Page 35 of A Wolf’s Wound
Ryder
“Ryder?” Hannah asks softly. “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head, willing myself to stop trying to hear that voice again. Much to my disappointment, it faded almost as soon as I realized it was a memory.
“Everything’s okay,” I tell Hannah. I look at the concerned faces of my parents and brothers and say it again. “Everything’s okay. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”
“You know that’s not true,” Gavin says quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We need to talk.”
I follow him to a quiet part of the lawn, just outside one of the outdoor lights. “What is it?” I ask him.
“What happened to you in the house?” Gavin asks instead. “You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“No, but maybe I heard one.” I sigh. “For just a couple of seconds I heard this voice. I know I recognized it, but I don’t know from where or who it actually was. It’s driving me crazy.”
Gavin studies me for a few long seconds. “This is all taking a huge toll on you,” he says. “I didn’t realize just how big it was.”
“I’m better now that Hannah’s out here,” I say. “Which reminds me, I should get her set up for the night. I know Mom wants Hannah to stay in the main house with her, but I think she and Shadow will be safer in one of the smaller houses. That’ll be easier to secure and guard too.”
“Before you do that, I wanted to let you know that I’m going to send out some feelers about those other bodies.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
“And I also want to remind you that you are not, under any circumstances, going to do anything to provoke this person who’s after you.”
I bristle. “Why not?”
“Because that would be dangerous and stupid,” Gavin says.
“Not if I do it knowingly,” I argue. “Drawing this person out is the only way we’ll stop the killings, Gavin.”
“It’s not the only way,” he shoots back. “You could let the rest of the pack do our jobs, Ryder. Send out feelers, ask around, keep monitoring the areas where he’s attacked before. Those are also ways to stop all this.”
“But that could take days or weeks,” I protest. “Come on. We know that this person—or wolf, or whatever—is after me. Everyone else is just collateral damage.”
“And what do you think will happen if you try to draw him out and fail? Then you’re dead, Ryder. Or Hannah, or whoever happens to be standing next to you at the time.”
“I won’t let anyone else get hurt,” I spit out between gritted teeth.
“You can’t guarantee that!” Gavin says, his voice rising slightly.
“No, but I’m almost certain that the longer we let this person keep playing this fucked-up game with me, the more people will die. Do you want their blood on your hands?”
“Cut the dramatics, Ryder,” Gavin hisses back. “Do you really think that going the provocation route is going to be any less dangerous?”
“No, but it will be quicker!”
“Not necessarily,” Gavin says. “As best as I can tell, these deaths and those notes are happening on this person’s timetable, not yours. And certainly not mine. Trying to provoke him could just drive him back underground and make him string us all along for longer.”
Gavin has a point, but I’ll be damned if I tell him that. The idea of just waiting around for someone to come after me or Hannah is so frustrating, I want to punch something. Instead, I settle for digging deeper into this argument.
“If I can provoke him, the pack will know. Right?” I ask.
“Only if you keep us up to date, something you haven’t been great at.”
“I knew you were still pissed about that!”
“You’re right!”
“Okay, fine! I fucked up and I should have told you guys sooner. Happy now that I admitted it?”
“Oh, yeah, thrilled,” Gavin says sarcastically.
“So okay, the pack will know. The pack will know every damn thing.”
“And no, I’m still not going to sign off on this crazy idea!” Gavin says. “I don’t care if you skywrite ‘I’m Provoking You’ over Stonehaven to keep everyone in the goddamn loop. I don’t like this idea, Ryder.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that clear. But if I can pull this person into the open and the pack can trap him, we’re done with all of this, Gavin. Don’t you want that?”
“Don’t you ever question my loyalty to our pack,” Gavin says hotly.
“I wasn’t doing that!”
“Not explicitly, but with all of your talk about finishing this quickly as opposed to finishing it smartly, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“No, that’s what you’re hearing,” I shoot back. “And hey, if that’s because you feel guilty that we haven’t found this person yet, that’s all you.”
“I don’t feel guilty about anything,” Gavin growls. “I haven’t been withholding information. I haven’t been receiving mysterious notes that point to something I did as the cause of all of this.”
Stung, I step back. “That’s a low blow, Gavin.”
“So is implying that I don’t care, Ryder. I am the alpha of this pack! How dare you question my loyalty and commitment?”
“And I’m the beta! How do you think it feels to know I have to follow your lead when, yeah, my mistake is killing people!”
“Maybe you should have thought of that back when you were out drinking every night and fighting anyone who looked at you funny!”
“You think I haven’t thought of that? That I haven’t been blaming myself every minute since I got that first fucking note?” I cry, my hands clenching into fists.
“I don’t care what you’ve been thinking about!” Gavin yells back, his hands also balled up. “This is my pack you’re fucking with, Ryder. You are all my responsibility, and I can’t keep any of you safe right now. Or anyone else! Do you know how frustrating that is?”
“I have some idea,” I spit out, advancing toward Gavin until I’m close enough to smell his sweat. “Because you might be taking on responsibility for the pack, and yeah, I’m sure that’s tough. I feel for you, brother. Because I’m taking on responsibility for Hannah.”
“That’s hardly the same,” Gavin snarls. “You haven’t even known her a month. You barely know her. I have my son to protect, Ryder. My blood.”
“I know Hannah well enough,” I hiss. “I know that I need to protect her just as fiercely as you need to protect Cody.”
“If you actually believe that, then act like it,” Gavin says. “Don’t rush out there with some idiotic plan about luring this beast out into the open. Don’t provoke a killer. They can’t be reasoned with.”
“I’m not planning on reasoning with him. I’m planning on killing him.”
“Be careful,” Gavin warns. “Don’t take the idea of killing someone lightly.”
“Whoever this is, I hate him,” I say flatly. “I’ve seen what he’s done. I would enjoy killing him the exact same way he’s killed so many others.”
“Don’t go down that path, brother,” Gavin says, his voice softening a little. “You kill someone, you can never take that back.”
“I know that.” I shake my head, remembering the last body that I saw, the one with the note near it. That fucking taunting note. “This isn’t something I’d ever want to take back. I’d never regret killing this bastard.”
“Are you sure?” a voice behind me asks. I whirl around and see Hannah standing there, her face stricken. I wonder how long she’s been there and how much of our conversation she heard.
“Would you really kill someone, Ryder?” she asks with fear in her eyes.
Shit.