Page 22 of Ravaged Wolf
I slow to a jog when I near the access road to the High Rise’s loading dock. I dodge the cameras and slide under the rolling door of Bay C. Maintenance never remembers to secure that door. The bay is empty except for a custodian, a scavenger named Nevitts, but we’re cool, and although he looks shocked, he doesn’t make a move to stop me.
This late, there aren’t many people working, mostly bored guards, scrolling their phones. I stick to the western stairs, farthest from the security desk. I force myself to sprint up as fast as I can, pushing harder and harder until my side stitches and my calves cramp. By the tenth floor, I’m slowing. By the twenty-fifth, I’m crawling up the steps.
The burn in my muscles is nothing to the roaring pain in my head.
Izzy is so small. She weighs almost nothing. I crushed her. I put my—my stomach heaves, but there is nothing left.
I hurt her.
I tear at my hair, tears blearing my vision. I do the last flight of stairs by feel, bursting through the emergency door onto the roof.
The tarred roof scrapes the bottoms of my raw feet. The pain is not enough; no penance will ever be enough. There is no possible way to make this right.
After I bit her, her fear surged into my chest. She was afraid that she was going to die. That I was going to kill her.
There is no way to take it back. No way to reverse time and throw myself off this building before I become the worst thing a male can be.
I fucked everything up. I made the wrong call every single time. I didn’t bust through her apartment door and take her away the night she told her parents. I let Dad convince me to let him negotiate with Mr. Owens, father to father. I let her family put me off with threats, let them make a coward of me until I became an animal. And worst, worst of all, when I scented her on the wind, I didn’t run as far and as fast as I could. I waited under that tree. I knew she was coming, and I knew how close I was to losing it.
It’s all my fucking fault.
I jog past the air handling unit I fixed last year to the edge of the building. I step up on the tarred lip and stare down at the plaza. A thirty-floor drop is enough to smash anyone to pieces, even a shifter. The fall wouldn’t be long. Seconds. If I dive, my head would explode on contact. The screaming would end.
Down below, streetlamps cast circles of light on the stone pavers below. Otherwise, the planters and benches are cast in shadow. There is only a sliver of a moon tonight. The dark lake laps against the bulkhead.
Izzy’s wolf was trembling in my arms, peering up at me, confused. Betrayed. Her brown eyes are tattooed on my brain. She was in pain, and I’d hurt her, and she didn’t understand. Neither do I. How could I do it? How could I not stop it?
What I did is a howl in my brain, fire licking my skin,serrated knives sinking deeper and deeper, tearing my flesh from my bones.
I am not this thing.
Icannotbe this thing.
I straighten my spine and draw in a last, deep breath of cool evening air, searching for the trace of Izzy’s scent clinging to my skin. Sage, rosemary, and thyme. She smells like peace. Like home.
I don’t know what happens after you die, but so help me, whatever the next world is like, I’ll make it home for her. I’ll build her shelves. I’ll build her castles. I’ll find Fate and make her tell me how to fix what I’ve done.
I close my eyes and lift my arms.
Behind me, a metal door slams against a brick wall.
“What did Nevitts say?” I hear my dad say.
“He said—” and then Mom must see me because she screams, “Trevor!”
“Stop!” Dad roars, the word instilled with all the dominance he possesses. I feel the impact and shake off the command easily. My dad is a good male, but he’s not a powerful one.
My oldest and youngest brothers, Tarian and Llew, race toward me, skidding to a halt when I sway on the roof’s edge.
“Oh, baby,” Mom cries. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”
“Shit. Don’t do it. For fuck’s sake, Trevor,” Tarian shouts, hovering a few feet away, not daring to come closer.
“Just walk away,” I hiss. “Get Mom out of here.”
“We’ll figure this out, son,” Dad says, approaching slowly with his palms raised. “Just please step back. It’s okay. We’ll figure this out together.”
“Please, Tarian,” I ask again, my voice cracking. “Mom doesn’t need to see.”
