Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 24: just be

When he woke next day, Matt's mind was gone. It was gone when he watched the security monitors at work, gone when Joe sent an elbow into his back and said, "What are you doing? That's a car jacking!"

Gone when they ran out to confront the men, who'd bashed in the driver-side window of an old pickup with a socket wrench and the strength of too much tequila.

Gone when the wrench hit him. Gone when the police came, gone when he arrived at Quentin's house without a recollection of the drive.

Gone even, when Jaylin put a bag of ice in his hands and coaxed him to hold it to the ugly gash on his brow.

Gone when he looked him in the eye and said, "Matt, what's wrong? What's really wrong?"

And then suddenly, Matt was there. Terribly, terribly there.

His own heart tore at his chest, an imperiled beast mauling him between the ribs. Suddenly he missed his sad ways, the lonely gnawing feeling that used to grumble in his ribs at night. He missed not knowing what it felt like to care about someone so much, the thought of letting them go set his chest on fire.

He searched for Quentin through the kitchen window, finding him hunched over the stove, preparing a meal over a hot pan. Jay and Bronx were gonna be together forever. They'd be together forever and it wasn't fuckin' fair.

"If leavin' you was the only thing that'd make him happy, would you be okay with it?" Matt asked.

Jaylin hesitated, turned his eyes Quentin for a brief, considerate moment. "I wouldn't be okay with it...I think I'd just be."

"Be?"

"Without him and not okay," Jaylin said. "But I think that's what love is. Giving up the things you want to make someone else happy."

Something shattered in the kitchen. Jaylin rose from his chair. "Quentin?"

"I've got it," Quentin called back. Through the kitchen window, he was kneeling, picking up all the shattered pieces of a measuring glass.

There was a bothered look in his eyes as Jay slid back in his seat. He crossed his arms over the table and leaned forward to speak in a way that only Matt could hear. "He's been like this since the night you saved Bailey."

"You mean the night I killed three people."

"I mean the night you saved Bailey. And not just Bailey, you know—all the rogues that belonged to those den leaders."

"I didn't save him," Matt said, taking the ice off his face. Blood wet the plastic. "I didn't get there soon enough."

"Because he can't turn?" Jaylin asked. "I dunno, Matt. Maybe it won't be so bad. He's free from the authority of packs and the rogues aren't interested in humans, so he doesn't have to worry about dens anymore. Bailey hates being controlled, right? He doesn't have to be now."

Matt pressed the ice to his head and watched the candle in the center of the table lick high and low. It wasn't the inability to turn that was killing Bailey Walters, and Matt knew it. He hated that he knew it. "You sound like Tisper. A walking, breathing, shittin' greeting card."

"Hey."

"I'm sorry," Matt said, cradling his head. "It's just...you don't get it, Jay. I—"

Another clatter came from the kitchen, this one with the hiss of hot, sloshing liquid. The gnashed, pained sound, the stink of burned skin. This time Jay did leave the table, and Matt watched through the window as he shoved Quentin's oil-fried hand beneath cold water. Held his face while the water ran and said something too soft for Matt to hear.