Chapter 23 #2
“I’m fine,” I said firmly.
“You’re fine? You have claw marks down your face!”
I expected him to yank me out of the rover, but he simply steadied me as I hopped down. He continued ranting and insisting Sable examine me, and eventually, I caved and agreed, hoping it’d make him shut up.
I glanced up at Mac as we headed back to the clinic. “See you later?”
“I’ll come by after I get things sorted with Lana and Nemo,” he promised.
“Good,” I replied mentally, and he smiled.
Sam was at the other rover talking to Raven and Griz, but his worried eyes followed me. I gave him a little wave, trying to convey I was okay. I let Wolf lead me away, and Lee and Scar joined us, demanding to know what happened. So I explained it again.
Wolf muttered something I didn’t catch. He was still holding my arm but was more supportive than forceful. My back ached in a way that made me feel slightly nauseous. When we arrived at the clinic, Sable, Tuck, and Kai sat on the porch. They stood as we neared, their eyes narrowing on my face.
“I’m fine,” I repeated for the third time, annoyed.
“Sable, can you—” Wolf started.
“Of course,” Sable interrupted him.
All of them followed us into the clinic.
I tried to insist on standing but was bullied into sitting in the damn exam chair.
Sable scrutinized the scratches, even pulling out a special pair of glasses that magnified his eyes and made him look like a giant owl so he could check to ensure no dirt or foreign substances were lodged in the cuts.
He was a good healer, thorough and gentle, which made me even more uneasy around him. Why the fuck was that?
“Does anything else hurt?” he asked after picking a few things out of the cuts with tweezers.
My back twinged, but I ignored it. “Nope.”
He started cleaning up the supplies he’d used, and I slid out of the chair, realizing I was alone with Wolf and his entire crew for the first time since the cabin.
The urge to flee to the loft swelled, but I was tired of hiding upstairs in my own clinic.
All of them were looking at me, though, and I desperately needed something to do, so I turned and went back to my old failsafe, re-organizing the damn tincture bottles.
After a while, they stopped standing there staring at me. Kai moved to help Sable clean up. Wolf sat in a chair and started taking apart his gun. Tuck and Scar went back outside, and Lee appeared at my side.
“You want help?” he asked, grinning.
“No,” I muttered.
“How are you plannin’ on reaching the ones on the top shelf?” He leaned on the hutch, crossing his arms.
“I stand on a chair.”
“Or you could take advantage of havin’ someone with longer arms,” he countered, reaching up to pluck a bottle off the top shelf and waving it at me.
Gods, this was way too familiar.
“Fine,” I said, the word coming out shorter than I meant.
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment as he pulled the bottles off the top shelf for me. He even got a rag and dusted it, and I tried not to think about the last time I organized the hutch while my body hurt and Trey tried to get me to sit after Pike and Dale?—
I shoved that memory away where it could fester somewhere quietly.
“What sort of sickness did Lana have?” Sable asked after he finished cleaning up.
I glanced over at him to see him leaning against the counter. Kai stood beside him, his arm wrapped around Sable’s waist as he gently kissed his temple. I quickly looked away, my heart aching.
“The same one that hit the hold last fall.”
“Fever?” Sable asked.
“Yeah.”
“You have a problem with us, Ember?”
Kai’s sharp voice startled me, and I turned around to see him staring at me with a fierce expression.
“What?”
“Kai,” Sable murmured, but Kai ignored him.
“Do you have a problem with me and Sable bein’ together?” he asked.
I glanced at Wolf, bewildered, but Wolf was also looking at me sharply.
“No?” I got out, confused.
“Why do you keep avoidin’ us, then?” Kai pushed. “Lookin’ away like you can’t stand to see us?”
Oh.
“I know what sorta bullshit Carth shoved down your throats,” Kai continued. “About what kinda people can be together?—”
“No,” I interrupted him, guilt and pain twisting together in my chest. “No, I don’t believe in that shit.”
