by Sammie Joyce
I was loath to admit it but I was on the fence about what to believe in terms of my friend and of what he was capable. I knew deep down, Cronin was a good guy, pure of heart but easily swayed by the magic that hung indiscriminately over the west to affect all of us.
Still, he had almost come after me twice now—once at Diamond Peak and once at the community meeting. Maybe he just wasn’t in control of himself.
I didn’t feel like going into the office that day but I knew I had clients waiting and really, what else could I do? Addisyn had refused to meet me and Cronin had made it clear that he wasn’t up for a heart-to-heart chat about what was going on with him. My only other option was sitting around my condo where Addy’s scent lingered on everything.
And if I do that, I’ll go crazy. I need to refocus on something other than the Council and the Protectors right now.
And Addy. I needed to compartmentalize. Later, I’d try to talk to Addy again… maybe. I was still angry about the way she’d talked to me.
At the office, I threw myself into making phone calls and meeting with my other partners to discuss firm matters. I saw a couple of clients and skipped lunch to discuss accounting issues with Herb and Kevin. Still, the day went painfully slow. Several times, I reached for the phone to call Addy and see if she was in a better mood but something stopped me from doing that.
At two o’clock, I couldn’t take anymore and I bowed out for the day. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do but staying at the firm was going to make my head explode.
It wasn’t until I was in my Jeep that I realized I was driving toward Fernando and Lorna’s house.
What are you hoping to prove here?
Instinctively, I knew why I’d gone. Someone needed to stick up for Cronin against the eyes of the Council and other shifters. I’d promised to have his back and even though I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced he hadn’t done the attacks, I knew he still wasn’t to blame if he had.
Lorna answered the door and eyed me speculatively.
“Hello, Inigo. I wasn’t expecting you. Was Fern?”
I shook my head and gave her a sheepish smile.
“I should have called,” I agreed. “But I was just in the neighborhood.”
“Slow day at the office?” she teased, ushering me inside. I nodded.
“Fern! Inigo is here.”
Lorna closed the door behind me and showed me to the living room, where Fern was flopped out on the sofa, watching television.
“Don’t judge me,” he growled without moving. “I worked three eighteen-hour days in a row.”
As a firefighter, Fernando’s schedule was gruelling and exhausting. I was the last one who would ever judge him for taking a load off during his free days.
I shook my head and eyed him admiringly.
“If you weren’t already on the Council, you would have been elected as a Protector, you know.”
Fernando rolled over and eyed me warily.
“Don’t flatter me, In. I know why you’re here,” he barked back. “And you’re wasting your breath.”
I smothered a grunt of annoyance.
“I’m only here to offer some perspective to the only voices of reason on the Council,” I cajoled. This time it was Lorna who snorted.
“I would know you were a lawyer, even if I didn’t know you,” she snickered and I sighed.
“Guys, come on,” I begged. “Cronin is a good soul. Everyone knows it or he wouldn’t be a Protector. Someone has to go to battle for him.”
“That is Homer and Bula’s job as bears. It’s not up to us to interfere with domestic matters between the groups.”
“This separation between the shifters and the humans certainly seems to be something we’re all involved in,” I countered. The pair exchanged a look and I didn’t need a translation.
“There should have always been a separation between the humans and the shifters,” Fernando replied, drawing himself up to stare at me with that deadpan expression. “It’s the younger generation who blurred the lines and endangered our ways. For centuries, we lived relatively undetected but you millennials and your ‘equality for all’ bullshit ruined that for everyone.”
Lorna sighed and gave me a disappointed look.
“Fern,” I groaned. “We have to co-exist the same way we co-exist with the other shifters. And aren’t wolves all about equality?”
“No,” Lorna answered for him. “We’re all about ranks befitting the members. You wouldn’t want a weak Alpha, would you?”
I exhaled, wondering how we’d gotten off the topic of Cronin so fast.
“Never mind the humans right now,” I backtracked. “What about Cronin? Isn’t there anything you can say to the Council that will make them believe he’s innocent?”
Lorna nodded at me to sit down but I shook my head. I wouldn’t be staying long.
“I won’t keep you,” I told her. “I just wanted to discuss what’s going to be done about Cronin. He’s sensitive, you know? He seems intimidating and hard but truly, he’s lonely and kind.”
“Inigo, you and the other Protectors have given us a lot of headaches over the past years.”
“Me?” I demanded in faux shock. “What did I do?”
Fern tittered.
“Just because you don’t get reprimanded doesn’t mean we don’t know what you’re doing,” he shot back. “Namely with the humans.”
I felt my bowels turn to water.
“What?” I choked. “W-what are you talking about?”
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.” Fernando’s voice hardened. “Which is why you really don’t have much say in what’s to be done in Council matters.”
I was at a loss for words. Did that mean they had learned about my relationship with Addisyn or were they talking about something else?
“Cronin might be in trouble now but you’re skating on particularly thin ice yourself.”
