He got to his feet, still wobbly as I helped him up.
"I remember when I turned eighteen," he said. "My dad took me to the cabin, and he brought out a bunch of shit. Product. You know. He said if I was curious, that's how I was going to do it. Try it there, with him to watch me. Get it over with."
"Did you?"
He shook his head. "I wasn't curious. I'd smoked pot when I was a kid. It made me feel just kind of...flat. Relaxed. Mellow. Not really my thing. Now?" He rubbed his temples. "I feel like my brain exploded...and not in a good way."
"Sorry," I said.
"I'm the dumbass who had to see what was in the forest--" Ricky wheeled, gaze flying to the hound, still lying on its side. "Shit!" he murmured as he ran and crouched beside it. "Okay, it's breathing. And..." He looked around. "The Huntsman?"
I shook my head. "No idea. Last I saw, he was over there"--I pointed--"when you jumped him. Then you blacked out and before I could even get to you, the hound barreled out of the forest and pounced."
"He possessed it."
"And then you did, and while I'd love to think that means the Huntsman got his psychic ass kicked, that's probably too much to hope for." I looked around, my gun raised. "If there's any way of waking the pooch, I'm going to suggest we get it out of--" I stopped. "No. There's someone in the cabin."
"What?"
"When you disappeared, I found the cabin, with the hound guarding the door. Then I heard you and the Huntsman taunting each other in the forest."
"Which means the hound wasn't guarding him."
"And whoever it was guarding isn't being guarded anymore. You stay with the hound. I'll--"
"No."
"I won't go inside, I'll just see what's--"
"No, Liv," he said, walking back to me. "Maybe we can't control when we get separated, but we're sure as hell not compounding the issue by voluntarily separating. The hound..." He trailed off, then came back firm. "The hound will be fine."
I glanced at him, his jaw set, gaze resolutely turned away from the fallen beast. Determined to walk away and tell himself it would be fine while every fiber screamed for him not to abandon his hound. I knew which side would win. The one he'd already chosen. Because that was how we remained ourselves. Olivia, not Matilda. Ricky, not Arawn. Make the choices from our heads, not from our hearts.
But it's the heart that matters, isn't it? That's what we really are. Not Arawn with his hound. Ricky with his hound.
"Let's wake it up," I said, walking back to the beast.
"No, we need to--"
"We can spare a few minutes. Get it up and moving. It's not hurt--just unconscious."
Of course, I had no way of knowing that for certain, but I pushed the fear aside and lowered myself next to the beast. Ricky did the same, and he shook it, talking to it, and after a moment I realized this would be easier for him if I didn't hear what he said, so I made the excuse that I should walk around, check for the Huntsman.
"Not out of sight, okay?" he said.
I nodded and walked and listened to him coaxing the hound, as if he was trying to bring its spirit back. He promised it everything he could promise and nothing that he couldn't. It felt like eavesdropping. This was the side he'd grown up learning to keep to himself. The gentler side. The softer side, he'd say, with that disparaging twist he used for the word because that's the one he'd heard whispered among the Saints, the worry that Ricky was "a little soft." He could find his edge, but this was the Ricky I knew, the guy who worried about a hound, who'll whisper to it and coax it back, while asking me not to leave his sight. Consideration. Caring. Which is no weakness at all.
When he exhaled in relief, I turned to see the hound lifting its head. Ricky rubbed it around the ears, then he got to his feet and said, "It's fine. We should go check the cabin." Because that was Ricky, too. The side that cared and worried never interfered with whatever needed doing.
"Can it follow us?" I asked. "That would be better."
I moved slowly toward the hound, ready for it to flinch. It only watched me. When I drew up alongside Ricky, it snorted and laid its head on the ground.
"If it can follow, it will," Ricky said. "But it's safe here." He surveyed the forest. "The woods are different now. Lighter."
The forest did feel more itself. Still unnaturally dark, but I could make out faint stars overhead.
"The Huntsman's gone," I said.