Chapter 23: Billie

Chapter 23: Billie

“H

e’s going through a lot right now,” Aislin said apologetically. It looked like she was going through a lot too.

We sat together in the living room of Gavin’s apartment, sharing a meal of venison and potatoes while Muriel stared silently out the window overlooking the main street in Grandbay. There was too much going on for us to relax, but I still wished Gavin would come back to the apartment and unwind. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to clear the air and reassure him that I wasn’t here to screw him over. But despite my mounting courage, I didn’t know if I’d be able to hold my ground.

“I’ve never seen Alpha Everett in person before,” I commented.

“Never? Didn’t he ever come to the manor to talk to David?”

“A few times, but I stayed upstairs.” I mulled on what I had witnessed earlier of the bulky mountain man. “He’s pretty scary.”

Aislin chewed on a piece of meat. “He is kind of a dick, isn’t he? Last year, when I asked what I needed to do to become a representative of the Mythguard, he told me I didn’t have what it takes. Basically shut the door in my face.”

“You wanted to join the Mythguard?”

“Still do,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to get more involved in shifter politics. I want to protect people, fight bad guys. Everett thinks I’m interested for the wrong reasons, but honestly, I think Everett’s too passive. He’s doing the bare minimum, and it’s not enough.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. He was too willing to let David walk all over us. “If you were in his position, I bet you’d have Alpha David regretting his choices already.”

“You know I would. I’d have already shattered all the teeth in his fuckin’ mouth,” Aislin scoffed, then smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” My feelings for my adoptive father were mixed and confusing.

Aislin stood up, checked her phone, then took our plates. “My dad and Gavin are doing a patrol tonight. So we should be prepared in case something happens.”

I exchanged a glance with Muriel before following Aislin. “You don’t sound that worried.”

“I am worried, but it won’t do me any good to freak out.”

“What should we do then?”

“I’ll stay up. You try to get some sleep, okay?”

Everything about this day had exhausted me. I just struggled to keep my eyes open, so I nodded. When I caught Aislin’s eye, she smiled and pulled me into a hug.

“We’ll be alright,” she said.

Appreciating her camaraderie, I smiled back. I said goodnight to Muriel and then lingered in the doorway of Gavin’s bedroom, feeling like it wasn’t right for me to crawl into his bed. I got comfortable in the sleeping bag on the floor beside Muriel’s bed instead.

To my surprise, I slept long, deeply, and dreamlessly. Nothing roused me until I heard a voice disturbing the stillness just after sunrise. I shot upright while Muriel turned tiredly under her blanket. “It sounds like Gavin’s back, dear,” she remarked with a yawn.

My feet carried me into the hallway before I’d fully woken up. I rubbed my eyes and stepped into the living room to see Aislin facing off against a disheveled Gavin. She looked past him, focusing on me. “You better tell her what you did,” said Aislin.

Relieved though I was to see Gavin alive, my relief was short-lived in place of dismay.

Gavin turned around and clenched his fists, the veins in his arms bulging. He looked like he hadn’t slept and pale purple bruises blossomed under his right eye. I raised my fingers to the same spot on my cheek, sharing his tenderness. “I ran into Colt,” he said darkly. “He was looking for you.”

My heart fluttered. “Why?”

“Were you planning to meet up with him?”

“Not recently.”

Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “Not recently?”

“We were…” Why was it so hard to speak suddenly? Why did his displeasure feel so, so heavy? “We were going to meet up after I ran from Dalesbloom. But I ended up here instead.”

“Meet up to do what?”

I gaped. “I don’t know, say goodbye? Maybe he might’ve come with me.”

Gavin curled his lip, but instead of snarling at me, he blanched with unspoken revelation. “You were gonna run away together.”

My heart soured as I remembered everything Colt and I had said to each other. The promises he made… they weren’t worth anything to me anymore. I sighed and shook my head. “Maybe before, but not anymore. I can’t accept that he supports David and Catrina. If he thought that was still the plan, he’s wrong.”

Something I said had vexed Gavin, leaving him grumbling and avoiding my gaze.

“Gavin,” urged Aislin.

“Alright, alright,” he muttered. “That’s why he came looking for you. I thought he was lying. I… messed him up. I almost killed him. I’m sorry, Billie.”

My eyes widened at Gavin. “You almost killed him?” The air left my lungs and I struggled to breathe, imagining Gavin attacking Colt as ruthlessly as I saw before. There had already been so much loss and pain, and he wanted to cause more? He wanted to kill my only family member who had ever shown a shred of decency toward me. “How could you?”

Guilt and anger visibly battled across Gavin’s face, looking like he couldn’t decide whether to be angry at me or himself. “He’s the enemy, Billie. He’s one of them.”

“He’s my brother!”

“He’d see us dead just as quickly as David!” snapped Gavin. “I didn’t kill him. I just roughed him up.”

