26. Max

26

MAX

" G o." Declan handed me a ball that had the hellhound trotting up to us, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he wagged his tail. "Get out of here, take a few hours to relax. You need it. We'll be fine."

"But—"

"Max, we'll be okay for a few hours." A small grin tugged at the corner of her mouth, but something about it felt flat and she dropped her eyes when they met mine. She was just as exhausted and drained as we all were.

"Do you want to join me?" I twined her fingers through mine.

For a moment, she wrestled with the offer, a tension I couldn't place. "Not this time, I'm going to stay back and keep an eye on things, maybe catch a nap."

"Alright." I swallowed my disappointment. They'd all been so strange this morning. "I won't be long."

She straightened. "Take as long as you need, Max. Go recharge, take Ralph. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We need you strong and rested for the long haul if we're going to have any hope of—you know, figuring this all out. "

Finding a way for me to not die, she meant.

I pulled away, feeling uncomfortable, though I couldn't place why, exactly. Maybe she was right. The pent-up energy of everything.

Tensions were high and I still felt the fumes of our ‘family meeting' coat every interaction I had with my team.

"Just, you know," I tapped my head, "reach out if you need anything."

She shook her head. "Give them the space and privacy to process everything. They need it."

Her eyes screamed the truth. She needed it too.

I sniffed, staring at my shoes. "Right."

Ralph nudged my left hand, nosing the cartoonishly small ball that he was obsessed with.

Dec squeezed my shoulder. "It was quite a bomb, Max. We just need some time to figure this all out. And so do you. To say the last few days have been chaotic and gut-wrenching would be the world's biggest understatement, yeah?"

I nodded, suddenly feeling the weight of the cabin press in on me. "You're right."

It wasn't just our cabin either, the unspoken (and very loudly spoken, thank you, Darius) anger and fear, the planning, the grief. The grounds of the Lodge itself were suffocating, the grief unavoidable—attacking us from all directions. Both the loss we were all trying to process and the future loss I was trying like hell to make tomorrow's problem.

"Alright." I fought the desire to leave for another moment, sensing something that Declan wasn't telling me. Maybe she was right though. That was why I needed to leave. To give them space. To think through some things myself for a few hours.

To just go—exist—for a few hours, without the weight of everything suffocating me.

Resisting the urge to press anymore, I kissed the corner of her mouth. "I'll see you in a bit, I guess. "

I tasted it in the atmosphere, the heavy sadness that cloaked the community here—metallic and cold and impossible to ignore. I felt Evelyn and Bishop's absence like a heavy stone in the base of my lungs. Saw pain in every pair of eyes I met as I walked through the now-familiar buildings and paths of the grounds. Could feel my own clogging my throat every time I tried to take a breath.

Dec was right. I really was close to burning out. Not just from the last few days, but from the last few months.

I couldn't argue with my team anymore. Couldn't stand to see the hurt and betrayal etched across their features after our talk. I didn't want the remainder of our time together to be filled with so much fear, so much hurt.

As much as they fought me, I knew they were trying their best to understand, to let me go. I needed to find a way to mend things, while giving them the space to express and process what they needed to.

It helped some that they were mobilized by Atlas's request. Since our talk, whenever I entered a room, I'd often find them huddled together, whispering and conspiring, going over options and possibilities that I knew were pointless.

I didn't fight them though. He was right. I did owe them this. I couldn't tell them how to grieve, how to make this okay for them.

But I also couldn't sit there and just…watch them pour over options that I knew would prove futile. So, I sank all of my time and energy into helping out around The Lodge. I did my best to take over some of Charlie's duties, while Mer and some of the others kept watch over her.

I'd kept myself so busy that I'd hardly even had time to catch up with Claude and Nash, but I knew that Darius was keeping an eye on them. Between chores and checking on everyone, I caught glimpses of the three of them a few times. They were always bickering, but even after everything they'd been through, it was clear there was still a healthy layer of affection and love underneath all the muck—they just needed time to dig it up.

I spent last night curled up with Eli, holding him while he tried to process shit with his mom on top of everything else. I hated that he was offered my death on a platter so soon after losing his mom. His complicated emotions about her, about everything, were tangled and gnarled, and my chest ached whenever I lingered on his pain for too long.

I'd tried checking on Levi too a few times when things calmed down, but no one had seen him since their return.

Stopping where the path closed into the woods, I bent over, the heaviness of everything suddenly loud and undeniable when faced with the stillness of the morning.

