Chapter Song: Wolves - Phosphorescent
XX
By the time the grey of morning washes through the window, I realize I've not really been asleep or awake for most of the night, but poised in some in-between state where the events of the evening stretched out for hours and hours behind my closed eyes. And in the stillness of the room, I catch Isaac in quiet conversation. The sound of his voice hooks sharp and painful in my heart, and the feelings that were so far away last night, that I couldn't bear to feel, come roaring back to me with a vengeance. Holding my breath to fight back the burn of tears, I open my eyes slightly to see Isaac slipping on a pair of jeans, his phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear.
"How did he get out?" His voice is cold, a little tired. "Well, one of you should have been watching him. I shouldn't have to micromanage you." He pauses, and I close my eyes when he turns toward me. "She's still asleep. Didn't sleep well." Another pause. "That's none of your fucking business. Where are you now?" He sighs and takes a breath. "Okay, I'll be there soon. Don't ask him any more questions until I get there."
Isaac mutters a curse beneath his breath and I listen to the shift of clothes as he finishes dressing. I can smell the leather of his jacket when he leans in to press a kiss to my forehead, and it takes everything in me to lie still until I hear the click of the door as he leaves. It wasn't an animal he was talking about—that conversation was about a person, one that "got out" before sunrise. Just what the hell is going on here? I can't help but think of the trespasser from the previous morning. Who else could they be keeping here—potentially against his will? I don't want to believe that Isaac is the kind of person to hold someone hostage. I don't want to believe that the person in bed with me last night was really him.
It's difficult to avoid the reality of this present moment as I make my way to the bathroom, feeling suddenly too naked in the cold room. The light in here is too bright, and the mirror reflects a body that seems foreign to me. The smear of blood on the insides of my thighs makes me grip the counter and lean forward, sucking in a breath as a wave of dizziness weakens my knees. I'd forgotten about the condom in the trashcan, and it's too late to avert my eyes now. It too is bloody—did he notice last night? Did he care or understand that he hurt me? Maybe those are two different things.
And still there's this awful fucking voice in my head that can't acknowledge it was Isaac. It's like those nights spent willing my mother back into existence. If I believe hard enough, if I force the memory away, maybe it didn't happen. Maybe the real Isaac is the one that whispers quiet confessions to me before we fall asleep. Maybe last night was an imposter, or maybe last night never happened. I clean the blood away and dress in leggings and a sweatshirt, one of his—any of my warm clothes are his. It's better to be covered up, even if I'm wearing something that smells like him. I'd never thought of nakedness as something threatening before, but now it feels like a strange secret I was previously unaware of.
When I make my way to the cafeteria, the school is mostly silent, but I can hear Isaac and Reiner's voices toward the front entrance. I fully understand the weight of what I'm doing when I make my way down the hall toward them. The thought of being seen by Isaac now is chilling in more ways than one. I don't want to see the look on his face, to know if he regrets what he did or not. I don't want him to see me in his sweatshirt and think he owns me. But most of all, I want to figure out just what it is he's doing so early in the morning, and who he's keeping here.
I watch Isaac and Reiner from the window as they make their way across the grassy lot toward the woods, and only when they've reached the treeline do I leave the shelter of the school. The wind is bitter this morning, the first bite of November working its way beneath the collar of my sweatshirt. I tuck my arms around myself and walk quickly through the grass, picking up their trail in the soft dirt beneath the trees. I can hear voices now, one belonging to Max and another that I don't recognize. It's a man's voice—young, by the sound of it—and it's begging Max to let him go in such a swift clip that I can barely make out his words.
"You don't get it," he tries, "I didn't mean to trespass, I did nothing wrong. I didn't even know there was a territory here. You've got to believe me, I don't know what it is you think I did."
"If you did nothing wrong, then why did you run?" Isaac's voice now. I stay far enough back that I can stay mostly obscured behind a tree, but I'm close enough to hear their voices, which means I'm close enough to be spotted if they look too carefully. If they have nothing to hide, then it won't matter. It's a stupid sentiment, though. I can feel in my gut the wrongness of the situation. We've had many wolves enter onto Rust Cove territory. We gave them a room, food, and a welcome until they were ready to move on. Why would Isaac feel the need to protect this land so aggressively unless there is something here I don't know about—that he doesn't want me to know about?
"You locked me in a fucking cage! Oh fuck, man, please," the man begs, crying now as Isaac comes closer to take his face in his hands. "Your buddy beat the shit out of me, did you know that? Why wouldn't I run?"
"Who sent you?"
"Jesus Christ, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Are you one of Paul's?"
"Who the hell is Paul?"
Isaac glances back at Reiner before leveling his gaze on the crying man again. "If you know what I'm talking about you better fucking say it now."
"I swear, I don't—"
It's all a strange and horrible blur. Isaac wrenches on his head and the man instinctively shifts to wolf to protect himself. But it's too quick, too brutal to complete, and there on the ground is something that I've never seen before, a man halfway contorted into a wolf with his head snapped horribly to the side. The silence is too oppressive, and I can't look away from that half-human face, jaw elongated and sprouting fangs with eyes sinking into the head. I feel the image searing onto my eyes, and then I'm on my hands and knees, retching into a bed of pine needles. When footsteps approach, I don't look up to see if my neck will be snapped next. I shiver when Isaac's hand slips across the back of shoulders, but then he pulls my hair away from my face and sinks to the ground next to me. I throw up again at the feeling of his hands trying to comfort me.
