Chapter 82

Once again, the morning came and Dad did not come home.

Jack hadn't slept. Elise hadn't either, though she had disappeared upstairs twice to check on Hailey and returned each time with her hair looser, her face more exhausted. I must have slept for a few minutes at some point because I found my cheek against my sleeve and my phone still clutched in one hand, the screen dark, no new messages waiting.

When the pale light spilled across the kitchen table, something inside me went very quiet, then solidified into a decision.

I stood. Jack looked up from his place near the window.

"Where are you going?"

"School." The word came out hoarse but steady.

Elise, who had been pouring coffee, set the pot down too hard. "No."

I picked up my bag from beside the chair and lifted my chin. "Yes."

Jack turned fully toward me. "You are not going to school today."

"I need to see Ethan. Need to see if he's alright."

"You are not walking into town, and especially not into that building, with Greystone scent on you waving like a red flag."

I looked toward Elise, but she did not rescue me. She stood by the counter with both hands pressed flat to the wood, eyes red, mouth tight.

Jack stepped closer. "Listen to me carefully. Today, if you go into school, you do not walk in as Kelsey Blackwell. Every lupine in there will know what happened before you reach your locker. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in that building will smell you and read claim, challenge, breach, and blood."

I stared at him as fury rose within me like a storm.

"I don't care. Do you hear me?" My voice rose as I stepped dangerously close to him. "I'm sick of carrying the blame for the things that aren't my fault, and I refuse to do it anymore. So I'm going to go to school to find out what happened, and you're going to let me."

I moved toward the door without waiting for an answer. Elise was there before I reached it.

"Kelsey," she said, her voice rough. "Do not make us stop you."

I laughed once, and it sounded nothing like me. I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows. "This time you'll have to. Let's see if you're ready to hurt your own granddaughter."

Pain moved across her face, sharp and raw and too fast for her to hide.

Jack's voice came from behind me. "Make no mistake, we can restrain you without hurting you." His tone was steady, certain. "And if I thought I could lock you in this house without you doing something more dangerously stupid the second we blinked, I would."

I turned. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, old flannel sleeves pushed to his forearms, face lined with a night's worth of things he hadn't said.

My throat tightened. When I finally spoke, my voice was thinner than I intended. "Then let me go. Please."

Jack let out a long breath. "If something really happened last night, the chances are you won't find him at school."

"Where, then?"

Jack waited a moment before answering. "Greystone land."

Elise drew in a sharp breath, turning toward him. "Jack."

"She will go anyway," he said. "You know it as well as I do."

"Don't discuss me like I'm not standing right here," I snapped.

His eyes did not leave mine. "I'm aware of that. That is why I'm still speaking to you as if you still have some sense in that skull of yours."

That did something to my anger because it began turning into tears that burned the corners of my eyes. I hated it and wiped the moisture away rougher than I needed to.

Jack came closer, slow and careful. "I'll let you go, if you promise me to follow everything I tell you to the letter. Can you do that?"

I nodded, lifting my chin up. "Yes."

Jack nodded as well. "Good. This is how you're going to do it. You will not go straight to the Greystone house. You will not cross their inner ring. You will take the road west, past the school, through the town, until it forks at a large split cedar. You can't miss it. The left side will take you toward their house. You will not enter the yard, but stop when you reach the old stone marker with two white veins through it. Got it?"

I nodded too fast.

"Say it."

"Road west. Past the school, through the town. Fork at the split cedar. Left side. Stop at the stone with two white veins."

"You stop there," he said. "Exactly there. If they choose to answer, they will. If they don't, you come home." He paused, like he was considering something, then continued in an even firmer tone. "You will not shout into Greystone land. You will not call that boy's name. You will not send messages announcing where you are. And you will not step one foot past that marker without invitation. You stand where I tell you and let them decide if and how to approach."

I swallowed. "What if Dad is there?"

Something shifted in Jack's face, worry moving under discipline. "It's unlikely he would be." Something darker crept into his words, weighing them down. "But if you see him... you don't leave the car. You turn back and come home. Immediately."

I didn't want to think about what he was insinuating. I couldn't. My hands curled around the strap of my bag.

"Will you come with me?" I hated how thin my voice sounded. "Please?"

For a second, Jack looked older than I had ever seen him. Then he shook his head.

"I can't." His eyes held mine, and for the first time since I had known him, I saw how heavy it was for him to remain where he stood. "I can't. Because, as much as you are not just Kelsey today, I am not just Jack."

Elise closed her eyes.

Jack went on, his voice lower. "If I walk to that boundary with you, it is not a grandfather escorting his granddaughter. It is Blackwell addressing Greystone after one of our own might have already breached their border. It becomes a statement, a threat, an escalation. Do you understand?"

I did. And I hated that he was right. I hated everyone for being right.

"So this is it, then."

Nobody answered.

Elise moved then, taking her own coat from the hook. It smelled of cedar from the closet and faintly of her hands. She held it out, and I let her help me into it because I was too tired to fight kindness when it was quiet.

Her fingers lingered for one second on my shoulder. "Be careful. If anything upsets you, whether it be something you hear or something you see there," she said, her voice breaking on the last word, "you come home. Hear me?" Her eyes glistened, and she blinked the tears away. It was a motion so unlike her that it made me pause. "You come home before anything else in this valley can hurt you again."

For a moment, none of us moved. Then I nodded because the alternative was falling apart.

Hailey appeared at the bottom of the stairs in her pajamas, hair tangled from sleep, Mr. Winkle hanging by one ear from her hand.

"You're leaving?" she asked.

I forced my face into something that would not frighten her more than she already was. "Just for a little while."

"Has Daddy come back?"

The question broke the room open. I crossed to her and crouched.

"No, not yet," I said, because no one had lied well enough the night before to make lying possible now. "But Jack and Elise are here, okay? You stay with them."

Her eyes filled. "Are you coming back?"

That one I could answer. "Yes." I put everything I had into the word. "Yes, Hailey. I'm coming back."

She hugged me with one arm, Mr. Winkle crushed between us. When she let go, I stood before I could change my mind.

Jack walked me to the door. At the threshold, he caught my wrist gently enough that I could have pulled free if I wanted to.

"When you reach the marker, get out of the car and stand where they can see you," he said. "Hands visible. No sudden movement. If Jason approaches you, you address him as Alpha Greystone unless he gives you permission otherwise."

My throat was dry. "And if it's Nell?"

His face softened by a fraction. "Then you thank every forest spirit out there still listening."

I almost smiled. Almost. Then he released me.

The morning air struck cold and damp when I stepped outside. The sky was low, the ground dark with moisture, the trees looming above with the same quiet disinterest.

I got into the car, started the engine, and drove toward Greystone land.