Maybe Dec was right. I'd been throwing myself into tackling so many issues, helping as many people as I could after our missions, that it was all just building up—becoming overwhelming.

I pressed my palm into my sternum and took a deep breath, reaching for the bonds, grateful that I could feel them all there—even though it hurt, even though it brought back the edges of my own grief I'd only just managed to fold into myself—a quiet, but ever-present echo.

Go . Declan's voice filtered into my thoughts, pulling them back from the dark cliff they balanced on. I promise we'll be okay here for a few hours. That hellhound needs a run and he won't leave your side. Eli's okay. Wade and Atlas are okay. Darius is…well, Darius—which I never thought I'd say is a fucking relief. I'll hold things down while you're away and I'll be here when you get back.

I took a deep breath, nodding to myself, then pushed the connection away, as she'd asked.

She was right. We all just needed some space.

This afternoon, we were going to regroup, go over mission debriefs and make a plan for next steps. There were two council members left, and while I had no fucking clue where they'd be hiding, I knew that they were the key to getting the stone—so that's where we'd start.

Ralph's paws crunched in the sparse patches of snow as he slowed his stride to match mine.

I buried my hand in his thick fur, drawing strength from his steady presence. She wasn't wrong. He hadn't stopped patrolling our cabin, herding us all together throughout the chaos of the last few days. We didn't really have the space for six adults and a giant hellhound in the cabin, but none of us would turn him away. He brought a warmth to our team, made the space feel more homey and lived in.

He'd been a silent companion, a beacon of comfort and warmth I hadn't realized how much we'd all needed.

Hell, Darius had even stopped threatening to toss Shadow out into the snow once he realized that Ralph now considered her part of his pack.

The cold dawn breeze fluttered through his fur and turned his breaths into soft clouds of smoke, making him appear more hellhound-like than usual.

We stood there for a while, the two of us taking in the sights of the lake from the periphery.

Charlie was on the dock, leaning into Mer as her shoulders shook with soft sobs.

My vision went hazy from witnessing her pain.

Since our return I couldn't bring myself to speak more than a few words to her, to comfort her. I wasn't sure what my place was with a cousin I'd only just learned was family and I didn't know how to ease a hurt that I knew only too well couldn't be eased.

Partially because I knew that it was my fault, at least to some degree. Charlie and Bishop's child would grow up fatherless because of a mission I'd helped orchestrate.

But also because her grief was the sort that hollowed out my chest in an unfamiliar way, one that made me feel nauseated if I let myself linger in it too long.

She'd lost her partner.

I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would feel like losing one of mine.

I'd be putting them all through the same agony one day.

The realization lodged heavy and icy in my gut, curling its blade-like fingers over my ribs and squeezing tight. Looking at her was like looking at a premonition of what they'd go through.

Soon, probably.

Though not as soon as we'd planned. I was both grateful and ashamed of that.

All this pain, and it was all for nothing. We'd lost two members of this community and we were no closer to finding the stone.

The only thread we had to hold onto was the fact that there were only two council members left.

Of course, without Evelyn's intel, we had no way of finding them, no way of tracking down where they might be hiding the stone.

It was a thought spiral I slid down on an infinite loop whenever the grief bled into rage.

Ralph's head nudged me as a small whisper-bark brought me back from the edge.

"Right," I muttered, "air."

I forced my lips into the closest thing to a smile I could manage right now and patted him. "Let's go for a run, boy."

When his tail wagged, his entire back end followed suit.

I took off, and he kept pace next to me, slowing his stride to match mine, both of us adding considerable speed once our legs were warmed up.

Before I realized it, the forced smile shifted into a sincere one, as the crisp air chilled my cheeks and the strain of exercise lifted the vice that had been tightening around my chest.

We ran hard and fast, suffocating the ruminating thoughts until they had no energy of their own to churn.

We were maybe eight or nine miles into it when we paused in a clearing, Ralph demanding some water and a quick game of fetch.

He dropped the red ball at my feet. One of the kids at camp had given it to him and I rarely saw him without it anymore. It was a bit absurd—the small size of the ball compared to the large size of the dog—but he loved it.

I tossed the ball as far as I could throw it, wiping the excessive slobber coating it against my thigh.

He took off, pouncing and prancing through the brush more like a deer or giant rabbit than a dog, and disappeared from sight, his playful soft barks echoing through the trees and forcing the sleeping birds from their perches.

