That was it. I was lucky.
The same couldn’t be said of Sinclair.
Serena had lost the ability to shift completely—at least temporarily—but she was still able to change the shape and structure of her hands. Eve had hauled her off the warden but not before she had almost ripped the woman to shreds.
Sinclair would live, but she’d be disfigured for life. Not to mention infected. If there was any justice, she’d end up in one of the camps she had worked at, completely at the mercy of the wolves she had once overseen.
Kyle pulled up in front of my apartment building and killed the engine. The familiar street seemed so normal that it almost felt surreal.
He didn’t say anything. He’d been unnaturally quiet since we left Colorado, but every time I asked what was wrong, he insisted he was fine.
“Tess is going to kill me.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
“What are you going to tell your folks?”
“No idea. Not the truth. Maybe I’ll just tell them I joined a militant cult. It would at least explain the hair.”
“I think Jason’s already using that one.” Of the four of us, the only person whose family could handle the truth was Serena.
As quickly as that thought came, I blocked it out. The afternoon had been long and painful, full of blame and difficult questions—all of which I deserved, but none of which I felt up to thinking about at the moment.
Instead, I leaned toward Kyle—carefully because of the whole just-being-shot thing—and brushed my lips against his. “In case you get grounded,” I murmured, before moving in and kissing him again.
Kyle hesitated—in the days and hours since I’d been shot, he’d treated me as though I were made of glass, barely touching me and only giving me chaste pecks on my forehead or cheek—but then he kissed me back. Tentatively at first and then so hungrily that every nerve in my body sparked.
After a few minutes, I pulled back, breathless. Not because I wanted to, but because I was actually starting to get light-headed.
A light burned at the bottom of Kyle’s brown eyes. I half expected him to kiss me again, but he just ran his fingertips along my temple and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I never got the chance to tell you thanks.”
The words were soft and serious and seemed out of place with what we’d just been doing. “For what?”
“For coming after me. For risking everything to get me out.” He smiled, but there was something sad and almost uncertain about it. “For knowing what I am and what I’ve done and not acting like I’m less than human even when it scares you.”
I bit my lip. The werewolf thing did scare me. Sometimes. But Kyle was human—more human than most regs. I just didn’t know how to make him see that. How did you convince someone of something they didn’t want to believe?
“Kyle . . .” I struggled to find the right words.
He shook his head. “It’s okay, Mac. Sometimes there isn’t anything to say.”
. . . there’s something I have to tell you.
The words Kyle had said that night in the sanatorium came back to me as he opened his door and climbed out of the car. He pulled my knapsack from the backseat and waited for me before heading up the walkway.
I stopped when we were halfway to the building. “Kyle?”
He paused and turned, my bag held loosely in his hand. “Yeah?”
“Back in Thornhill, you said there was something you had to tell me—something I might not like—and I asked you to wait. . . .”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I felt my body tense of its own accord, as though bracing for an impact.
Finally, the words so soft I had to strain to hear, he said, “I really never thought you’d come after me. If I had . . .” He set my knapsack down. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger, more certain. “I joined the pack, Mac. The night before I saw you at the club.”
I stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Hank’s pack?” I said, as though there were dozens of packs Kyle might have gone out and joined.
He nodded.
That’s what Hank was talking about, I realized, back in the trailer park when he said Kyle and I didn’t have a future. He knew. Both he and Eve did.
Hurt, confusion, and anger collided in my chest. Jason and I had risked everything to find him, and Kyle hadn’t waited as much as a week before completely turning his back on his old life. On us.
I fought to keep my voice steady. “So tell Hank you’ve changed your mind.”
“It’s not that simple.” Kyle ran a hand over his face. “Wolf packs are a bit like the mob. Once you’re in, it’s a lifetime gig. I can leave, but if I do, no other pack will take me once they find out. I’ll be blacklisted.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” I stared at Kyle, desperately trying to understand. He was home. He had us. Me. Jason. His family. Why did he need anything else?
“Maybe.” He let out a shaky breath. “Those few days with the Eumon? For the first time since I became infected, I didn’t have to hide what I was or worry about losing control and hurting someone.”
“And that’s worth turning your back on your whole life? That’s really what you want?” My voice shook as pain spread through my chest. I wanted to ask him if it was worth turning his back on me, but I was too scared of the answer.
“No,” said Kyle. “It’s not what I want. What I want is for there to really be a cure—some pill or shot I could take so things could go back to the way they were. But there’s not. This is what I am—who I am—and that changes everything.” He shook his head. “Could you hide what you were? Every moment of every day, could you pretend to be something else? Someone else? Could you stand spending every day worried that you were going to hurt someone if you knew there was an alternative?”
I remembered the look on Kyle’s face the first time he told me he was a monster—how utterly convinced he had been that he needed to turn himself over to the LSRB. How pain and loathing had filled his eyes. Suddenly, I didn’t know what was right or what I wanted.
I loved Kyle and he hated himself. Or at least parts of himself. If being in a pack could change that, how could I really ask him to stay?
Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes and I hastily wiped them away with the heel of my hand. “So what happens now? You leave again?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Your father gave me a few weeks to make my decision and tie things up here. After that, if I don’t go back . . .”
“You forfeit the pack.”
He nodded.
I forced myself to pull in a deep breath, to be stronger than I felt. “Then I guess you have a lot to think about.”
He stepped forward and folded me in a hug. “Thank you.” He breathed the words against my hair before stepping back. “Do you want me to come up? Help you talk to Tess?”
“Kyle, if she thinks you’re the reason I ran away, she’ll chase you out of the apartment with a crowbar.”
“Good point. And I’ve got to deal with my own parents, anyway.” He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure whether he should kiss or hug me again. In the end, he didn’t do either. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”
Chest aching, I nodded. I watched him walk to the car and slide behind the wheel. And I fought the urge to call him back, to beg him to stay, as he slid his key into the ignition.
I loved Kyle. More than anything. Maybe enough to want what was best for him—even if what was best would end up hurting me.