"You said she was asleep," Max says quietly. "Jesus, Isaac." It isn't a scolding tone, but one of knowing. Maybe he understands that I'm a liability now.
"Layla, what are you doing out here?"
I spit onto the ground and stand again, Isaac's arms coming around me as I step unsteadily back. "What are you doing?"
"He was trespassing. He was a threat to the pack."
"He was just a kid. How could you...how could you leave him like that?" It's unnatural, unholy, to let someone rest in that form. It doesn't matter what someone has done—that just isn't right. "I trespassed too. Are you going to kill me as well?"
"You know I'm not."
"Why?"
I dare to look up at him and his expression is strangely soft as he pulls me closer. But Isaac doesn't say anything.
"He has to have family somewhere. You at least have to tell his pack."
"Layla." Isaac cuts me off gently but firmly. "This is how we do things here. You don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it."
"That's bullshit," I manage, and I can feel Max and Reiner's eyes on me as I push against Isaac's chest. He lets me go and I stumble a few feet away.
Isaac looks at them and gives a nod. "Go back to the school. We'll follow you." I shift uneasily under the weigh of their gazes, and then they turn back the way they came. Only when they are out of earshot once again does Isaac speak. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"How many people have you killed?"
"I'm not a murderer, Layla. I have to protect the boundary."
"I understand how delicate pack boundaries are, and I know that isn't how they're protected."
"This place isn't like Rust Cove, okay? I told you I'm not your Prince Charming."
"I know." I don't expect the way the tears choke me so suddenly. "You're nothing like him."
"Hey," he says softly. "Don't cry. What's wrong?"
"What's—are you asking me that because you don't know, or because you want to hear me say it?"
He falls quiet, searching my face, but I can't stand to look at him. The way he's looking at me right now—that isn't the way someone looks after they've killed someone. It isn't the way I expect him to look at me after last night. "If I did something—"
"Yes you did something!" I pull away from him when he reaches for me, a sudden thrill of fear making me keep my distance. "Last night I told you to stop, Isaac. I tried...I tried to push you away, I told you no." And you didn't listen, I want to say, but my words have run out. I hold myself tightly and stare at the ground, sucking in a breath as a sob threatens. "I woke up with blood on me, and you don't even care that you did that. And then to find you here..."
"Layla..."
"Don't touch me!"
"Hey!" He catches my arm, and when he pulls me to him I can feel pain splintering up my shoulder from my still-healing wounds. "Shit Layla, aren't you going to talk to me before you freak out?"
"I'm not freaking out," I manage. "I'm angry, and I'm hurt."
"I'm sorry I hurt you."
"I don't think you are." I relax in his grip and let him hold me closer, threading his fingers through my hair. I don't understand how his face can transform from the way he looked last night, to this.
"Let's just talk this out, okay?"
"I don't want to talk this out! You knew exactly what you were doing, didn't you? Why..."
"I got carried away, and Layla, I'm so fucking sorry—you don't know how sorry I am." His face looks sorry, his words are sorry, and still all I can see is the way he stared through me last night. "Sometimes things get intense with us, and I didn't think you really meant it when you told me to stop—you like it when I take control."
"I didn't like that, and you know I didn't—I'm not fucking stupid, Isaac."
"I know you're not, I know." I don't expect the panic in his eyes. "God Layla, I'm crazy about you and I'm not used to feeling that way. I'm not good with people, you know I'm not, and I assumed that it would be okay and it wasn't."
"I don't believe you. And even if that's all true do you think it makes it okay?"
"Of course not. I really, really fucked up." When his arms wrap around me, I still find the feeling of my face pressed into his chest to be too comforting. His hands stroke up my back and he kisses my hair, and I realize now how hard his heart is beating. Is he scared that I'll leave him? But I have an aching feeling in my stomach, like it wouldn't be as easy to leave him as I think. Maybe he's afraid that I'll push him and the cold, domineering Isaac will be back—the one that held me down by my neck. "Please just give me a chance to make it up to you."
I don't speak for a long moment. I think of how he looked at me, how it felt for the safety he embodied to turn bitter and horrible and unreal. I think of the distorted face of the dead man lying some forty feet away. "Okay," I whisper, and I pray that he won't hear just how little I mean that word. I've pushed too far in the past, led myself into danger, and I won't make the same mistake this time. I'll leave before he has a chance to hurt me worse than he already has. Before I have to see what he's actually capable of. "I want to sleep on my own tonight."
He's quiet, his hands still on my shoulders. "Come on, Layla..."
"If you mean a single word of what you just said then you won't push me on this."
These are the right words. He kisses me, hard, and I let him, and then his hands fall away from me. "Okay. You can stay in your old room again." Like he's granting me permission, like it's a privilege to sleep apart from him, an exception to a rule. "Let's get back to the school now—you look like you're freezing."
It isn't the cold that makes me shiver, but this feeling coursing through my body, this realization that I am about to be alone and desperate all over again. It's the knowledge that I was so willing to give myself to Isaac and that I'd been so blind to who he really is—that in the end it meant nothing at all. There's a part of me that longs to lean into Isaac's words and give him another chance. I want to turn back time when I felt so free to cave to him and give him control over my body, my life. I really have become pathetic—maybe I always was, and losing my family, Cam, and the pack exposed that part of myself. Maybe if I wasn't quite as full of myself I'd accept the love that Isaac has to offer. And I think he does love me, in his own way. Stop it, Layla, stop it.
I'll leave tomorrow. I've made my decision, and no matter what excuses my aching fucking heart has to offer, I'm not turning back.
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An extra update for you lovely people <3