I stood in the small clearing, catching my breath and enjoying the small reprieve while he dug through snow and piles of sticks, trying to find his prize.

It was a bright, crisp morning, and even in the thick of the forest, I felt the gentle heat of the sun kiss my skin. I closed my eyes for a moment, basking in the feel of it, letting some of the heaviness that had been weighing me down evaporate from my pores.

A twig snapped behind me, disturbing the brief peace I'd fought so hard to find.

My blade was already clutched at my side, my muscle memory faster than my fear, as I spun around to meet the intruder.

I expected a rabbit or a wolf, some animal startled from rest by Ralph's rambunctious play.

Instead, there was a man .

He stood tall and lean, the few visible patches of his brown skin marred with scars and inked markings. Dark, wavy hair fell over his brows and down to his shoulders, meeting a thick, curly black beard that held a few stray twigs hostage in their strands.

He was dressed for the weather, in hiking boots and a down jacket, a large pack hitched high on his back. If it weren't for the blade dangling from his right hand, I'd have thought him just a human man who'd wandered off a hiking path.

But he didn't seem lost, and his glare was just as sharp as the weapon his fingers tightened around.

They were dark as coal and pinned narrowly on me, like he'd been searching for something and I'd come up lacking.

There was something familiar in the lines of his face, though I couldn't pin down what exactly it was.

I didn't know every person who lived at The Lodge by name, but I was certain I'd never seen this man around before. He had the sort of presence that couldn't easily be forgotten. Strong, foreboding. Dangerous.

"Hi. Are you lost?" I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but my feet shifted anyway, years of Cy's training preparing my body for a spar, even though teleporting would probably be the safest thing to do out here if it came to blows.

His shoulders relaxed as he studied me, a small grin hooking the corner of his mouth, though I couldn't entirely tell if the smirk was malicious or not. "No. I don't think that I am."

Ralph came bulldozing back, the red ball dropping at my feet with a liquid flop, as he put himself between me and the strange man. A low, soft growl rippled from his chest, vibrating the ground at my feet.

From the brief flashes I could see of him around Ralph, the man looked startled.

He dropped the blade at his feet and took a few steps back.

"Easy," he said, his voice a low, deep rumble, "I mean no harm. "

Ralph took a step closer, then another, his loud sniffs echoing through the clearing as he pressed his nose to the ground, then to the man's feet.

I stepped around for a better look and found the mysterious man craning his neck back, eyes shut and trying not to panic as Ralph's nose pressed to his chest.

He looked rightfully hesitant, but not nearly surprised enough by the presence of a giant supernatural hound as he would be if he were human.

Ralph let out a strange whine I'd never heard before, then spun in a circle, his tail wagging with a vengeance.

Then he jumped towards the man, but instead of attacking, he licked the man's face, from his chin to his temple.

The man's lip curled in disgust, but he didn't dare push the hellhound away. Instead, he stood there, his face slick with saliva, a curl of his hair protruding at an awkward angle, caked in slime.

Unbothered by the man's ambivalence, Ralph nuzzled the red ball over until it hit his mud-coated shoe, waiting patiently for him to throw it.

I held my breath, confusion fighting for shock as I watched the scene unfold before me.

The man glanced briefly from me to Ralph, and I could see that he was just as conflicted, every muscle frozen, like he wasn't entirely sure if the hound wanted to play or was simply tasting out his next meal. With a heavy sigh, he bent down slowly, picked up the ball and tossed it far into the woods.

Ralph took off with a happy leap, not even sparing me a glance as he ran off after his prize. Traitor.

The man relaxed, watching the hellhound pounce through the snow like a puppy. "Friend of yours, I take it?"

I'd never seen Ralph take so quickly to a stranger, and he'd always been a good judge of character. Still, I couldn't bring myself to trust this man just yet .

I arched a brow, not wanting to give an inch. "Who are you? How did you find this place?"

He dropped the pack from his back with a soft thud, then took a few steps closer to me.

I held my dagger up between us, stopping him before he got any closer. "My patience isn't exactly elastic these days."

"Neither was hers," he said, that small half-smile again, though this time it quivered just slightly. "Ever. And I know this place because it's mine."

I didn't drop the blade, but I didn't push forward to break his skin either. "The Lodge?"

"And my name," in a move too fast for me to predict or react to, he disarmed my dagger and held it to my throat, "is Saif. Judging by that familiar, stubborn expression on your face, that must make you my niece."