“Huh?”
“When you first met your wolves, I told you there were two halves of you, and loving the wolves wouldn’t be the only triangle. And now here we are, and you love a wolf and a vampire.”
“And I’m going to have to choose.”
“You cannot keep them both. It wouldn’t be fair. Greedy girls lose everything if they yield nothing.”
I’d known all along there would come a time I had to pick between Desmond and Holden, but I had hoped I could put it off as long as possible. During our stay in California, Holden had point-blank told me I would have to make a decision. But after all the drama and horror, the boys had made their pact. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think I could keep it this way forever.
Never making a choice was a lot easier than saying goodbye to one of the men I loved.
“Bah,” I announced.
“Indeed. But take heed, my dear girl, I am not lying when I say you will lose everything if you do nothing.”
“You’re a bright ray of sunshine, you know that?”
“It’s been said before, yes.”
“So, tell me this, am I going to live to make this choice? I mean, you have to know I’m leaving to go kill Mercy.”
“I do.”
“And? Am I coming home?”
“You’re going home, aren’t you? Returning home? You will see many homes on your path to fulfill this vendetta. So, in that sense you will go home and leave home.”
“I need to pick my wording more carefully, don’t I?”
“It isn’t my place to tell you whether you will live or die. All will die. You among them.”
“But you’ve seen my death.”
“I’ve seen many deaths.”
“I love these little chats of ours.”
She smiled and took my hand again, but this time just to hold it rather than to measure my life. “You wouldn’t want to know everything I know, Secret. I see it all, the endless march of days until the final collapse. If you knew what I knew, you could not go on living. And if you couldn’t go on, everything would change, understand? I can’t tell you what I know, because it is unknowable. The knowing undoes it.”
“You’re an awfully frustrating woman, Cal.”
She waggled her eyebrows and smirked. “I know.”
“Of course you do.”
“But honestly. Pick a man. Pick a path. Decide what you want to do. Because all this waiting and seeing? It’s eating up precious hours of what life you have left, short or long. And do you want to go to your grave having squandered your time?”
I hated it when she was so damned spot on. “No.”
“And do you want to deny them happiness? Do you want to keep them from finding love if you are not the one?”
Well, uh, yeah. I was very much feeling the if I can’t have them, no one can mentality. Because naturally if I broke up with them, the boys would cease to be attracted to women and would spend the remainder of their days as, like, monks or something.
Was that too much to ask?
Apparently.
“No,” I agreed finally. “That wouldn’t be fair.”