FRACTURED (37 page)

Just as I was drifting off, I felt him there, hovering over my side of the bed staring down at me. In the light of the moon, I could see through Matty's form to the dresser directly behind him. Given that Peyta was most likely in the room next to us, I knew it wasn't a good sign.

The expression he wore didn’t help matters.

He went to speak, but I shushed him quickly with an index finger to my mouth. Sean was still sleeping soundly beside me, and I didn't dare wake him. I signaled for Matty to head out of the room before I precariously wormed my way out from under Sean’s arm. My apartment was chilly, but I didn’t want to make a ruckus searching my room for something warm to put on, so I slipped out of the room in my tanktop and underwear.

Tiptoeing my way down the hall, I realized it would take a small miracle to not wake anyone else in my quest for privacy. A living room full of werewolves, albeit sleeping ones, was not going to be an easy obstacle to overcome. I managed to make it to the door without incident, but just as I shifted my weight to reach for the knob, the floor let out a groan and Alistair stirred next to the armchair he was passed out beside. I held my breath, waiting to see if my plan was foiled before it was even in play. Luckily, he wriggled around for a moment before settling back down into his deep slumber.

With a silent sigh, I made it out the apartment door and found a very transparent Matty waiting for me on the landing. I carefully walked around him—though I could easily have gone right through him—and continued on toward the studio upstairs, trying desperately to keep the growing concern from my face. The amount his held was more than enough for the both of us.

The instant we entered the third floor space he started in on me.

“Something’s wrong, Ruby,” he said, his voice weak and distant.

My heart sank instantly—he was fading, just as Peyta had warned.

I instinctively reached for him, but was met with nothing but cold air when my hand passed through him effortlessly. My ragged breath caught in my throat as it tightened. I was not ready for this inevitability.

“What do I do?” he asked, eyes pleading. I had nothing helpful to offer.

“Maybe I should get Peyta,” I whispered, staring at him blankly while my eyes stung with the welling tears.

“Don’t go!” he called out, reaching for me.

“I can’t help you.” I choked on the words as they left my mouth.

Had I ever done anything to help Matty, or did I only cause him greater amounts of pain? “I’m going to go wake her. She’ll know what to do.”

“I’m fading, aren’t I?” he asked, attempting to regain composure.

“We don’t know that,” I replied. I had to turn away from him so he wouldn’t see the tear escape down my cheek.

“You
do
know. Tell me. Now!”

“I can’t.”

“You
can,
” he demanded, flashing in front of me. “Tell me!”

“YES!” I screamed. “You’re fading. It’s exactly as Peyta described it. But I’m not ready. I'm not ready to lose you again. I just got you back!”

So much for my attempts to not wake anyone. I was in full-on freak-out mode. I knew it would only be moments before we were joined by everyone downstairs.

“So this is goodbye this time? For real?”

I couldn’t force the word 'yes' out of my mouth, even though I knew it was true.

Before I could offer a placating response of any sort, a stampede of supernaturals came barreling through the door, with Sean and Cooper leading the pack. One look at the two of us stopped them all in their tracks, like they'd just walked in on the most intimate of moments.

They sort of had.

“Oh, Matty,” Peyta whispered, her eyes full of pity. She couldn’t bring herself to say what I chose not to acknowledge. It was the last time we'd ever see him again.

37

We stood in the room, staring at each other silently. I’d already lost him once—the thought of doing it again was beyond comprehension. I prayed for a way to keep him, but even I, in all my denial, could not ignore the growing white mist that crept toward him from the far mirrors. The pearlescent glow was one I knew well. I'd seen it before.

“It’s time,” Peyta whispered from somewhere in the room. I was too preoccupied to care.

“It would make this so much easier if you weren’t looking at me like this was going to crush you, Ruby,” Matty declared with a wan smile.

If only he’d known how true his words were.