All of them silently stared at me, waiting.
“It’s just… hard… hard to…” I swallowed and turned back around to the hutch. Maybe if I didn’t look at them, it’d be easier. “Seeing the two of you makes me miss my… my…” I fiddled nervously with the label on a bottle, my eyes welling up. “My person.”
I sensed the energy in the room change, but I didn’t turn back around.
“I’m sorry.”
Kai’s low apology startled me enough to glance back. I’d half expected him to make a joke or be an ass, but his expression was solemn.
“I shouldn’t have assumed,” he added, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“I don’t think Ember ever did anything the way Carth wanted her to.” Wolf’s voice was quiet but heavy.
I met his gaze, and the emotion there made my stomach flip nervously. I wasn’t entirely sure what emotion I was looking at on his face, but he paused, and all of me went still and quiet, waiting to see what he was debating telling me.
“Just a few days before… Dune,” he faltered slightly, “one of the Arbiters came by and told me if I didn’t make you fall in line, they would do it for me.”
Do it for him? “What does that mean?” I whispered.
“Probably some sort of public humiliation. Maybe a caning. If that didn’t work, they would have taken you away from me so they could fully break you.”
His tone was so steady—like he was talking about the weather.
I stood frozen in place, staring at him as my mind raced.
The Ministry had always scared me, especially the enforcers in their black robes and faceless masks, and I’d tried to avoid them as much as possible.
I didn’t remember a kid ever getting in trouble like that before.
I had vague memories of adults chained on their knees to a platform, a scroll or something around their neck for everyone to read their transgressions.
Wolf never let me go near them, and I’d never seen a caning.
I’d never heard of a kid being taken away, either. Where would they be taken?
“They took kids?” I heard myself say.
“Yes,” Wolf said, holding my gaze with unwavering focus. “If the parents were unfit or noncompliant, they took them, and then they sterilized both parents so they couldn’t have more children.”
The edge of the bottle I held was digging into my palm, but I couldn’t move. Sterilized? His entire pack was quiet and watching, but none of them looked surprised, so they’d obviously heard this before.
“They made a special exception for me,” Wolf continued, his voice flat. “The Ministry, in their infinite wisdom, deemed me unfit to ever have offspring and sterilized me before they sent me out lookin’ for you.”
I scanned everyone’s faces, trying to figure out if this was some sort of trick or manipulation to get me to do something. But they just stared back at me, their faces grave.
“Why?” I got out. “Why you? What about Pa?”
“When I begged Pa not to give you to the Lopez family, Pa made it clear you were my responsibility in every way, Ember.”
I couldn’t breathe. Wolf had been eight when he became my caregiver, then eighteen— eighteen years old —when they took his choice to ever have children.
“Lopez?” I repeated numbly. I remembered a row of little girls, their hair in neat braids, frowning at me when I raced past them with Dune.
“Mrs. Lopez had a stillborn a few months earlier. She wanted to take you, but I…” he roughly cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
My hands were shaking. “Why are you tellin’ me this?”
He took a slow, deep breath and then said the last thing I was expecting.
“I don’t know.” He paused. “Because it’s the truth?
Because when I said you had to talk to me, I didn’t mean you had to do all the talking?
Because I wanted you to know? Because you said you don’t trust me, and I’m tryin’ to be honest? ”
“Because you’re tryin’ to trick me into something again?” I couldn’t help adding.
He winced. “No. I’m not tryin’ to trick you again.”
“Told you that would bite you in the ass,” Sable muttered. He smiled at Wolf when Wolf glanced at him, but Wolf didn’t return it.
“Yeah, well, you’re usually right,” Wolf said, and the pain in his voice startled me.
I didn’t understand the tension that filled the room. Sable and Wolf held each other’s gazes and watching them made me feel like I was intruding on something private.
“Wolf,” Sable finally murmured. “We’re movin’ forward, remember?”
