Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding.’
Jackson closed the door that led from the downstairs bedrooms to the back garden with his elbow, hands full of cans of soda and a paper plate.
I’d been sitting outside for a while, watching the sunset in the back garden.
The vibrant colours of a summer’s day had faded out, the slider shifted all the way to the left on the saturation bar.
‘You missed the cake-cutting.’ He placed one of the unopened sodas on the table in front of me and sat in the open chair by my side. ‘Let me guess, the dance at the DeSoto was so awful, it put you off parties for life?’
‘The dance at the DeSoto was great,’ I replied as I flipped the tab on the soda. ‘At least it was until the end.’
‘Yeah, I always hate it when they play that Black Eyed Peas song too.’
The bluish-grey tones of the early evening cooled his skin but nothing could dim his smile. Not when it was at full wattage like it was right now.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Jackson said, popping his own can while I poked at the cake with a little silver fork.
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I really do.’ He dropped his head to hide a rueful grin. ‘Turns out I made a liar out of myself.’
The cake, one of Ashley’s concoctions, was delicious. Double chocolate with hazelnut chocolate frosting and a mass of malt balls on top. For someone who still claimed to despise Lydia Powell, she certainly had gone out of her way to create a cake made of all her favourite things.
‘I said I’d be here for you, whatever you need.
The last few days have been difficult but that’s no excuse, I haven’t been a good guest.’ Jackson toyed with the tab on his soda can.
‘I guess, with everything that’s been going on, I’m feeling like a screen door on a submarine and I don’t like it one bit. ’
‘That’s crazy,’ I said quickly. ‘Without you, we wouldn’t know anything about Astrid. You’ve been beyond helpful.’
He scratched the scruff on his chin, half shaking his head. Since the twins moved in I’d noticed he always had a shadow on his jaw by the evening, even if he’d shaved that same day.
‘It’s funny,’ he replied. ‘If you’d asked me three months ago, I’d have said my only back-to-school worries would be making the varsity starting lineup and which girl to take to Homecoming. Now I’m living in a magic house, full of witches, and hoping to live past tomorrow.’
I pushed the plate back towards him. ‘The witches I can’t do much about but you don’t need to worry about the rest of it. You’re safe here.’
‘Can’t stay here forever though.’
‘You can, actually. As long as you like.’
He looked around the garden, his chest expanding as he breathed in the scent of night blooming jasmine.
‘Can’t live with you forever,’ he corrected. ‘Not like this.’
‘Jackson, I—’ I began but he cut me off with a tight, bittersweet look.
‘Please don’t. I know how it is. You love him.’
There didn’t seem much point in agreeing out loud, making things worse.
‘I always thought I was pretty smart,’ Jackson said, ducking his head to hide a regretful grin. ‘But it turns out I don’t know much about anything after all.’
‘It’s one thing to do good in school, it’s another to wake up one day and find out witches and werewolves are running around town and your whole family is caught up in the middle of it,’ I replied, reaching across the table.
‘I get it, I do. I always thought getting good grades and graduating early meant something. Now I don’t know where that kind of thing gets me. ’
‘It gets you out of first period math on a Monday morning. That’s not nothing.’
‘See, you’re still pretty smart,’ I squeezed his hand. ‘You don’t have to beat yourself up for not having all the answers or for asking questions.’
‘Even if those questions are about Wyn?’
‘You mean the guy who dropped into your life out of nowhere and is currently hanging out with a whole pack of werewolves on their way to kill us?’
‘That would be the one.’
I pulled up my shoulders and inclined my head as I took a sip of my soda. I couldn’t quite bring myself to say yes but if I put myself in his shoes, I could see where doubts might creep in. Especially if he had a vested interest in Wyn turning out not to be the good guy after all.
‘He’s a good guy and I know it,’ he admitted with a grimace. ‘But there were days when I didn’t know what to think. Damn, I can still half convince myself he was the one who attacked us at the dance, and on the beach. Or maybe that’s what I want to believe, I don’t know.’
‘You have to remember he didn’t want this,’ I insisted. ‘If Catherine and I hadn’t met Cole in the cemetery that night, Wyn would never have known his family were Weres. It’s not something he can control, it’s not something he went looking for. He wasn’t given a choice.’
‘But that’s just it,’ Jackson said, attacking the air with his dessert fork. ‘He can’t control what he is. What if there are other things he can’t control?’
‘Such as?’
‘What if initiating him into the pack wasn’t the end of it? What if the other Weres are controlling him somehow?’
I looked up to see the first stars shining down on us. Powerful suns, burning brighter than anything else in the sky, but against the pale rising moon they looked weak.
‘No one’s controlling him,’ I argued. ‘No one could make Wyn do anything he doesn’t want to do.’
‘Are you sure? Are you entirely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt there’s no way Weres can influence the behaviour of their pack members?’
It only took a split second of hesitation on my part for him to jump.
‘I’m not blaming him, all I’m asking is for you to look at it objectively.
At Hilton Head, he ran towards the fire but all you saw was a wolf.
You asked him not to go back alone but he went anyway but he couldn’t find anything?
Not a single trace? And where was he when you found this warning from the pack?
Right outside Bell House. At the DeSoto you said yourself it was raining too hard to get a proper look at the wolf. And who showed up two days later?’
Or maybe the night before that, I thought to myself, fighting against the memory of a tall, dark-haired man crossing Lafayette Square.
‘There’s something else,’ Jackson said, slowing himself down, almost as though he didn’t really want to say it. ‘You killed his brother. Not on purpose, but you did it. You know how I feel about you, Em, but if you hurt Lydia, even accidentally, I would never be able to forgive you.’
All the blood drained from my face.
It’s not the same, I wanted to say. But didn’t.
He couldn’t possibly understand. Cole and Wyn had a different relationship to Jackson and Lydia.
Cole was literally trying to kill me, there was no other way; Wyn knew it was self-defence and, above all else, Wyn loved me. He loved me, he loved me, he loved me.
A tear slipped over my cheek and I wiped it away quickly, but not before Jackson saw.
‘Shit, I came out here to apologize, not make you cry,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘Forget I said anything. I’m a jealous idiot, a cowardly jealous idiot, looking for the worst in someone because I can’t stand losing.’
But it was more complicated than that and we both knew it.
Jackson leaned back, his face contorted with confusion, when the lights of the house caught on something silver against his dark skin.
I recognized it at once. Without waiting for permission, I slid my hand inside his shirt and pulled out a silver chain.
Dangling from the end was his mother’s opal ring.
‘This is your mom’s.’
Even looking at it for too long was uncomfortable and I let it go, the delicate circlet bouncing off his crisp white shirt.
‘She left it in my room before she bailed.’ He almost looked embarrassed. ‘There was a note, said I should wear it for protection. But like, how is a ring going to protect me against a Were?’
‘It isn’t,’ I replied calmly. ‘It’s protection against me.’
Now I knew why I’d had trouble sensing his energy. Alex had literally hidden him from me.
‘Em, I’m only going to ask you once and I swear I won’t ask you again,’ Jackson said as he slid the opal ring back inside his shirt until it lay flush against his chest. ‘Is it at all possible that somehow, maybe against his will, the pack could be controlling Wyn?’
Meeting his eyes in the dark, I felt a shadow of doubt rise up, my scarred heart raked raw one more time.
‘It’s possible,’ I replied, hating myself as night fell all around us. ‘Anything is possible.’