It only took me....7 months to update! Thank you guys for waiting <3 I'm getting back into the groove of writing. Please be patient with me while I find my writing voice again – it may be rocky for a bit.
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Chapter Song: Gum - Moose Blood
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I try not stare at him, afraid that he'll meet my eye, or afraid that he won't.
I think he knows exactly what sort of coward I am. I think he knows how close I came to giving up.
Fuck him for being able to see through me as he always does. Fuck me for caring.
And then I realize that I've been looking at him while we've trudged through the still, snowy night, and that Jack can't even bring himself to look back at me.
"I can smell blood on you." The tightness in his voice is unbearable. You can't even protect yourself, why would you think you could protect anyone else? Protect him? He doesn't need me to worry about him; he doesn't need me.
"I'm fine. Marney fixed me up."
"You don't look fine."
And suddenly I find that my words have run dry, so I look ahead as we reach the St. Croix lodge. Twin lights on either side of the double doors illuminate dim orange orbs in the air shattered by softly drifting snow. Jack opens the door and lets us file inside one by one before slipping in after.
"This way." Jack turns down a hallway to where two men, who I recognize from Dean's posse, are guarding a door. They open it to allow us inside, and I find that I can't breathe. Jack and Marney enter first, and then I step in after and let my eyes wander almost unseeing over the bloody, naked form hunched against the wall.
"Okay," Jack says, and his voice is a little different, an edge to it I've only ever heard him use with Isaac. "Talk. Now."
"Not to you," comes the ragged voice, and the sound of it instantly brings to mind those words, keep moving, as he dragged me back to Isaac for the last time. Max is staring fiercely at me, and I meet his gaze not because I want to, but because I am suddenly frozen as I look at him. His chest is shuddering, blood soaking through the blanket thrown over his shoulders. But his right leg is the worst, slick with blood, chewed flesh gaping obscenely up his calf and thigh, barely even distinguishable as a human limb. They are distinctly the wounds of a leg hold trap on an unsuspecting wolf. I glance quickly up to Jack, but I don't have a chance to speak.
"Yes, to me. You wanted her here, she's here. And you're lucky she's given you that much."
Max is suddenly quiet, but he's staring at me like he's never looked at me before in all the time I've known him. "Layla—"
"Listen," Jack cuts in sharply. "Start talking and Marney will clean you up. That trap cut into your bone—do you think you'll survive the night without help?"
"It's okay," I say suddenly, my words surprising even me. Jack looks quickly at me, and the darkness on his face makes it hard to speak. I don't think the anger there is for me, but it stuns me all the same. It's hard to reckon with his potential to be terrifying. "Just let me talk to him."
Jack touches my elbow and leans in a little closer, and I wish now that he would look away from me again. "Layla, this could all be part of his plan."
"It's not."
"Why do you think you know that?" His voice is tired, tight. Angry.
"Trust me," I say, and I wish my voice had a little more strength to it. "Please."
His gaze softens, and I don't miss the way his fingers squeeze my arm slightly before dropping away. "We'll be right outside. If he tries anything..."
"Don't worry. I want to hear what he has to say."
He gives me a last long look before motioning to Marney to follow him out of the room. After the click of the door, there is only silence, Max staring at me while I stare back.
"So," I whisper, and I don't try to pretend strength for him. He already knows what I am. "Talk."
"You smell like his blood."
"He escaped, if that's what you want to know."
"It doesn't matter."
"Because he left you here to die. What happened to you, anyway?"
"Leghold. Isn't it obvious?"
"It's fitting, is what it is. After Sam..." I grit my jaw, aware of the tears that prick my eyes. "You deserve to suffer. Did you want to talk to me because you thought I'd feel bad for you?"
"No. I knew only you would believe what I had to say."
"And what is that, exactly?"
"I want to make a deal with you first."
"Oh, Max." I swallow and look back at the door, suddenly wishing that Jack and Marney were still by my side. "You have no idea how little patience I have for you right now."
"I can give you answers."
"About what, exactly?"
"Paul. Whatever you want to know. I'll tell you anything, Layla, but I need you to promise St. Croix's protection."
I hesitate at this and glance at the door again. "I can't promise you anything."
"You're his match aren't you?"
"That doesn't mean anything."
"Well you better suck up to him, if you want to hear what I have to say."
"You know," I begin, voice gaining a little more reassuring venom. "I don't believe for a second that you would betray Isaac. You let him ruin me. You let him kill Sam."
"Things are different now."
"Because you got caught and Isaac didn't bother to help you."
"No! This only happened because I split from the group. I was trying to find you to warn you."
"Bullshit," I hiss. "You're just as full of shit as he always was."
"I'm telling you the truth!"
"Okay, tell me this, then. Isaac was standing in front of me, but I heard his wolf calling from the other side of the lake."
Max looks grimly at me and presses his lips together.
"Well?"
"There's something wrong with him, Layla. He's in too deep with Paul; he...he changed."
