Chapter 11 #2
"Oh, I hear you loud and clear. You're once again saying you think I'm like her.
" Her eyes went bright with tears she was clearly furious about, her chin wobbling before she clenched her jaw to still it.
"After everything. After I turned on her in front of everyone.
After I've spent three months doing everything I could think of to prove—" Her voice broke.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, and the tears spilled over despite her fight to hold them back.
He should stop. He wanted to cross the room and take it back and hold her until she stopped shaking. But his feet had rooted to the floor and his throat had closed around any words that might fix this, and all he could do was watch her cry and hate himself for causing it.
"I believed you." She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, an angry gesture, like the tears were a betrayal.
"When you said you wanted me. When you held me like I mattered.
I actually believed—" A sob escaped before she could swallow it, and she turned her face away. "Goddess. I'm such an idiot."
"You're not—"
"Don't. It’s too late. You let your truth out and you can’t take that back now.
" She held up a hand, still not looking at him.
Her shoulders shook with the effort of pulling herself together, and when she finally turned back, her expression had changed.
The hurt was still there, but something else was settling over it. Something harder. Colder.
The armor going up. And this time, he had a feeling he would be on the outside of it forever.
"Get out." Her voice was steady now. Flat. The tears still tracked down her cheeks, but she wasn't crying anymore. Just leaking the aftermath of what he'd broken. "Go run your security checks. Go tell yourself whatever bullshit story makes this okay."
"Willow—"
"I said get out."
He stepped back. Toward the door. The distance hurt more than he'd expected, but he didn't stop.
He stopped there for one more moment, his hand on the doorframe. Her face was wet, her eyes red-rimmed, and she was looking at him like he'd taken something precious and ground it under his boot.
It was the look of someone realizing they'd been a fool to hope.
"I'm sorry," he said. The words were pathetic. Useless. He said them anyway.
She didn't answer. Just pulled the quilt tighter and turned her face to the window, giving him her profile instead of her eyes. Dismissing him.
He left.
The cold hit him the moment he stepped outside, biting through his damp clothes. Morning fog hung thick over the coastline, turning the path to grey nothing ten feet in any direction. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked.
The poker chip was there. The one steady thing he had left. He turned it between his fingers and didn't let himself think.
The distillery materialized out of the fog twenty minutes later. Grey cedar siding with copper accents gone green with age. He let himself in through the side door, hoping to slip through to the office without—
"Where the hell have you been?"
Cal's voice hit him before he'd made it three steps. The scarred wolf was leaning against the doorframe to the brewing floor, arms crossed, expression caught between relief and irritation.
"Got caught in the storm." Ryker kept walking. "Willow and I had to wait it out."
"Wait it out where? Why weren’t you answering your cell? We had search parties ready to go. Gray was about to—" Cal pushed off the doorframe and followed. "Eighteen hours, Ryker. No one could reach you. The whole morning security sweep happened without you."
Cal’s questioning bit at his already frayed nerves, making him bristle. It was nobody’s business what he and Willow had been up to. The less they knew the better. "I'll handle it."
"You'll handle it." Cal fell into step beside him. "That's it? You disappear all night, show up looking like—" He stopped. Studied Ryker's face in the dim hallway light. "What's going on with you?"
"Nothing. Storm hit, we found shelter, we waited. End of story."
They reached the office. Ryker pushed the door open, hoping Cal would take the hint and leave. He didn't.
"You're not okay." Cal's voice had shifted. Less irritation, more concern. "Something happened out there."
"Yeah, at the cove. We found shells, some kind of boundary markers. Willow thinks whatever's in the water is protecting something. I'll brief Gray later."
"I'm not talking about the cove."
Ryker sank onto the leather couch, suddenly exhausted. The cold from his still damp clothes seeped into the leather, and he didn't care. He stared at the far wall and felt Cal watching him.
"Ryker." Cal moved into the doorway, blocking the exit. Not threatening — just present. Refusing to be ignored. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Bullshit. I've known you for a long time. You look like someone died." A pause. "Did something happen with Willow?"
He flinched before he could stop it. Cal's expression changed, the concern deepening into something warier.
"What did you do?"
The question hung in the air. Ryker turned the poker chip between his fingers, the familiar motion doing nothing to steady him.
"Only what I had to."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Ryker didn't answer. Just kept turning the chip, staring at the far wall.
Cal stood there for a long moment, waiting. When it became clear he wasn't getting anything else, he stepped back from the doorway.
"Gray's going to want that briefing on the cove. Get yourself together."
The door closed behind him.
Ryker sat in the unlit room, while the fog pressed against the windows and the memory of her face refused to fade. Wet with tears. Jaw clenched. Armor slamming into place.
She'll be fine, he told himself. It's better this way.
He'd done what he had to. The right thing for the pack.
He was going to keep telling himself that until he believed it.