Chapter 75

I went to the spring before I went home.

That had not been the plan, but by the time I reached the turnoff, my hands were still shaking around the steering wheel and the inside of the car smelled too sharply of sanitizer and panic. Ethan had smelled the thing across the parking lot. Others probably did too, even if they didn't show it. If I walked into the house like this, Dad, Jack, and Elise would catch something off me before I made it past the front door.

So I kept driving.

The road dipped and curved between the trees, grey and wet. The repaired car rattled under me, its leftward pull worse whenever the tires hit softer ground near the edge of the asphalt. I kept both hands tight on the wheel and tried not to think about anything but the drive.

By the time I reached my destination, afternoon light had begun dimming toward evening. I parked exactly how and where Ethan had taught me to park, behind the screen of fir and thorn, the car angled just wrong enough to disappear from the road. I sat there for a moment with the engine off, listening to it tick itself quiet. Then I got out, took my bag, and walked.

The forest felt different alone. Not scary, not anymore. But without Ethan beside me translating the ground, every step felt clumsier, more exposed. Roots hid under wet grass. Branches leaned too low. My boots sank in mud in places that looked firm until they betrayed me. I moved slowly, following the landmarks he had shown me, which made the walk a little easier.

The first time I saw the stream, relief went through me so hard it nearly brought me to my knees. The clearing lay empty. Water moved quick and cold over dark stones. I crossed it carefully, then continued past the rocks.

And then, finally, I arrived at the spring. It murmured quietly, nestled in its quiet pocket of trees and stone. No one was there. For one second, that disappointed me, which was silly because I hadn't told Ethan I was coming, and also because the whole point had been to avoid being smelled by my entire household. Still, the emptiness remained.

I set my bag down on a patch of soft moss covering a rock and crouched by the water. I gasped. The spring was brutally cold. Colder than usual, or perhaps it only felt that way. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to wash.

Hands first. Wrists. Then the inside of my sleeves where I had held the bag too close. I splashed water up my arms and scrubbed with the little bar of unscented soap I had started carrying in a plastic case after our first meeting here. I washed until the sanitizer smell faded, until the faint sourness I imagined clinging to my skin was gone, or at least gone to my human nose, which was the least useful measurement available but the only one I had.

Then I opened the bag. The smell was weaker now, buried under sanitizer and cold air, but still there enough that my stomach clenched. I took out everything item by item and laid it on the flattest rock I could find. Books. Folder. Pencil case. Wallet. The inside lining of the backpack was the real problem. It had not been visibly stained. That almost made it worse. The smell seemed to live there anyway, invisible and humiliating, tucked into fabric and seams like evidence.

I dipped a corner of the backpack carefully into the water, then scrubbed the inner lining with soap until my fingers ached from cold and effort. The fabric darkened, water dripping from it into the moss near my boots. I rinsed it again and again, then wrung out what I could and leaned it open over a branch to drain.

Only when I had finished did I realize that my face was drenched in tears. I pressed the heels of my wet, freezing hands to my swollen eyes and nearly sighed in relief.

After a minute, I heard something behind me. My whole body jerked. I twisted toward the trees with a half-formed panic already burning in my throat.

Ethan stood at the nearest tree, bare-skinned and muddy, his chest rising and falling in a slightly labored rhythm. There were traces of dirt on his hands and feet, and I realized he had probably been a wolf only moments ago. He seemed completely unbothered by his nakedness and what surprised me more was that I was too. The old Kelsey, the one from the city, would have cared. This one didn't. Not that I didn't like what I saw. I did. But somehow, it didn't matter. I didn't know whether all the trauma had made me numb to these things, or whether I had simply accepted them as the new normal.

I took another look at him. He was not close. Not yet. He had stopped the second I reacted, one hand half-lifted as if to show me he was not moving.

"Kelse."

My breath came out all at once. "What are you doing here?"

His gaze moved from my face to the wet backpack hanging from the branch, to the books spread over the rock, to my red hands, then back to my face. "You reeked of death and fear. What do you think?" He took a single step toward me. "Why did you come here alone?"

I wiped my cheeks too quickly, which did absolutely nothing except make it obvious that they were wet. "I just had to clean my stuff."

His eyes sharpened. Darkened.

"Tell me." The tone of his voice was low, gentle yet sharp at the edges, and left no room for debate.

He took another step closer. I stood at once, too fast, and the dizziness that followed made the trees sway. He was beside me before I finished swaying, his hand catching my elbow, steady and warm.

"Kelsey. There's no point in lying. I could smell it in the parking lot." He scowled. "I can smell it still, traces of it. I can sense your distress. Your eyes are swollen from crying." There was a slight tremor to his grip, like he was struggling to hold something back.

I looked down at his hand. If I told him, the whole thing changed shape. If I told him about the mouse, about Tess, about the notes and the mud and all the little things I had swallowed for weeks, then it would no longer be mine to manage badly in silence. It would become his too. And he was already on edge.

He saw my struggle and his jaw tightened hard enough that the muscle moved once. "It's not just today. Something has been bothering you for weeks. I could sense it, but I didn't press. I told myself you were nervous about the hiding, about me, maybe." His mouth pressed tight. "But now I know there is something else going on. Something you've been hiding."

I made myself look at him. "Ethan."

He heard the plea in my voice. "You can't ask me not to care."

"I'm not."

"You're asking me not to ask. You can't imagine what it does to me."

I hated how accurate that was. I pulled gently, and after the briefest hesitation he let go of my elbow. The absence of his hand left the air colder. He left some mud on my sleeve, but it was the least of my problems.

"I am asking you not to turn every horrible small thing into something bigger than it has to be."

