“That’s Shifter politics. A Pack member doesn’t question the Pack Leader. Ever.”
“And if the Pack Leader is wrong?”
“Worst case scenario? People die.”
Crawling back onto the ground and burying my face in the mud for the rest of eternity was an appealing prospect. “Jase, I can’t do this. I can’t decide what I want for lunch half the time. How am I supposed to make choices when the wrong one might end up with you dead?” Even with the problems between Jase and me, the thought of him still and lifeless was unbearable. “What if they come for Talley and take her away? How will I be able to live with myself then?”
“You’re seventeen years old,” Jase said. “You’ve been a Shifter for all of two days, and yet I swore my allegiance to you over Toby. Want to know why?”
“Because you’re certifiable?”
A smile I hadn’t realized I missed until it spread across Jase’s face wormed its way into my heart. “Because I know you’ll always do the right thing. You’re like some crazy do-right robot. The moment someone so much as suggests doing something different you’re all ‘Does not compute. Does not compute.’”
I laughed at his sad attempt at a robotic voice, but the sound was hollow. My eyes skirted to the felled log to my right. I wanted to be the girl Jase was talking about, but I wasn’t. I was all too familiar with making the wrong choices, with the consequences of those choices.
“I’ll tell Talley to go back to Toby.”
“Good,” Jase said, then dropped his head with a sigh. “No, don’t. You were right the first time. It should be her choice. She’ll never forgive us if we send her away.”
I looped my arm through his and rested my head on his shoulder. “She’ll understand we’re just trying to protect her.”
“Sometimes when you try too hard to protect the people you care about, you end up hurting them instead.”
“Jase—”
“No. Let me say this.” He pulled away from me, turning so we were face to face. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Seeing you lying in the hospital bed, knowing I did that to you…” Tears clung to his dark eyelashes. “I’ve never hated anything as much I hated myself for hurting you.”
“It was the coyote, not you,” I said, grabbing his hand. It broke my heart to see him so shattered. He was Jase. Strong, confident, annoyingly arrogant Jase. He should never look like that. Guilt sat heavy in my stomach from the knowledge that I had let him suffer for weeks out my own selfishness. “I didn’t understand before, but now I do. What our animals do, it’s uncontrolled. Unpredictable.”
“God, if only I could use that excuse.” He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his free hand. “But Coyote Jase and Human Jase merged into Jase the Screw-Up a long time ago.”
That could happen? The wolf and I could merge? I couldn’t even fathom what that would mean.
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” I said, leaving out the other half of that statement, the half that acknowledged what he had intended. That half would take much longer for me to forgive. “I should have said so earlier, I was just so—”
“Do you hear that?” Jase bounced up, tugging me with him. “Charlie and Tal are probably ready to send out a search party. We should go.”
“Jase—”
“Talley is probably frantic. You know how she gets.” He flashed another classic Jase smile, tinted with mischief and arrogance. “Ready to see how fast you can run, Pack Leader?”
I needed to say my apologies, but it was clear he wasn’t hearing them, so instead I got into position. “Ready…”
“Set…”
“Go!” we screamed in unison before streaking across the forest floor.
***
“Why don’t we all just agree it was a tie and move on with our lives?” Talley peeled what appeared to be a hundred year old gym sock off the ground and added it to the pile of limbs and other debris she and Charlie gathered up off the lawn. Somehow I forgot Dad’s decree that today we were supposed to do yard work while I was traipsing through the woods.
“Because I won,” I said between pants. The run had been long and hard. Not only were we both injured, but between bad thunderstorms and the Ice Apocalypse a few winters back, there seemed to be more limbs on the ground than in the trees. There was an intense amount of jumping and dodging.
I loved every single moment of it.
“No, you didn’t.” Jase was lying flat on his back in the middle of the grass. “I crossed into the yard first.”
“But I reached Talley first. That was the finish line.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was.”
Talley leaned against the porch where Charlie seemed to be taking a stare-off-into-space break. “Remember two days ago when they weren’t speaking to each other? I’m already missing that.”
“It certainly was quieter,” Charlie agreed, a response that got him a hand gesture form Jase while I showed my feelings on the matter by extending my tongue in Talley’s direction.
“Were you running full speed?” Charlie asked, his question clearly aimed at Jase since he refused to look in my direction.
“No. I’m breathing like a freaking freight train as I lie on the ground dying because I held back.”
“And she still beat you.”
“I crossed into the yard first!”
Charlie focused his attention on rolling a blade of grass between his fingers. “That’s impressive for just after your first Change. Usually it takes a couple of times for your body to adjust and reach its full potential.”
Talley raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Maybe she hasn’t reached her full potential.”
“Or maybe it’s because I could’ve outrun Jase before I got super-powers,” I added helpfully.
Jase rose up on his elbows, leveling us all with a cool green stare. “I crossed into the yard first,” he said, carefully enunciating each word.
“Seriously, there is no way to to know what it is Scout might grow into,” Talley said, turning around, which resulted in her back receiving the full brunt of Jase’s glare. “Fate obviously has special plans for her. She wouldn’t have Changed otherwise.”