"Changed?"
"I can't explain it. He's just completely lost it. I was the very last of the pack to stick around, everyone lost faith in him."
"But you stayed."
"I have nothing else to rely on. I still believe in Isaac, but I think he's willing to sell all of us out in order to get what he wants."
"You're just realizing that?"
"Look, Layla. Do you want to hear what I have to say? I know you've gotten nowhere; I know you and Jack both want answers. I know why Jack's dad had to die. I know why Paul wants you."
I study his face as he studies mine in return, and then I fold my arms across my stomach and sigh. "I'll talk to him, okay? Jack won't turn you out if you really need his protection. He isn't like that."
Max's lip trembles as he looks at me. "You trust people too easily, you know."
For a moment, I want to step up and grind my heel into his ruined leg. But I try to keep the fury and fear from my face, try to hide from him how much I know the truth in that. "Not anymore, Max. You and Isaac made sure of that. So what the hell is it you want to say?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Who killed Jack's dad? And why?"
"Paul did. He said there's a curse; killing Dominick Courtland was the first part of breaking it."
"By why him?"
"I don't know."
"Am I next?"
"Probably, yes. Paul wants you, and time is running out. He's desperate, and he thinks you're part of breaking the curse."
He invaded St. Croix despite being heavily outnumbered. Maybe there is something to what Max is saying. Still, I try to hold his answers at a distance.
"What curse?"
"The curses that keeps us bound to fate, the curse of the gods."
I lose my words for a moment.
"What is he going to do to me?"
"I don't know. He never tells us everything, just enough to get us to agree. I imagine you'd end up something like Dom Courtland."
"Max...who is he? What is he?"
"He's—"
Suddenly, it's like all air and sound and light is sucked from the small room. There's a ringing silence as Max's lips move, gaping, like a fish. And then he begins to tremble and shake and thrash until his skull is bashing into the wall behind him.
"Jack!" I scream as soon as I've regained my voice. "Jack! Marney!"
The door swings open with such force it smashes into the wall behind it, and Jack is suddenly at my side. Marney stumbles down beside Max and tries to keep his head from crashing into the brick, but the blood is already seeping from his skull and staining the wall behind it. She looks helplessly back at us, and then Jack's arm is wrapping around me and pulling me slowly back from the scene. We hover in the doorway as Max stops moving, the stillness overtaking him like the sudden calm after a storm.
"What happened?" Jack's voice shakes me back to reality, and I look up at him and try to speak, but my throat is too tight. "Layla, are you okay?"
I nod and push out of his arm and into the hallway. The building is suddenly stifling, a closet compared to the freedom of the outdoors. I'm vaguely aware of Jack's voice calling after me, but I keep moving, into the snow, into the night, and then I'm pushing myself against the freezing brick wall of the building just out of reach of the glowing orbs of the lights. The night is quiet, so fucking quiet, but Jack's footsteps are breaking through the snow toward me until he is in front of me again, caging me in.
"Layla?"
"Give me a minute, Jack, please."
"You need to talk to me. What happened back there?"
"Leave me alone!"
"Just..." He's staring at me, trying to meet my gaze, but I close my eyes and fold my arms over my stomach. His fingers slip over my elbows and then he pulls me a little closer. The urge swells in me to shove him away. Always it's there, the quiet voice inside of me that tries to wrench the rift between us a little wider. But for the first time I think he understands this fully, and his arms are gentle and heavy when they settle around me. His cheek presses against my hair, and my shoulders collapse against him almost against my will. "You know, it's impossible to do this on your own."
"Honestly, Jack, I think it's impossible with you too."
He laughs at that and hugs me a little tighter, and it's then I realize that I'm trembling and that he can feel the unsettled tension in my shoulders.
When he releases me, I turn to look out into the night, where the crisp air is like nothing between the moon and the snow, the vacuum of winter with only starlight between.
"Back there," he says slowly. "Something wasn't right. I could feel it in the air."
"It was hard to breathe."
"So what happened?"
"He was going to tell me everything, all of the answers we've been looking for. I asked him who Paul was, who he really was, and he was about to tell me."
"And then?"
"It was like all the air was sucked out of my lungs. And when I looked at Max he kept trying to take a breath but he couldn't." In my mind, I see only the switching of his eyes, the way his lips gaped and tried to form the words that would summon help. But there was nothing anyone could do—not me, not Jack, not Marney. "Jack..."
"I know," he said. "But it's not possible."
"Why do you think that? After everything we've seen."
"We scouted the entire area. If Paul was here, we'd have known."
"Why are you so sure of that? Why do you act like you know anything about him or what he's capable of?"
Jack grits his jaw and looks back toward the door, propped open as cold rushes back into the lodge. "Come on, let's go back inside."
"Not in there," I whisper. "Not with him."
He only dips his head and reaches for me, squeezing my elbow gently before heading back into the startling brightness of the lodge.