The Rift (22 page)

I wanted to bang my head on the wall. “Did
you sign anything? Did you work out terms?”

Her face hardened. “I’m not a complete idiot.
Jeremiah and I read the new contract together and it looked good.
Everything will be okay.”

“Time’s up,” Jeremiah growled from the
front.

I looked at her with raised brows. The girl
I’d known would never have let some guy dictate the length of her
conversation with a friend. Her attention was back on her cupcakes,
and she wouldn’t look at me.

I walked back out to where Jed was waiting,
resisting the urge to grab Angelica by her hair and drag her out of
that place. “We should get some food,” I said. “I’m starving.”

Jed held up a big bag. “I’ve already got
it.”

I nodded and we left, every step feeling like
a wrong choice.

“I’ll drive,” he said when we stepped
outside.

“You afraid I won’t take you back to the
house?”

He smiled, the warm sunshine on his face
making his hair sparkle and shimmer. “No. I just know how hungry
you are. I thought you might like to eat while I drive.”

I couldn’t quite manage a smile after the
conversation I’d had with Angelica, but I nodded and handed him the
keys.

“She wants to stay with him,” I said, once
I’d eaten enough to quiet my rumbling stomach. “She says the bruise
on her cheek wasn’t from him.”

“You can’t force her to leave. No matter how
crazy he seems.”

“I know. I’m hoping his craziness is just him
adjusting to being a wolf like Tessa said. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise, there’s still nothing you can do
until she asks you for help.”

His advice should have annoyed me, but it
actually made me feel better, because it confirmed what I was
already thinking. It made me feel less like I was abandoning my
best friend to a monster. “She said Yvonne let her out of her
contract so she could stay with Jeremiah.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t sound like my
mother.”

“I know. They signed a new contract promising
to do jobs for her when she needed them.”

“I’ll look into it,” he said. “It could be
fine.” But his jaw was clenched when he spoke, and I knew it
wouldn’t be fine.

When we pulled into the driveway, it was
almost midday. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was warm
enough that I’d stripped down to the short-sleeved t-shirt under my
cardigan. My mind was still on Angelica and the trouble I was sure
she was in with Jeremiah’s uncontrollable temper and Yvonne’s
contract, so I didn’t register the lump on the front porch
immediately. When I did, I thought it was a pile of clothes, and I
wondered why they were there. Jed’s phone rang the moment he
parked. He answered it as he opened his door and stepped out.

“Lionel?…They’re still out looking for her…
They did what?” Jed froze halfway to the porch, then rushed up the
steps, dropping to his knees next to the bundle of clothes. “Shit,
she’s here…She looks bad, but she’s still breathing.”

I ran up the steps behind him. It took me a
moment to recognize the bloody mess on the porch as Tessa. A sob
escaped and I dropped down beside her, wishing I had the slightest
idea what to do. We needed a doctor. I leapt to my feet and rushed
into the house, not registering Jed’s words as he continued to talk
on the phone.

I ran down the hall to Doctor Veronica’s room
and banged on her door. She emerged, not really seeing me for a
moment, her mind obviously somewhere else. “I’m sorry, Kelsey, I’m
on a phone session with a patient. I can’t talk right now.”

“No, Doc. It’s Tessa. She’s back and
she’s…”

Doctor Veronica disappeared back into her
room for only a moment, murmuring something before she came back
out and joined me in the hall. “How bad?” she asked as we hurried
back to the porch.

“It’s bad, Doc,” I said, another sob
escaping. “It’s really, really bad.”

The doctor didn’t say anything when she saw
Tessa, but her mouth tightened and she swayed on her feet before
she sat down next to Jed and starting looking Tessa over.

“They sent Lionel a video of what they did to
her,” Jed said, his voice shaking. “They tortured her with silver,
and they left some in her body to keep her from healing.”

“Why?” I asked.

Jed met my eyes and I saw that his were damp.
“Revenge, Kelsey. She killed two of their pack mates, and they saw
a chance to avenge them and send a message to the West Coast
pack.”

