Page 24 of Lost and Bound
Despite everything, I choked down a laugh. Gods, we were a pair. Both starved, fucked-up, gaunt and desperate, me in my mint-green bathrobe and Calder in those sweatpants that were more like capris on him—and that he’d had to triple-knot to keep from falling down.
But he had a phone in his hand, a cordless landline. He didn’t give it to me.
“Can you trust them?”
I blinked up at him. “Trust them?” I repeated in disbelief. “Trustthem? They’re my family. Mypack.”
His expression grew more pinched, his brows drawn together. “Your family, your pack, who didn’t bother looking for you for however long you were in that cell?”
“You have no idea if they looked for me or not! Of course they looked for me.” That had kept me going, for months and months after I was first taken. The idea that Ian would never give up on finding me. That no matter what I’d done, he’d never allow someone to kidnap and torture his own blood and a member of his own pack, either out of loyalty or out of pride—or maybe that he’d want to rescue me so he could have the pleasure of beating the shit out of me himself.
That any day now, he’d bust through the door, claws dripping with the blood of my captors, and take me home.
He never came. Obviously. I’d stopped thinking about it after a while. Something terrible had happened to Ian, or despite everything I knew about him and the way he thought and felt, he’d stopped giving a fuck about me after all.
I couldn’t stomach either option.
“Of course they looked for me,” I said again, unconvincingly even to my own ears.
Calder let out a grunting scoff. “Sure. Can you trust them?”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Jesus, I needed a drink of water. I should’ve gotten that. Standing sounded hard. “Can you grab me a glass of water? And yes. If they take my call at all, I can trust them. They’re pack.” He still eyed me skeptically. “And they hated Hawthorne. The warlock who hasn’t been around for a while,” I reminded him. “Worst-case scenario, they don’t give a shit about me. But they’d never work with him. Or anyone like him. And I need to warn them, in case Hawthorne’s still out there. Besides, we need help.”
“Maybeyoudo.” With a last slow, doubtful perusal from those glowing silver eyes, he handed over the phone and turned away to the sink.
He set a glass of water down in front of me as I was staring at the keypad, trying to get up the courage to dial, my fingers heavy and reluctant despite my underlying panic. I knew Ian’s number by heart; I’d called it so many times over the years. So many times every day, practically. I knew he’d have the same number, because Ian hated change the way some people hated colonoscopies.
I didn’t know if he’d want to hear from me.
I drank the whole glass, set it down with a thump, and called.
It rang four times. Unknown number, of course he might not answer. I bit my lip.Come on, Ian. Come on. Please.
On the fifth ring, he picked up. “Yeah?”
That one, gruff syllable brought tears to my eyes. I struggled to catch my breath, probably sounding like a prank caller of the prurient kind. Ian’s voice. My cousin’s voice. The person I’d always loved more than anyone else in the world, even though I’d shown it by fucking, and fucking over, the guy he’d wanted for himself and working with someone Ian had thought was human pond scum.
Ian spoke again before I could get it together. “Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you call this number again I swear I’ll track you—”
“Ian,” I rasped. “It’s me.”
The following silence set all my teeth on edge. “Who the fuck is this?” Ian demanded. “Who the fuck—who the fuck is this?” He sounded furious, murderous, with an undertone of raw pain and misery.
“Ian? Who do you—it’s me. It’s Jared, who do you think it is? You don’t even recognize my voice anymore?” I couldn’t keep the matching pain and misery out of my own voice. He didn’t recognize me? He thought—what, that I was a prank caller after all? But would he have sounded so angry, so upset, if he didn’t recognize my voice, and think I was an imposter, or something? I didn’t get it. “Ian, it’s me!”
“No,” Ian said, his voice rough and hoarse. “No, that can’t be.”
“It’s me, it’s—fucking hell, Ian, come on! You, shit, you can’t eat cheesecake. Ever. After that time at the county fair. Or, that time we both slept with that girl at the same party—” I cut off abruptly, remembering the girl’s wavy dark hair and dark eyes, and slim body, and how she could’ve been Nate’s female twin. And how I’d slept with Nate the first time, seducing him even though I didn’t care about him. And how Ian had looked at me, full of silent, grim misery and betrayal, after he found out about it. That had been how I’d realized Ian’s feelings for Nate went deeper than simple lust, and I’d never forgotten his face in that moment. “Ian, it’s me,” I said quietly, wondering if he was remembering the same things.
Another long silence fell. I could hear Ian’s rough breathing, and practically hear the gears turning, too. Why was this so hard?
They thought I was dead, after all this time. That had to be it. But wouldn’t Ian want to know I was alive? Wouldn’t he berelieved? Even if I’d…betrayed his trust, his friendship, his love for me…
“Where the fuck are you?” he asked me, his tone hard. Untrusting.
Can you trust them?It looked like it might be the other way around. I deserved it, I did.
But not like this. Not after crawling out of hell, through a fresh hell, to get to this little fucking vacation kitchen with the chicken on the wall, wanting nothing more than to be safe. Actually safe, home, with my pack. Somewhere I could curl up in a ball and whimper without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
