Page 39 of Dark

I hit send. Reading over my shoulder, Hayden whuffed.

“Too much?”

She gave me total werewolf WTF face and turned back to the screen.

“You wanna give texting a try with those pointy little claws, I can pass this bad boy back there.”

Another growl. Yeah. I was totally sleeping on the couch tonight.

CadburyFunny: And he’s outside the vet clinic because?

Me: Violet got into the Oreos. She gets hangry. Made Ethan take her in. He just texted and said he’s on his way home. Thinks she’s okay… call you tomorrow…

* * *

Just before sunrise, I slipped out onto the balcony and texted Cal.

Me: You awake?

Cal: Hey. Just got in.

A beat later, my phone rang.

“Was fixing to take some meat over to the house, hang out with Dallas for a bit.” Cal loved to hunt, and with Central Texas’ growing feral hog population, kept us all in sausage and pork loin. There was a pause. “You okay?”

Six in the morning, and there was no getting the shrink out of my brother. I filled him in on last night, Hayden discovering my former dependence on silver, and the texts.

“So where did you leave things?”

“I don’t know. Considering the history with her dad, I wouldn’t blame her for being freaked.”

The line fell silent. “What are you going to do?”

I ran a finger under the bottom edge of my cuff. “Maybe this was a mistake from the start.”

A beat passed, and then—

“Dad’s only human,” Cal said softly. “He can make the wrong call.”

I cleared my throat. “You remember what happened—”

“’Course. And I gotta tell you, E. A lot of people could have handled that day better. Starting with me. Probably ten years too late to say this, but I’m sorry.”

A knot formed in my throat. I stared down at the cuff locked around my wrist. “It was my fault.”

“No. It wasn’t. You get that, right?”

I leaned my forehead against the railing. In addition to his day job at a residential psychiatric facility, Cal moonlighted providing mental health services for rehabilitated Ferals.

“You know I’ll support you either way,” my brother said when it was clear I wasn’t going to go on. “And, E? You’re going to shrug this off the moment I say it, which is why I’m going to keep repeating it until one day it gets through. You’re not bad for Hayden. You’re not dangerous. There’s nothing in you that’s broken. And if Dad ever said or did anything to imply otherwise, he was out of line.”

I gripped the railing. “I gotta go.”

Hayden sat up as soon as the bed dipped, the strap of her tank slipping off her thin shoulder. Dark smudges shadowed her eyes, her hands jerking involuntarily, a sure sign she’d slept every bit as horribly after we’d crashed as I had. I scooted closer and slid a hand to her cheek, thumb grazing the faint constellation of freckles scattered across her cheekbones. She blinked up at me, eyelashes dark as soot against her pale skin.

“Hey,” I said softly.

She looked down, picking at her nails. “Hey.”