I stared at them, worry clenching my gut. Was this their way of warning me that they knew about Addy? If it was, I knew what else it meant—I’d have to end it before she got caught in the middle of something she couldn’t begin to understand.
“Cat got your tongue?” Fernando asked dryly. I darted my eyes down, concerned that he might read my baleful expression too clearly.
“Nope,” I said coldly. “I can see I’m wasting my time.”
“And you’re a busy man,” Lorna added as I turned to leave. “Being a Protector and all.”
Her meaning wasn’t lost on me. She was reminding me that my loyalty was, first and foremost, to my pack.
Not that she should have to remind me about that. I know that.
Why, then, did I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of letting Addisyn go?
She’s not your mate. She couldn’t be, not as a human. It might hurt but you’ve got to let her go.
“Leaving so soon?”
Before I could answer Lorna’s caustic question, my cell began to ring in my pocket.
“Yeah,” I called back to the councilmembers. “I’ll see you at the next meeting, I guess.”
I didn’t wait for a response as I stalked out of their Spanish-style house, my long legs taking me to the Jeep as I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket. I blinked when I saw Addy’s name and for a moment, I contemplated letting it go to voicemail but at the last second, I answered it.
Let’s pull off the Band-Aid. Quick and painless.
“Hey, Addy.”
“Hey.”
Her voice sounded as thick and disappointed as mine. I slid into the driver’s side and slammed the door, waiting for her to say what she’d called to say but only a long silence ensued.
“Ad? You still there?”
She cleared her throat.
“Yeah, I’m here,” she assured me. “Listen…”
My eyes widened in surprise. I had a feeling I knew what her “Listen” was all about. Indignation shot through me, even though I’d intended to bring this very conversation to t
he table.
“I don’t think we should see each other tomorrow,” Addisyn rushed on before I could cut her off. “Or anymore at all.”
The words stabbed into me with greater force than I expected.
“I see,” I said slowly, my stomach bubbling slightly.
“I-I just have my life a certain way and I don’t think that… I mean, I don’t know if…”
“You don’t think I fit into your life,” I finished coldly for her.
“I—it’s complicated, Inigo. I have a lot to balance right now and you… well, you seem to do things a certain way too.”
She was trying to be delicate but I knew what she was saying. She was worried I was going to complicate her life. Before I could think about the words, I let them fly out of my mouth.
“It was just a one-off, Addy,” I replied, laughing shortly. “You don’t have to take it so seriously.”
She paused.
“What?” she breathed.
“It was a one-night stand. There’s nothing complicated about it. I’m sorry if you took it so seriously.”
More agony bounced through me with each syllable I uttered but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to keep her away from me too. Maybe I was being harsh but it was the best thing for both of us.
“Right.”
“I have to go, Addy. I have clients. I have a job too, remember?” I lied, feeling the burn of my cruelty in my throat.
“Don’t let me keep you.”
This time, when our conversation ended, it was Addisyn who hung up on me and I struggled to keep my composure.
This is for the best, I told myself again and once more, I wondered how much more I could lie to myself.
15
Addisyn
I went through all the stages of break-up grief in the span of two hours but in the wrong order.
As I drove home, my foot heavy on the gas, I considered going for a run to unleash some of the anger radiating off of me but the depression had kicked in simultaneously and I just wanted to go home and curl up under my duvet.
I reminded myself that this was what I had wanted but if that was true, why was I hurting so badly?
I couldn’t remember ever breaking up with someone where I’d just wanted to cry but then again, there had never been anyone like Inigo before. No one had ever captured my interest so intensely, so purely, or so quickly. In less than a week, I knew I was in love with this man and that just couldn’t be right, could it?
When I pulled into the driveway, I sat in the car for a long time, shaking my head like I was trying to clear it, but the more I struggled to process the whirlwind relationship, the less sense it made.
It wasn’t a relationship, I told myself bitterly. It was a one-night stand, according to Inigo.
But I also knew he’d said that because I’d hurt him too. One-night stands didn’t text fifty times a day and ask how your clients were. One-night stands didn’t make plans for the upcoming weekend.
I stared at the house, knowing I couldn’t sit in the car forever, and finally managed to get my body to move.
I hoped Odessa had gone out, even though I still had no idea where she’d been going the past week. When I opened the front door, a chill of apprehension snaked down my back.
Cautiously, I dropped my purse and keys on the hall table and looked around the dark entranceway. My mother didn’t seem to be home but I could sense something amiss in the house.
“Mom?” I called out. “Are you here?”
There was no answer and the further I moved down the hallway, the tighter my spine became.
Don’t go in there! a voice in my head screamed at me. Don’t go…
But it was too late.
I entered the spacious kitchen and instantly saw her, sprawled on her back, her eyes glassy as she stared lifelessly at the ceiling. I sob escaped my mouth as I dropped to my knees beside her, cupping her face with my hands.
“MOM!” I whimpered. “Mom, wake up!”
Her body was already cold and I knew she’d been that way for hours, possibly since I’d left for work.