He stole a look over his shoulder at the inviting white cloud that beckoned him home. I glared at it with a hatred so cold that my whole body numbed. If I'd known how to fight God himself, I would have challenged him without pause. Matty never deserved the hand he was dealt, and I wanted more than anything to keep him from his fate. He may have believed that heaven was better than anything earth had to offer, but I lacked his faith and was far too selfish to care even if he was right.

He advanced towards his new home, and I reflexively dove after him.

“You can’t go, Ruby,” he said, holding me at bay with his expression. “It’s okay. I'll be all right.”

“Matty,” I whispered, unable to fight back my tears.

“I’m not leaving you, Ruby. Nobody can. Whenever you dance, I’ll be right there with you.”

And with that, he was gone.

I stormed the clearing mist, crashing into the mirror, screaming his name repeatedly. For the briefest moment, I saw his image looking back at me from within it, but it faded fast. Much too fast. My fingertips pressed the cold glass, trailing oh-so slowly down, unwillingly giving up their fight to claim him from where he'd gone.

I felt nothing.

I needed to feel
something
.

My fists slammed the reflective surface that had stolen my friend.

Over and over again, I pounded it until glass shards and blood rained down around me. Pain shot through my arms, filling the emptiness that Matty's death had left.

It was a start.

As I pummeled the wall before me until my knuckles were broken and mangled, I felt an arm encircle my waist, pulling me away from my therapy.

“NO!” I screamed, flailing against my captor.

“Ruby, stop,” Sean whispered, trying to pin my arms down with his.

I struggled against him, my blood boiling with rage. Out—I had to get it out, and he was denying me the only outlet that I'd found comfort in. While he spoke low and soothing words, I thought I would explode, and continued to fight in vain to escape the confines of his grasp.

Finally, with my frustration hitting a fever pitch, I screamed. An unholy sound that threatened to overwhelm the very fiber of my being vibrated out of my body, releasing the evil I felt. I strained hard against Sean, bending away from him, curling over his arms as the sound continued to purge itself. It seemed to last forever.

Once it ended, my legs gave way and I crumpled in Sean’s hold. My body was weak—my anger gone. But instead of the emptiness returning, a sadness so penetrating impaled my heart, stopping it short. I didn't care.

Caring took energy I no longer had.

He lowered me down carefully, curling his body around mine protectively until we knelt on the floor together. We'd been in a similar situation a year earlier, only that time we were face to face. This time, Sean engulfed me from behind, whispering unintelligible words in my ear soothingly.

“He’s gone, Ruby,” he said, finally reaching my barely coherent mind. “But I am not. I am here with you now, and I will be with you until the end of time. You may fall apart, but I will
always
pick up the pieces.

There is nothing that can keep you from me.”

I turned beneath him to see his face. His eyes burned brightly, though framed by a pained expression. “You and I are beyond this world, Ruby. Beyond love.”

“Will it stop?” I asked, still barely able to breathe. “The pain? Will it stop?”

He pressed his lips tightly together in a sympathetic gesture, pushing a strand of loose hair out of my face.

“No. It won’t,” he said softly. “But it will subside. You have to learn to coexist with pain, Ruby. It’s not black and white. Not a war you can win. If you keep trying to defeat it, it will erode you inside until you're nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Let me help you.”

The stake that impaled me was torn out, releasing my heart—

releasing my emotions. I sobbed, unable to contain the sadness, no longer able to control the things I longed to hide away and ignore. I fell forward but Sean was there, catching me before I slammed to the floor, scooping me up in his arms with ease.

He turned to make his way to the exit, and I was reminded that we were not alone. A wall of sad faces met mine, some showing the signs of their own emotional outbursts. I couldn't endure their stares, so I shifted in Sean’s arms, clinging to him like a child. With my face buried deep in his neck, I no longer had to face them, but I did have to contend with their sorrowful energies invading mine. Sean whisked me out of there quickly, as if he knew what their pain and sympathy was doing to me. We were downstairs in seconds and tucked away in my bedroom, blocking off the majority of the assault.

He soothed me to sleep, muttering in a language I couldn't understand and didn't need to. His love was apparent regardless. With me clutched in his arms, I eventually fell asleep, and for once, the nightmares stayed away.

