—I don’t want anyone else to look at her, to see the slight hopeful smile on her lips or see the way her wavy yellow hair bounces every time she takes a step.
She’s mine. Why should I share any part of her?
But again, this is a test for me. I need to keep it together. That means keeping the beast locked up inside and allowing the world to witness the beauty that is Mabel Altier.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about where we are. Some tiny town nestled in the mountains—doesn’t really narrow it down much. Could be anywhere, really. I don’t have much experience in tiny towns like this, so they all look the same. I bet Main Street is decked out Hallmark-style around the holidays.
Gag me.
Wolf brings us to a tiny drug store, where he parks the car and glances at both Mabel and me. “Stay here. I have to pick something up.” Before either of us can say a word, he unbuckles his seatbelt and hops out of the car.
Yes. He actually leaves the car running as he walks into the store, the key—an actual, old-fashioned key that needs to be inserted for the car to run—and all.
Mabel leans forward. “Wonder what he has to get.”
I shake my head once, though my dour expression lightens when I turn my face toward her. “Doesn’t matter. Probably nothing. He’s testing me to see if I’ll hop in the driver’s seat and take you away with me.”
She bites her lip as she studies my face. “Would you do that?”
“Would you want me to?”
Mabel seems to think on it, mentally weighing both options in her head before she tells me, “No, I don’t think so. I want to stay here.” As she speaks, her lips curl into a gentle smile.
“Then we’ll stay,” I tell her. Besides, even if we did drive off, somehow, someway, Wolf would track us down and haul us both back to his house, where he’d lock us up and take away the small freedoms we have left. The man is devious. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that he’d find us, even if we ditched the car for something else.
The moment she gives me the full power of her grin, I melt. My seatbelt keeps me fastened where I am, but I still manage to lean far enough over that I can take her lips with mine and kiss her so suddenly she hums into me.
When the kiss ends, she brings a hand to my face and lightly touches my cheek. “I’m glad we’re getting out, even if I don’t know where we’re going.” Mabel has a way of looking at me that makes me feel like I’m not a man with cuts lining his skin, like there’s not a single thing wrong with my face.
“Me, too,” I whisper, taking the hand on my face in my own and lowering it so I can rub my thumb along her knuckles. “I feel like I’ve been stuck in that house forever. It is sad we have a babysitter, though.”
“He’s not so bad.”
He is, but I don’t say that. Mabel will never see it from my point of view, and that’s fine. She didn’t do what I did. She didn’t grow up how I did. There isn’t a worse fate in hell than for someone like me to be caged—truly, the only thing making it bearable is her.
Wolf comes out shortly carrying a small plastic bag. Once he gets in the car, he wraps up the bag to make it smaller and shoves it into the center console of the vehicle. Whatever’s inside it must be small; can’t tell exactly what it is beyond that. He glances at me, and then at Mabel in the backseat. “Now, for our true destination.”
Where is our true destination? Some coffee shop called The Drip. A cliched name if you ask me, but what do I know? I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker myself. Never had the need for caffeine. My body was trained to stay up all night without the use of stimulants.
“Oh,” Mabel says, a note of recognition in her voice. “I remember this place. This was where you told me to go the night I, um… almost drove myself into a tree. Why are we here? Are we getting coffee?”
“You, Mabel, have an interview,” Wolf tells her.
Mabel blinks. “I have a what?”
“They’ve been looking for a part-timer for a while. You’ve been doing better, so I put in an application on your behalf. I think it would be good for you to get out there, rejoin society. Baby steps.”
She opens her mouth, probably about to tell him she doesn’t know if she’s ready, but Wolf adds in a stern tone, “Tristan and I will come inside shortly after you walk in. We’ll be nearby, should anything happen and you need us, but I really would like for you to try your hardest to get the job. Your father agrees with me.”
With a flick of his wrist, he checks his watch. “Your interview technically begins in seven minutes, but it might behoove you to be a tad early. I would go in now if I were you. Head to the counter and say you’re here for an interview.”
Mabel looks at me, her brows drawn slightly together in a look of anxiety. I’m not someone who is used to giving comfort, but I try my best. I tell her, “You’ll do great. Don’t overthink it.” If there’s one thing I know about her, it’s that she tends to overthink just about everything—I’d know, because I do the same damn thing.
When you’re used to being alone, it’s easy to get trapped inside your own head.
She gets out of the car, takes a moment to straighten herself out, and then heads to the front door of The Drip. I watch her as she goes, wishing I could go with her, sit by her, be her moral support. She can do this. Out of the two of us, she’s way more normal than me. A job interview for a small-town coffee shop? She’s got this.
The coffee shop has full floor-to-ceiling windows on the entire front side of the shop, right where we’re parked, so it’s easy to see inside and watch as Mabel heads right to the front counter. There’s a girl working, near Mabel’s age, if I have to guess, and she lights up when she sees Mabel. There’s no line, so she gestures for Mabel to come with her. Soon enough they’re seated at one of the tall, circular tables nearest the counter. The interviewer, I assume.
Wolf’s voice cuts into my concentration: “She’s doing well so far.”
“Yeah.” Though, of course, it’s hard to say since we’re not inside, hearing the actual conversation. With the lackluster amount of people in The Drip right now, I bet we’d hear it all. I’m itching to get in there, to watch over her, to be closer to her; for obvious reasons, I don’t like all the barriers between us.
“Does it bother you that she fits more easily into the world than you do?”
Just for a quick second, I look at Wolf and find he’s staring at me, studying my reaction, my body language, reading me like he’s read me ever since we first met. “No,” I hiss out. “Why would it?”