I fell back on my haunches and stared at the scene in disbelief, wondering how I could have let it come to this. I had known she was up to something. I had sensed it but ignored it.
I didn’t stop the tears from falling as I rose slowly and reached for the cordless phone to dial 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what’s the nature of your emergency?”
I sobbed again before finding my voice.
“M-my mother,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong with your mother, ma’am?”
“She’s dead.”
* * *
I’m not entirely sure how Vanessa got wind of what had happened but as I paced the modest waiting area at the coroner’s office, my best friend flew inside, still dressed in a yoga outfit from work.
Tears filled her eyes as she threw her arms around me.
“Oh, Addy,” she moaned. “I’m so sorry you had to find her like that!”
I accepted her embrace dully but my heart wasn’t in it. My head was in a fog and I could only stare at the empty reception area, waiting for any kind of word.
“You don’t need to be here, honey,” Van insisted. “They’ll call you.”
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, not really caring about the answer. The world seemed removed somehow, like I was watching it in monochrome from another dimension.
“Alex Patrick saw all the police cars and the coroner outside your place on the way to the gym,” Van explained. “I knew right away that she’d…”
Van didn’t finish her thought and I was glad she didn’t.
The double swinging doors opened and one of the coroners appeared in green scrubs, her mouth partially covered by a surgical mask.
“Are you the family of Odessa Clark?” she intoned. I nodded, stepping forward.
“Yes.”
The doctor looked at me with as much sympathy as she could muster but I could tell she’d been around death so much, she’d probable reached the pinnacle of apathy by now when it came to grieving families.
“I’ll need you to sign here. It’s verification of the body.”
“What happened to her?” I asked, reaching for the pen. I knew exactly what had happened to her. She’d died the way I’d always known she was going to.
The woman looked uncomfortable by my question.
“We haven’t done a full autopsy yet but the preliminary toxicology report came back indicating that she had a very high concentration of heroin and methadone in her system. Was she on a methadone program?”
I shouldn’t have been shocked but somehow, the words continued to punch blows into my stomach. I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“Many methadone patients don’t understand that it curbs the effects of other drugs. So if they venture to do, say, heroin, they won’t feel high and will take higher dosages to get the desired effect. Unfortunately, that inevitably leads to an overdose before intoxication.”
“She understood that just fine,” I muttered. “She just didn’t care.”
Van slipped her arm around my waist but the motion was futile. Her appendage wasn’t strong and comforting, not like Inigo’s. She was petite, a waif. There was nothing she could do to make me at ease.
“Do you need anything else from her?” Van asked.
“Not at the moment. I’m sure the police will be in touch if necessary.”
“Thank you,” Van said, leading me away. I didn’t struggle but I didn’t really help either, my mind in a fog as Vanessa led me into the black night beyond. I had no idea what time it was or how long I’d been in there. My phone had rung a few times but when I realized that none of the calls was from Inigo, I’d turned it off.
He’s not going to call you. He’s made it clear that he’s done with you.
“You can come stay with me tonight, Addy,” Vanessa was saying when I tuned back in. “You shouldn’t go home.”
I shook my head.<
br />
“No,” I told her firmly. “I want to go home. I want to be alone for a while.”
Van tried not to look hurt as she nodded in agreement.
“If that’s what you want… but will you please call me if you need anything?”
She was trying to lead me to her vehicle but I gestured with my chin toward my own that was parked nearby.
“I have my car,” I told her.
“Your car can wait until tomorrow. You look awful and shouldn’t be driving,” she insisted. “Come on.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. She was probably right anyway. I couldn’t focus on anything and I wasn’t going to be going to work in the morning. There were funeral arrangements to be made.
I wonder if her dealer will come and mourn her loss.
Shame and fury spiked through me in a whirlwind.
“She died thinking I hated her,” I heard myself say. “And maybe I did.”
I felt Van shoot me a sidelong look but I only kept my eyes trained on the windshield as I sorted through the Rolodex of emotions inside me.
“You didn’t hate her, Ad. Your relationship was…”
“Complicated?” I snorted mirthlessly, again thinking of Inigo and what I’d said to him.
“Intense,” Van offered.
Inigo and I were intense too. Maybe those are the only kinds of relationships I know—complicated and intense.
“I wasn’t very nice to her,” I went on, my voice catching in my throat.
“She didn’t deserve you most of the time,” Van replied grimly. “You did your best, Addy, and Odessa pissed on that at every turn.”
She quickly clamped her mouth shut as if she’d said too much but I didn’t fault her. I knew she was trying to make me feel better the best way she could.
We continued the rest of the drive in silence, my mind spinning as I tried to imagine a way I could have stopped this from happening.
Or had I wanted it to happen?
More guilt, more anger, more bargaining.
I’d endured too much grief in far too short a span of time.
“Are you sure I can’t come in with you, even for a few minutes?” Van asked when she pulled up to the house. I shook my head and reached for the door handle, struggling to get out of the bucket seat.