“I know,” Wolf replied. “I’ll just always wish I would’ve listened to you a lot sooner.”
I glanced around at the others. Kai was looking at the floor, his jaw tight.
Tuck and Scar leaned against the wall, quietly watching Wolf.
Lee was looking at Wolf as well, but with an intense focus that made me look closer.
His hands clenched at his sides and then released.
I thought he’d been joking about flirting with Wolf, but it felt like the room was full of tangled emotion.
I turned around and went back to dusting the shelf, my mind whirling.
I wanted to know more about Wolf’s relationship with his crew and about Carth, but at the same time, I felt like I needed to be in a quiet, dark room to process what I’d just been told.
Pa’s face rose in my mind, dragging with it the pain and hurt.
What was he doing right now? Did he look like an old man?
Was he still on the council? How could he let Wolf go through all of that?
Wolf had to grow up even earlier than I did. My throat constricted. Sterilized.
Lee bumped me lightly with his hip. “Where do you want these vials?”
I directed him where to put them, and he went back to teasing me like nothing had happened.
I wanted to throw something at him, but I also realized my hands had stopped trembling.
It was almost more annoying that he could distract me so easily.
I wondered if he told Wolf or anyone in his crew about how I broke down in tears in the alley earlier.
His hand landed on the small of my back, and I met his eyes.
“You okay?” he asked, low.
Godsdamnit, he was attractive. My eyes flicked to his lips before I could help myself, and they curled into a smirk.
I think about kissin’ that smartass mouth of yours far too often.
Before I could answer him, the door opened to reveal Sam. My relief quickly died at the look on his face.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, his voice tight.
My stomach sank as I followed Sam outside to stand under the apple tree where we’d been just this morning, talking about Clarity and Dune. He ran a hand through his short hair and met my gaze, and the hurt and anger on his face made my breath catch.
“You were so angry at me for keepin’ Clarity a secret, but you and Mac were keepin’ secrets, too?”
He phrased it like a question as if hoping I would tell him he’d misunderstood.
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling like absolute shit.
His jaw flexed as he stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “I should’ve told you.”
“Yes, you damn well should’ve. This trust thing has to go both ways. You can’t demand honesty and not give it in return.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated helplessly.
“I get why you were scared, but were you really scared of me? Did you think I would hurt Mac with that knowledge?”
“No,” I mumbled. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.” The raw hurt on his face was too much, so I looked at the ground.
“I just… everything is changing. I feel so out of control, and… keepin it to myself… kinda helps. I’m so…
so scared of what will happen to him and Clarity if…
” What had Sam called him? “...if the Mental Menace finds out. It wasn’t you . ”
He sighed, then stepped forward and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Sam,” I said into his shoulder.
“It’s alright,” he murmured, resting his chin on my head. “I get it… it just… still hurts.”
“I swear I’m trying,” I said, miserably desperate for him to understand. “I swear, Sam, I’m just?—”
“No, I know you are,” he interrupted, his voice firm. “I know you are, Emmy.”
He pulled back but took my face in his hands, tilting it up so he could examine the scratch marks Lana had given me.
“So Lana is still as delightful as ever,” he said with a hint of his dry humor.
“Will you forgive me?” I blurted out.
He blinked, surprise in his eyes. “Of course I forgive you.”
Relief made me feel shaky, and whatever expression was on my face softened his eyes. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“You know I’ll always love you,” he smiled at me when he pulled back. “I don’t make pinky promises with just anyone.”
“I love you, too,” the hoarse words tumbled out of my mouth.
Emotion filled his face, and I remembered how he’d teased me in the horse pasture. You’ll admit that you love me one of these days. I tried to brace myself for a big reaction, but thankfully, he just gave me a crooked grin and slung an arm around my shoulders.
“Of course you do,” Sam said, and the words were flippant, but his eyes stayed soft. “I’m lovable as fuck.”