Page 150 of Fangs
“Where’s Wolf?”
“They’re out on the porch. I told ’em I needed to talk to you privately.”
Relief flowed through me that they weren’t downstairs waiting to come up and demand what was wrong with menow.
“I can hear his and Kai’s thoughts, now,”he added.
I sat up, reluctantly pulling away.“You can hear both at once? Without even seeing them?”
“Yeah, it’s loud.”
I frowned, but he spoke out loud.
“Do you want to talk about this?” he asked, tapping the letter on the floor with his fingertips.
The raw hurt rose again so swiftly I was unprepared. “I tried to tell him so many times… what would happen if I lost him. I t-told him it would d-destroy me, but he still… he still didn’t?—”
I pressed my lips together, inhaling shakily through my nose. Mac offered a hand, palm up, and I took it gratefully.
“Trey always had so much hope in the goodness of people,” he murmured, his eyes on our entwined hands. “And Ana and I… I think we instinctively tried to shield him to keep that hope alive. After Madame carved up my back the second time, he marched to her office and told her to stop. He was fuckin’ nine years old.” He huffed a weary laugh. “He thought it worked, but really, I just stopped tellin’ him stuff ’cause I was scared Madame would hurt him. He had such a big heart and was determined to make a change, but he viewed a world where things were different—simpler and easier. Maybe we shouldn’t have shielded him as much as we did. But he was always just… just…”
“A dreamer,” I whispered, the ache in my chest growing sharper.
He glanced up and met my eyes. “Yeah. A dreamer.”
We sat in silence for a long time before he spoke again.
“Maybe we need the dreamers to inspire us. Maybe the rest of us need to see somebody reach for the stars before we realize how much we want ’em, too.”
Silence fell again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. As the adrenaline from the grief faded, exhaustion swept in.
“I think you’re a dreamer, too.”
I shot Mac a skeptical look. I was still sitting between his long legs, and something about his knees creating a makeshift wall around me made me feel safe.
His lips twitched up, but his eyes were serious. “I do. You were just trapped in nightmares for so long you forgot what other dreams were possible.”
I stared at him, emotion welling up in my throat again.
“Then Trey, with his big dreams, swept in and reminded you.” My eyes overflowed, and he winced. “I feel like I’m always making you cry.”
“No,” my voice wobbled as I realized out loud, “you’re alwayslettingme cry.”
A strong emotion swept across his face, and when he spoke, his voice was rough again. “I can take it, Em.”
“I know,” I said because it was true. I thought about what I’d realized out in the woods. “You’re my rock.”
He went still, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I’m your rock?”
“Every time I feel like I’m comin’ apart, you’re there,”I fumbled to explain, tears still dripping down my face.“You let me hold onto you when I need it, but you never hold me down.”I sniffled, using my free hand to swipe my face with one of Sam’s handkerchiefs.“It was harder to… to talk to Trey about this kinda shit.”
Mac squeezed my hand gently.“I can’t speak for you, but I know I struggled to tell Trey about the hard shit ’cause he always took my burdens on like they were his. I don’t think he even realized he was doin’ it. I know it came from his heart. He wanted to fix things. He just… didn’t understand that sometimes things weren’t as simple as he wanted ’em to be.”
Guilt swept through me, and he frowned.
“I’m not sayin’ he was a bad person, Em. He was a good person, a damn good person, but he was still aperson.He wasn’t perfect. Nobody is.”
My conversation with Tuck and Lee about good and evil and scales swept through my head. Trey was at least a better person than I was. Maybe if I just lived likeTreywas holding the scales?—
