I was convinced the Omega in him was eating away at his brain. “Fuck you.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He tapped on the screen of his phone before holding it up against the barrier. “Take a look.”
“Go away.”
“Come on, man. Just look. What harm could it do? I mean, you could go crazy again and try to break things, but since you only have your backpack and your bed that we’ve already had to replace, that’s all on you.” He wiggled the phone at me.
I sighed as I pushed myself up off the floor.
“There we go,” he said cheerfully. “That’s it.”
“You’re an asshole,” I muttered as I walked toward him.
The timber wolf growled at me. I flashed my eyes at him in warning.
I looked at the phone. “Instagram. You want me to look at your Instagram.”
“Wow,” Carter said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much disdain in such few words. Yeah, man. Look at my Instagram.”
I did.
There were photos of the pack—all of them in some, just a few of them in others. One had Carter scowling in the mirror of a bathroom, the glowing violet eyes of the timber wolf in the background.
I was there too. Or rather, the version of Robbie they claimed to know. It was discordant, this feeling, recognizing my face but not remembering anything about who that person was supposed to be. I was laughing, I was smiling, I was staring up at the moon with a look of wonder.
The most recent one, in the top left corner, was of Kelly and me. We were sitting under a tree. Kelly lay with his head in my lap. My hands were in his hair. The caption said one word.
GROSS.
“Elizabeth said I was taken over a year ago.”
“That’s right.”
“Why is that the last photo you posted, then? Why haven’t you done more since?”
He took the phone away, looking down at the screen. A complicated expression crossed his face, and the room filled with the scent of blue, bright and cold. “Things just sort of… stopped. After you were gone. It didn’t seem right, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “I know you don’t remember, but I do. And man, I gotta tell you, it sucked. For all of us. It hit harder for Ox and Gordo and especially Kelly, but yeah. We all felt it. Pack. It’s all about pack.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Oh. It’s like… part of us was missing.” He looked up at me, mouth set in a thin line. “I don’t expect you to understand, because you can’t, obviously. You don’t know. I think you might be better off because of it. It hurt, man. The hole in all of us was ragged and never seemed to heal. Even when we figured out where you were, like, eight months after you left, it still hurt. And I know you—”
The ground tilted beneath my feet. “You knew where I was?”
His eyes widened. “Oh shit. Totally forget I said that. I wasn’t—dude, that’s not what I meant at all.”
The wolf tried to pull him away as I stepped right up to the line of silver. My skin tingled. My nose itched.
The timber wolf tried to pull Carter away, but he didn’t budge.
“You care about me,” I said in a dangerous voice. I felt like hunting. Carter was the perfect prey. “You love me. It’s all about pack. That’s what you said. All those wonderful words painting such a pretty picture. And if everything you’ve all told me is to be believed, I was part of this. This house. This town. Your pack. I was taken from you. I left. I was stolen. Which is it? And now you tell me you knew where I was this whole time? And you left me there?” I cocked my head at him. If not for the silver between us, my teeth would be in his throat. “Sounds like I didn’t belong here as much as you’re all claiming. Maybe I left because I wanted to. Because I didn’t want to put up with all your bullshit.”
I thought he’d cower and mutter and disappear up the stairs and try again another day. No. He looked pissed. He squared his shoulders, his lips curling. His blue eyes gave way to violet, and I could feel his animal lurking underneath. “After what you did? You’re fucking lucky we even kept tabs on you at all when we found you. Even Rico said to just leave you where you were at.”
“What did I do?” I asked. It was a challenge, and I wanted to scream at him to fucking break the line of silver, to let me out and decide this like wolves. Oh, the timbe
r wolf would be on me before I could get a hand on him, but I didn’t care. Fuck them both. “Come on, man. Tell me what I did. You’re angry. I can see it. You have been ever since you saw me at the bridge.”
He faltered. He broke. He recovered. He said, “If you lay a hand on Kelly again, I’ll tear off your fucking arm.”