38

I awoke to a cacophony of sound in my living room. When I saw that it was only 7:17 a.m., I sprang out of bed to see what was going on. Alone in my room, I grabbed a bathrobe to cover up with and stormed out into the hallway to find the source of the ruckus. I wasn't at all prepared for what I saw.

The newbies were playing soccer with a tennis ball, banking it off of the walls, the furniture, and any other surface they found beneficial to their game. Peyta sat on the couch, constantly ducking the flying object while Jay hovered by the front door, trying not to laugh and failing miserably at it.

As I moved further down the hall, I saw the most distressing sight of all. Cooper and Sean were in the kitchen―together―attempting to make breakfast, all while having their usual power struggle. They bickered back and forth about who should be doing what and how and where; I never knew there could be so much to debate about frying eggs.

With all the commotion, nobody seemed to notice my presence, so I leaned against the hallway wall and soaked in all the craziness. That was to be my new life, and it strangely made me smile. Perhaps my definition of family wasn't textbook perfect, but as I silently watched them all creating chaos and shenanigans in my apartment, I was glad it wasn't.

Maybe Merriam-Webster didn't know shit.

Epilogue

Weeks went by without any drama.

Jay and Sean spent a fair amount of time traveling back and forth to the UK, trying to search for whoever was responsible for the technology that had nearly led to my demise―or did, depending on how you looked at it. Their efforts turned up nothing more than dead ends and missing pack members. Unfortunately, they were dead too.

The boys were acclimating to their new home well, all things considered. After a lot of thought, I decided to remodel my dance loft into an apartment for them, even though they insisted that the accommodations were fine. Cooper had wanted to find them a place in town, but I shut that down. I could feel that, for once, they felt like they truly belonged somewhere, and I just couldn't bring myself to force them out on their own. Cooper got on board with my idea after I pointed out that
he
still lived with me for that very reason. It felt good to be constantly around people who loved you.

The boys may have been settling in well, but Scarlet was not. She and I were left to once again try to navigate our mending relationship, and it was not going smoothly. She rarely spoke to me and wanted nothing to do with coming out. She may have been back, but she wasn't back to normal.

Sean's hostility toward her didn't seem to help matters much. I guess if I had known that his dark-eyed persona was waiting to grill me, I wouldn't have been too excited about showing myself either. I needed to know what happened while she was loose and I was caged, so that if anything required cleaning up, it could be done sooner rather than later.

She appeared to prefer the later option―much, much later at the rate we were going.

One relationship that was doing well was Peyta’s and Jay's. They were more in love than ever, and I had the distinct pleasure of hearing about it constantly at the shop. If she wasn't gushing about Jay, she was rambling on about how changed her mother was since she and Malcolm had started dating. Ronnie even put her firearms away. As happy as I was that Peyta enjoyed this new side of her mother, I couldn't help but be leery of it. I wanted to check her for dog tags just to be sure her mind wasn't being controlled too. Somehow, I knew the gesture wouldn't have been appreciated.

Peyta did mention that her mother was inquiring a lot more about Jay―his history, his relationship to the others in his pack, and other pointed questions that had me a bit unsettled. Even though Ronnie had softened, I knew she hadn't changed overnight. She was shrewd and mildly paranoid, a deadly combination for sure. I was worried that she was onto something about the PC or had finally seen enough of Peyta in action to truly start to wonder why she'd never heard of something like her before. Ronnie knew more about werewolves and pack life than I did.

Happy and in love or not, she wasn't going to keep buying our cover story forever.

From cover stories to cover-ups, the McGurney mystery still remained unsolved. Knowing that something was off about the murder, Alan insisted on investigating, with or without my help, but he started to respect the boundaries that he and I had to operate under. He started treating me more like the days of old, but clearly had reservations, especially when it came to me being around his family. After everything that had happened, it was understandable, but I felt like he knew that, when it was all said and done, I was on his side. I wanted to know what had happened to McGurney too―only for very different reasons.