His eyes narrowed. His body stilled in that way I knew too well and hated right now. "How many horrible small things?" His voice was too low.

I looked away, a fraction of a second too late. He saw it.

"Kelsey."

The sound of my full name made my chest hurt.

I crossed my arms, though the sleeves were damp and freezing against my skin. "It started a while ago," I admitted, before he could speak again. "Little things. Stupid things. Things that would sound ridiculous if I listed them. The mouse is just the cherry on top."

His body was stone, his eyes unblinking. "Did you see who did it? The mouse."

"No."

"What about the other things?"

"No. I don't know who was behind them."

A beat passed, and then he said, "List them to me. I want to know what happened and when."

I stayed silent.

"Kelse."

I huffed. "I told you, I'm not doing this. Telling you about every dumb little cruelty at school risks turning it into violence, and I am tired of violence, Ethan." The words came out harder than I intended.

They hit him. For a moment he looked younger, or maybe only a bit wounded. Then he drew in a breath and forced the worst of himself back down with a discipline that made me both grateful and miserable.

"Okay," he said suddenly. Too fast.

I blinked. "Okay?"

"For now," he confirmed, though the words looked like they hurt. "You're distressed enough as it is. I won't add to it. I can't." He took in a long, pained breath. "I won't press right now."

Right now. I caught that immediately but decided not to challenge it because a tactical victory still counted as victory if everyone survived it.

"But from now on, if anything else happens, you'll tell me. Immediately."

I looked away.

"Kelse." His eyes softened. "Don't make me beg you."

I was silent. What could I possibly say to that? Give him another lie? Or possibly condemn us both? I gave him a nod.

"Okay. I'll do that. But only if you promise me you won't do anything irrational. Nothing that could blow everything up."

He stared at me for several long seconds before he managed a slow, deliberate nod. I didn't miss how his fists clenched at his sides or how his breathing had deepened.

He turned away for one second, not leaving, just shifting his body because the thing inside him needed somewhere to go. Then he looked at the spring, at the water, at the half-washed bag. The restraint in him was so visible it hurt to watch.

When he spoke again, his voice was lower. "Just tell me one thing." He paused. "Has anyone touched you?"

"No."

He looked back immediately. "Truth."

"No," I said, and this time it was clean. "No one touched me." That was technically true. I left out the part about how close Tess's claws had come to my skin.

The relief that moved through him was almost violent, but it did not make him less angry. I saw it in the tiny trembles of his too-still body.

He looked at my hands. "You're freezing."

"I'm wet."

"Because you have been washing that thing in spring water until your hands turned red."

I tucked my hands under my arms like a child caught doing something stupid. He looked at them anyway. Then he took them carefully, one at a time, between his own, and I let him because I was too tired to be proud. His palms were almost painfully warm around my frozen fingers. He rubbed them gently until feeling began to come back in little burning sparks.

"You should have told me."

"I know."

The answer surprised us both. He looked at me. I swallowed.

"I know," I said again, quieter. "I just didn't want..." I stopped, because there were too many endings to that sentence. I did not want you to lose control. I did not want to be the reason everything exploded again. I did not want to admit that being untouchable still somehow felt like being hunted.

My eyes burned again.

His face softened in a way that hurt worse than anger. "Kelse."

"Don't be nice," I said immediately. "I'll cry again, and then this whole woodland rodent laundry scene will become even more humiliating."

A breath left him, almost a laugh, but not quite. Then he pulled me carefully against him.

I went.

For a moment, everything in me startled. Then the familiar current flowed between us, drawing me toward the warmth of him. I pressed my face into his bare chest and let myself stand there for three breaths. Four. Maybe more. He did not say anything. His skin was hot beneath my cheek. I could hear his heartbeat now, too loud, too fast.

"It's so much more pleasant now," I murmured before I thought better of it.

His hand stilled against my back. "What is?"

"The pull."

The words landed between us strangely. I felt it before I saw it, the way his body stilled again. I lifted my head. Ethan was looking down at me, all the warmth gone from his expression, not replaced by coldness, but by something sharper. Focus.

"What pull?"

My stomach dipped. "I don't know. The pull. I don't know how else to call it." I gave a small, uncomfortable shrug because his face had gone too serious and I suddenly wished I could stuff the words back into my mouth. "When you're close."

His eyes did not move from mine. "Since when?"

"I don't know. Since always. Since I got here, maybe. It was worse before."

"What do you mean, worse?"

"Ethan."

"Kelse. Please."

There was something urgent in the way he said it.

I swallowed. "It's like, I don't know, like my body responds when you're close. Like something in me keeps turning toward you. When you stand near me, it gets louder. When you are a bit further away, like across the parking lot, it's still there, but weaker." I frowned, trying to catch the feeling without making it sound like I had lost my mind. "Before, it was uncomfortable, like strings beneath my skin. Now it's quieter. Calmer. Warmer. Not a string, but a hearth. If that makes any sense."

His jaw had gone rigid. "And when I'm not near you at all?"

I looked down at his hands, still wrapped around mine. "Then there's nothing."

He did not breathe.

"I mean, I still think about you," I said quickly, heat rushing into my face despite the cold. "Obviously. I worry. I wonder where you are. I miss you. I still feel things. Normal things."

Nothing in his face changed. I forced myself to continue.

"But the pull itself? No. It's not there when you're gone. Not physically. It's only when you're close."

If Ethan went any more still, I would have thought him turned into a statue. I pulled my hands back a fraction.

"Ethan. Do you think..." I started, and then I dared to say something I had never dared to voice even to myself. "Can it be a bond?"

The words came out thin. But the way his eyes snapped back to mine in cold shock made me believe that I had accidentally stumbled upon something no one was ready to face.