“I wasn’t in the house with them when it happened,” Silvestre confessed, his voice heavy with his sobs. “I should’ve been. I could’ve got them out, but I was off chasing Tristan. Blamed him for the fire.”
“What?” Violet asked, her voice cracking. “No... Silvestre, it wasn’t your fault that you weren’t with them. And I thought everyone was going to blame me for it. We really didn’t know how bad it was.”
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault but those hunters, and mine for not bein’ with them.”
“I should’ve been there too. We should’ve been there.”
Violet hugged Silvestre tighter for a moment, then pulled away, rubbing her eyes. Hunters? What? What hunters? And why would they blame Tristan? Sure, the kid had an attitude problem, but—
Silver rubbed at his own eyes with the back of his hands and turned away from her slightly, sniffing. They were both trying to pull back on their tears, but it felt impossible. Absolutely impossible.
“I’m glad to see you back,” Silver said with a shaky voice. “I’ve been... I’ve been really mean to people. Harsh with them, because I can’t move on, but... but recently, I realized that I’ve been... I feel like I’m drownin’. I have been drownin’, just barely treadin’ water, and that ain’t a way to live. Gina said we all need therapists, and she’s right. We all need... a lot of therapy.”
Therapy? Therapists? That was... that would be...
Ohhh, wolves didn’t do mental health, because talking about your feelings when you could just shift and run through your feelings was always so much better. It was one of the things Violet and her mother agreed upon, that wolves needed to work on processing their feelings. Fifteen years of feeling like he was drowning?
There was definitely something she could do about that.
“If I found you a therapist, would you talk to one?” Violet asked with a half sob, half laugh. “I can get one for you. Or, well, I know people.”
“Can’t leave,” Silver pointed out, sniffling a little. “I’m trapped. There’s nothin’ holdin’ me here anymore. Think the town knows I would leave.”
“What the fuck,” Violet muttered, shaking her head. “I don’t know what kind of spell my mother did, but... don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about any of that. I’m going to figure out the whole cell phone towers and internet lines. I can’t believe everyone is still living like it’s fifteen years ago.”
“We still live like that because it feels like we all died then. Or at least, the pack did.”
Violet nodded as she sniffed, then stepped in for another hug, pulling him close. Silvestre hugged her tight once more, and she made a vow to figure things out. She had to. She would.
Tomorrow.
Chapter 18
Didshemeanforthree days to slip by before attempting to return to her mother’s house? No, of course not. She had meant to head right over, to go and slip in and see the old place and to make a few phone calls, but instead...
She had done the very thing she promised Henrik she would not... which was lay in bed all day.
Okay, no. She had done other things as well, like, going for walks. In fact, that had been one of the things that most filled her day. She walked the entirety of the forest, following along old worn paths, listening to the magic that permeated throughout Garoureve. It was weak, clinging onto the boundary, clinging to protect the town and the pack. It was understandable, of course, given the trauma the town had endured, but for it to still be so weak...
Questions, questions, she was sick of fucking questions. She was sick of asking herself over and over again what had happened, what her mother had done, what had occurred, but the longer she thought about it and the more she considered it all...
At first, she was angry. She was so angry, she had burned the dinner Ansa was making. Her anger had flared with her magic, creating bursts of heat and warmth, until she had forced herself into an ice cold shower that kept fluctuating in temperature. How could her mother allow this? How could she have... done, whatever she did. It was against everything a witch was supposed to do.
Witches brought... balance. They were a representative. They brought healing and serenity. They helped the wolf pack, so often lost in the ways of nature, connect with the outside world. It was the duty of a witch to keep the peace between packs and between nature and...
Nothing made sense! A boundary line should be there to protect nature and magic, to keep those who would harm out, and to keep the goodness within safe, lest anything go wandering...
It didn’t make sense for her mother to harm the town, to keep the town and the pack trapped within. It didn’t make sense for witches to abandon the town altogether. Why had no one returned to take her mother’s place? Why had they simply abandoned the pack to nothingness? Why had her mother run?
Questions, more questions, only, there was no logical reason for what her mother had done unless her mother was a lying terrible human being that had completely betrayed her entire beliefs. What was done here...
The only answers she would get would have to come through her mother, who was either completely clueless, or a deceitful liar. The only other person that would know anything would be Colburn’s dad, who was dead by some... unknown... thing.
He had passed after the fire, after they had their vengeance on the hunters, but Colburn had offered nothing else, Ariana didn’t know. No one seemed to know.
She didn’t want to pry, but something had happened to Colburn’s father... and, clearly, for her mother to completely abandon the pack, something had to have happened between the pair of them. She knew her mother often butted heads with the pack Alpha, but to just leave...
Questions. All she had was questions. If she had a dollar for every question she had, she would be wealthier than all of the packs combined.