“I need better light,” Doctor Veronica said.
“But I’m not ready to move her.”

“I’ll get a flashlight.” Jed jumped to his
feet and raced inside.

“Should I call an ambulance?” I asked.

“She’s a werewolf, Kelsey, in a world where
there are no werewolves. We need to get all of the silver out so
she can shift and heal.” Doctor Veronica lifted Tessa’s head, and I
saw that they’d cut off an ear. Her face was so bloody and beaten I
couldn’t tell what other damage they might have done. “Help me move
her onto her back.”

I helped Doctor Veronica shift her, and Tessa
opened her eyes and gasped. “Hurts,” she said, before her eyes
rolled back, and she passed out. Jed returned with the flashlight.
He held it over Tessa’s body and looked at me.

“Call the others, Kelsey. Let them know we
have her and they can stop looking.”

I nodded and stood, relieved to move away
from the blood and gore, even as I felt guilty for that relief.
Henry picked up almost immediately, and I filled him in. They were
already on their way back, having found nothing. Henry’s voice
sounded tight, and he was short with me. I was pretty sure
something more than he was telling me was going on, but I couldn’t
handle any more bad news. I hung up and went back to helping with
Tessa however I could.

Henry, Thad, and Wraith returned and Thad
relieved me from my assistance with Tessa. He had some medical
experience, which was more than I had. He didn’t look as green as
he had with Henry and his bitten arm, he looked furious and
terrified. I found Henry in the kitchen. Wraith left after stopping
just long enough to let me know he was going to continue trying to
track down his pack mates. That they had taken and tortured Tessa
without letting him know was an affront he couldn’t afford to
ignore, if he wanted to remain alpha and keep them in check.

I reached to hug Henry, and he pulled me hard
against him. I couldn’t stop shaking and his strong arms around me
felt so good. “You’re covered in blood, Sweetie.”

I looked down at my clothes and felt tears
slip from my eyes and down my cheeks. The front of my pale pink
t-shirt was red and my jeans were tinged red from hip to knee. I
rested my face on him and gave into the tears, letting them soak
into his t-shirt and his warm, comforting chest. When I was done I
pulled away and looked up at him.

“I don’t know how she can possibly be okay
after…”

“She’s a wolf, Kelsey. She’s strong.” He sat
at the table and pulled me down onto his lap. “And it won’t help
her for us to fall apart right now.”

I took a deep breath and tried to find calm,
the kind of calm I searched for when I needed to cross over. When I
could finally breathe again and the shaking had stopped, I
remembered what I’d needed to ask him. “Wanna tell me what happened
during your search for Tessa?”

Henry dropped his eyes to the floor and
frowned. “We tramped around the woods and searched some empty
cabins. We found a whole lot of nothing.”

“No, something happened. I could hear it in
your voice.”

Henry nodded and looked at me. “I didn’t want
to say anything, because I might have imagined it.”

“Tell me, Henry.”

“It’s Wraith. He became disoriented a couple
of times, or he seemed to, anyway. He called me Verner. Then, he
tripped on a perfectly flat dirt trail and fell on his face. He
shook it off and seemed like himself again, but he looked
worried.”

“Maybe he’s just having an off day?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But remember how Thad
and Jed said no reaper has ever survived reaping a wolf. What if
being in that form is sapping his strength?”

“Then he needs to get out of the wolf.”

“The only way he can do that is if the wolf
dies, and then we’re down one alpha for a pack that’s already going
off the reservation. Not to mention what will happen if any other
reapers hear he’s weak and move in to try to take him out.”

“Henry’s right.” I turned to see Tucker
seated at the kitchen table.

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked.

“Keeping an eye on things in town. I’ve
noticed Jeremiah acting strange, too, and I think his spirit is
suffering. More reapers have come to town, Kelsey. They’ve heard
that Houston is here, and they flock to him like groupies.”

“Why?”