I wasn’t sure if the anger I felt in myself belonged to Gavin or me. Heat rushed to my cheeks and tears threatened me, but I held them back. Sure, I couldn’t trust Colt, but that didn’t mean I hated him. I didn’t want him to die! Shaking my head, I backed away from Gavin. “This is too much.”

“Billie!” Gavin strained, moving toward me.

My throat closed up. Everything seemed to be going wrong and I almost wilted, but fresh, hot anger burning inside me didn’t allow me to succumb to my vulnerabilities. I couldn’t just fall apart. When Gavin reached out for my arm, I slapped his hand away and bristled. “No! Gavin, what you did isn’t okay.” I heard Muriel enter the hallway behind me and saw Aislin’s sympathetic expression. Standing between everyone in that tiny space of Gavin’s apartment, I suddenly craved fresh air. “I need some time alone.”

Stunned that I had rebuked him, Gavin just stared, processing what I knew to be all his unseen, racing thoughts. “Billie, I’m sorry.”

But he had accused me of being a plant from David, he had taken his anger out on me earlier, and now that same anger nearly killed my brother. It wasn’t enough to retreat into the bedroom, knowing everyone else would be milling around outside, waiting to spring on me. I pushed past Gavin, avoiding him when he tried to hold me. “I’m going for a run,” I shook.

“Billie!” Gavin growled after me.

I just wanted to be alone. I needed to calm down and process everything, and I couldn’t do that here.

Just before I opened the door, I heard Gavin behind me. “Follow her. Make sure she’s safe,” he said to Aislin.

“I’m not going to impose on her,” said Aislin.

“I don’t care. Just keep her safe.”

The door shut and I stood in the apartment hallway, alienated from my companions. The moment footsteps shuffled toward me from the apartment, I marched briskly down the hall, keeping my eyes ahead even when I heard the door open again. At least it would be Aislin with me, keeping her distance. But I was so angry and overwhelmed that I wished it was nobody at all. I wished I could text Colt to see if he was okay, but I left my phone behind. I wished I could apologize to him. I wished I had never gone to Grandbay, and that we could have met up outside of Dalesbloom and ran off together, then neither of us would be wrapped up in David’s nefarious schemes.

Once I stepped outside, the gravity of my solitude hit me; I was alone and steadfast on my way to the spot Aislin had taken me before to transform, but I wasn’t going to turn back so soon. I knew the risks. After leaving the main street in town and stepping into the bush, I stripped my clothes off and stowed them away by a tree, beginning my transformation. It was starting to get easier. The pain was familiar now, the way my bones cracked and groaned, how my muscles hissed with heat and my joints popped out and then back into place. Sunlight fell onto my thin timber fur and warmed my slender physique, imbuing me with strength, like I was a creature who belonged to the forest. Shaking out my pelt, I began a swift gait forward, drinking in the scents of nature.

There was so much on my mind that it was easier to just not think about anything at all. This was the first time I’d been alone as a wolf since I came to Grandbay, but the difference in my confidence was remarkable—it was tangible. I shifted my focus to the wind, searching for something to follow, and found the sweet aromatics of a doe and her fawn. Testing my ability to track them, I chased the scents, often stopping to gauge their freshness. I found the scent tickling tree trunks and woven into the dirt under their hoof prints. Soon, I saw them: the mature doe and a fawn that had lost its spots and was nearly as tall as the doe itself. Crouching in the bushes, I watched how the fawn clumsily staggered through the forest. I paid attention to the wind blowing, carrying my scent toward them—I could tell they smelled me, but they didn’t know where I was, sitting camouflaged on the forest floor. My tail twitched with excitement.

The moment they turned their backs on me, I burst forward, my paws flying over the terrain. Snapping twigs alerted them to my approach, but the fawn wasn’t fast enough to evade me. While the doe sprang away into the trees, she left behind her juvenile to stumble and bleat until I collided with it. Our bodies crashed to the ground. The thrill of the hunt blinded me as I snapped my teeth at its neck, swiftly capturing its throat. I felt its breath rattling and saw the whites of its eyes flash in fear. Primal instincts took over, my jaw clenching, suffocating the fawn as we lay entangled in the grass. When its body stopped moving, I knew I had won.

I pulled my head back and regarded the bloody scene, but all it invoked in me was hunger. Before my Moondream, the savagery would have made me nauseous. Now, I didn’t even think before ripping open my prey and devouring the sweet, succulent flesh on its flank, crunching bones and piercing its dark, slippery organs.

I reclined on my stomach to rest and digest when I finished eating. Human thoughts gradually filtered back in, but the hunt afforded me clarity I didn’t have before. Clarity about Colt and Gavin. About my own place in Grandbay, alongside Muriel, facing down my fears.

I was strong enough to be a wolf. I would prove to David that I was strong by standing beside Gavin, if Gavin still wanted me. But… I wasn’t going to let Gavin’s anger get the best of either of us anymore. He needed an anchor, a voice of reason, and I knew I could be strong enough to be that too.