y

t answ

she's done it before. Her color is good. No br

urse

, someone needs to go check on her. But after an attack

at her

w unsettled the pack has been, how she woke up twice reaching for Julian. She says it lik

he blanket and wait for what

ays. "I think you deserve honesty

e it

ld you that. I'm not saying it to hurt you. I'm saying it because I think you should know what you're actually holding o

me back for you in that fight. You w

y no

bout what I said. Th

oor c

t wi

re with true things and wrapped them up like a favor, and I unwrapped them and looked, and

es ago is how long she's been waiti

hink. 'If I file, she gets what s

etly, disappear quietly, never make anyon

at the

p. The pack doctor said two more da

for my

e sto

is watching for me to do something as unremarkable as leave. The pack hous

ck. By the time I get the

e of the bed and

o was building his around someone else. I don't feel angry about it. I don't feel much of anything right

ce in his last letter. Try. T

way, and now I know exactly what it got me, which is a bruise on my jaw and no feelin

old me to. Because it's time and I know it's time

gets ho

ront door. I

hat sound I got up.

itting. Looks at me once, then

es

ctor said tw

what h

a said the visit didn't go well. She came out of her

kno

les things without making everything harder than i

small give, the okay, I hear you, the release valve that means he can walk away clean. It cos

him and do

w seconds before p

re I said

ur to him to

t needs to be. He said it the way you say something obvious, something that shouldn't

pacing and me lying to her, telling her someone was coming. Him walking into the doctor's

ath. I kept telling mysel

't add

ess from the cell. Something slower. The kind that

' I te

nswer. She do

k and feel nothing much at all,

*

redith sends word s

she arrived first, which she probably did. She looks up when I come in. Same expression s

tures me to

id. I have learned to read the exact shade of silence that means she is displeased and adjusted myself accordingly before she had to say a word.

ons. Selena answers before I open my mouth. Julian stops by ever

ully around her moods, telling myself that if I was patient enough, if I was usefu

neve

he does not say Ivy has also been through something. She does not say any

patient," she says. "Three years. And w

y no

t clean. Before this gets worse." She ti

me when she says it. "You've had your ti

e trying to earn that look, and here it is.

led document and shaking hands and nowhere left to go. I have spent three years trying to tip those scales. I never

t to see whic

back at

," I say. "Blood-sealed. Witnesse

d her

n when Highmoor Pack had nothing, when I had n