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“Why are you calling me?” I ask, my voice hard as hell this time.

“What? I . . .” She trails off, confused.

“Why are you calling me?” I repeat.

“You said . . . you said your number was the same. You said call if I needed anything. You said call . . . anytime.”

“If you need drugs, Felicity,” I seethe into the phone. “Call me if you need drugs.”

“Oh,” she says, small and soft.

“Anytime,” I say.

And hang up.

Chapter 62

Tress

“He’s bad news,” I tell Felicity, two years too late.

I should’ve said it on the path, I should’ve said it at the first party I saw him sniffing around her. I should’ve said it. I didn’t. That’s on me. And maybe her pill problem, too.

“You think?” she asks, the words slurred, the laughter that follows unhinged.

“I always thought . . .” My voice isn’t strong, either, the thoughts slippery, the consonants and vowels needed to bring them out into the world something I can’t conjure. “I always thought maybe you and Hugh . . .” I finally manage.

“Really?” Her voice brightens a second, like maybe it’s an interesting topic. “I mean . . . I guess . . . I always thought . . . maybe you and Hugh.”

Chapter 63

Felicity

Tress starts laughing, and there’s an echoing answer from upstairs, weaker now. I don’t know if it’s because sounds have been going in and out for me in the past few minutes or if people are dropping off upstairs.

“No.” She shakes her head, spinning the trowel in her good hand. The other one is turning purple, the tape she bound her wound with much too tight. “No,” she repeats. “Not me and Hugh.”

“Why not?” I argue. “I mean, he’s cute, and if someone could convince him to drop the alpha act—”

“No,” Tress interrupts me. “He can’t. When the pack senses a weakness in their leader, they take him down. He knows that. I know that. You know that.”

I guess I do, which is why I feel a little gut twinge of joy whenever someone takes a cut at Gretchen, why I’ve got a couple of embarrassing pics of her on my phone, for whenever the day comes that I’m tired of her telling me what to do. If it comes. Following is easier than leading.

“You’re both alphas,” I say, understanding. “You and Hugh. It would never work.”

She stops spinning the trowel, refocusing her thoughts.

“You finally ditch him?” she asks. “Patrick?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, nodding. My head feels like a water balloon, too heavy. It rolls oddly, off to one side. I try to focus on the bricks, try to count them, see how high the rows are. I don’t know, anymore. Higher than before, that’s all I can say for sure. Math is hard when you’ve got a concussion and major blood loss plus are still slightly high and maybe a little drunk.

I open my eyes. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Patrick.

“He went to college and majored in extracurricular activities,” I tell Tress.

“Cheaters gonna cheat,” Tress says. Her eyes have gone a little blank, and she’s fixated on the floor, where her blood is starting to pool as it drips from the tips of her fingers.

Cheaters gonna cheat. . . .