Wolf shrugs. “Perhaps you’re scared she’ll decide she’s better than you and she’ll leave you behind.”
I grind my jaw. I didn’t think that at all… until now, when I heard him say it, and now that it’s in my head, the thought refuses to go away.
What if Mabel does decide just that? We fit so well together, things are so easy between us, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change. I know better than most people how easily time changes everything; there’s no way to know for sure whether or not Mabel will stay with me.
A cute guy with no scars on his skin could walk in when she’s working, chat her up. Smile at her. Flirt. Be normal. After all this, that might be exactly what she wants. It might come naturally to her.
I don’t say anything to that, but I do return my gaze to Mabel through the windows. At the mere thought of losing her, every nerve in my body silently screams in defiance, and I know what my first instinct would be.
To stop her. To not let her go. To refuse to let her slip through my fingers. She made me feel alive again. She took me in those soft hands and unlocked a secret part of me, breathed life into my dead, decaying lungs. She put technicolor in my black soul.
I can’t lose her. I can’t go back to the way things were. I need her.
A minute passes before Wolf says, “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
I follow Wolf’s lead even though I’m not accustomed to being the follower. We head inside, and Wolf orders us two black coffees. A second employee comes out from the backroom to fulfill our order before disappearing into that same room after. Coffee in hand, we head to the table in the corner farthest away from where Mabel and her interviewer sit. Both Wolf and I move our chairs so we can watch over Mabel.
Low music plays on the speakers in the shop, so it’s not as quiet inside as I thought it would be. Still, we can hear the muffled interview.
Mabel looks a little anxious, yes, but I can tell she appears more comfortable now than she did at the start. She’s easing herself into it. If a stranger were to walk by, they’d think she’s normal. They wouldn’t know how damaged she is, how she nearly killed herself because of her past.
And maybe that’s the point.
She’s not like me. It’s something I knew from the beginning, something I started to overlook due to the overwhelming need that grew inside of me anytime she was near. She’s damaged, yes, but she isn’t as damaged as me. No one is.
Beside me, Wolf quietly speaks, “The real question is, Tristan, if she wants to leave, will you let her?”
So far, Wolf has assumed the worst in me—for good reason, of course. I’m a killer. An animal. A monster. The scars on my body prove it. He thought I’d kill her when we were alone in the woods, thought I’d run off with her when he went into the corner store. He’s waiting for me to snap, and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
The old me would never have let her go. He would have fought tooth and nail to keep her close, even gone so far as to keep her under lock and key so no one else could steal her away. The Cobra would have done all that and more—and because of that, the Cobra would never have been worthy of Mabel’s affections.
I don’t answer Wolf. I can’t, not with my mind spinning as it is. Of course I don’t want to let her go. Of course I still want to fight tooth and nail for her—but this isn’t Cypress. Who would I be fighting? Only Mabel and what she wants, and what kind of man would I be if I refuse to listen?
The interview doesn’t last much longer, and by the time Mabel approaches us in the corner of the shop, she wears a small, shy smile. “I got the job,” she tells us.
“Congratulations,” Wolf says, while I just nod along.
“Penny is getting some papers for me to fill out.” Her shy smile breaks into a wide, excited grin. “I’ve never had a job before.” Her nose wrinkles, but the action doesn’t dim the light in her gray eyes. “I don’t even like coffee that much.”
“You sound excited,” Wolf points out with a quick glance at me.
Mabel chuckles softly, as if she can’t believe it herself. “I guess I am, a little. It’s weird. I didn’t even know I was coming to an interview until ten minutes ago.”
“If I would have told you sooner about the interview, you would’ve come up with excuses or gotten so in your head you would’ve tanked it,” Wolf says. “You have a habit of getting lost in your head, so I wanted to remove that possibility as much as I could.”
With a nod, she says, “Yeah, you’re right.” I think she’s about to say more, but Penny, her interviewer, calls her name from across the shop, and Mabel leaves us to go fill out whatever papers she has to.
Once it’s just the two of us again, Wolf says, “Mabel is spreading her wings and attempting to fly. It’s up to people like you and me to make sure she fulfills her potential.”
“People like you and me,” I echo. “Are you finally admitting you’re like me?”
“No one is like you, Tristan, and no one is like me. We are each as unique as can be.” The corners of his mouth quirk upward in a smirk, like he’s making a joke. “I like to fix things. I like to dive deep and discover the true reasons we do what we do, why we need what we say we need—speaking of needs, you have always strived to be needed as much as you needed others. First your sister, now Mabel.”
“What’s your point?” I glower at him.
Wolf’s green eyes scrutinize me behind his glasses. “You can never go back to Cypress. You can never see any of them again.”
The words slip out of me, and they sound quite deadly, “I know.”
“Whether or not Mabel will continue to need you is unknowable, but that’s the thing about life. Nothing is guaranteed. We can only do so much. Live while we can. You could make a life for yourself here, if you let yourself have it.”
Make a life here. Right. The thought sounds so ridiculous, so preposterous, that it honestly sounds fake. An impossible feat. I was born the first and only son to the Arrowwood family, and then I killed my parents in a misguided attempt to give my sister what she wanted. I was born to kill, not to spend my time in a tiny mountain town withering away. I wasn’t made to be with someone like Mabel.
“A life,” I whisper. “What would I do here? I don’t exactly have skills that would translate to small-town living.”
Wolf’s answer comes quickly: “Ask me again in a few weeks.”
Ugh, whatever. Beyond Mabel, I don’t have much hope at all for my future. My gaze flicks over to her across the coffee shop, and something in my chest constricts.
I wasn’t made for Mabel, and yet…
I want to be.