“Because he has a history of helping other
reapers when he can, and because he’s powerful. Most of them
probably think he’ll protect them if they decide to make a home
here, but not every reaper who’s followed him wants to be his
friend. I don’t like the guy, he’s a self-absorbed narcissist who
believes the world owes him something, but he’s also been holding
back some of the reapers who think they shouldn’t limit themselves
to the territories they have, who think they ought to reap the most
powerful, wealthiest people in the world and damn the consequences.
Now that he’s decided to go wolf, there’s no one to keep them in
check.”

“Shit,” I said. “So what can we do?”

Tucker shook his head. “We’re going to have
to decide whether the pack or the reapers are the bigger threat,”
he said.

I heard a commotion at the front door and
walked into the living room to see Thad, Jed, and Doctor Veronica
moving Tessa onto the now towel-covered couch. Thad stepped into
the kitchen and filled a bowl with water. He took it and a rag back
out to the others, and they started cleaning her.

Tucker was gone when I looked back at his
seat at the table. I looked at Henry with raised eyebrows.

“The reapers here are isolated and they don’t
know Tucker. He’s been making friends with them, but he’s worried
if he spends too much time with us, they’ll notice and any trust
he’s gained will be lost.”

“Makes sense,” I said, but I was sorry not to
have had more time to talk to him.

Henry gave me a tight squeeze. “He and I’ve
talked, Kelsey, and we’ve decided it’s time you and I broke
up.”

“What? No!” I said, feeling suddenly
desperate. I couldn’t take Henry leaving me.

“I’ll still be your friend, Kelsey, and spend
more time with you than you want me to,” he said, like he could
read my thoughts. He probably could, he knew me better than anyone
else. “We won’t be your excuse anymore. Whether you choose Wraith
or Jed or no one, it needs to be a decision you make without a
pretend boyfriend to lean on.”

I grabbed Henry’s arm and dragged him back to
our room, where we could talk without worrying about reapers
overhearing us. Thad, Jed, and Doctor Veronica were so intent on
Tessa they didn’t even notice us walk by.

Once I had Henry in the room, I shut the door
behind him and started stripping out of my blood-covered clothes. I
just couldn’t stand to be in them another moment. “But what about
you and Tucker? How can you be together?”

“It will be an amicable break-up, and you’ll
still be my best friend. So, no one will question us spending a lot
of time together. You can still help me and Tucker be together, if
you want to.”

I nodded and tried to think of a reason to
argue with him, as I pulled on a robe. “It’s still a risk, Henry.
What if someone wonders why you’re single, or Yvonne tries to mate
you?”

Henry sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“I really doubt anyone thinks that much about me, Kelsey. And if
they do…the truth is, I’m not sure I need to be protected as
fiercely as Tucker believes I do. I think he’d been waiting so long
to meet me that, when he found me, he might have overreacted just a
bit.”

“Tucker?” I asked, a smile in my voice.
“No.”

Henry chuckled. “Yeah, I’m a lot stronger now
than I was when we met. I don’t think we need to advertise our
relationship, but it’s not like the reapers are going to pause
their war to take out Tucker’s boyfriend.”

“Do they really hate him so much?” I
asked.

He shrugged. “Enough do. Sometimes choosing
not to take a side garners you more enemies. At least if you choose
a side you have allies.”

I lay back down on the bed and clutched my
stomach. I was scared for Henry and for Tucker, but mostly, I
realized with a pang, I was scared for myself. As long as Henry and
Tucker needed me, I’d never doubted they’d stick around, but if
they didn’t need me…Let’s just say, I didn’t have the best track
record with long-term relationships of any kind. Most of the people
I’d ever cared about had pulled away when they’d decided my life
was too complicated or too strange. “When are we going to announce
our break-up?” I asked, a tear slipping out of my eye.

He lay down next to me and kissed my cheek.
“As soon as Tessa is stable and the others are free to hear it. You
should probably tell Wraith yourself.”

“I’ll just tell him it didn’t work out
between us,” I said. “I don’t trust him with more information than
that.”

He sat up a bit and leaned on an elbow to
look down at my face. “You don’t trust him enough to tell him about
me and Tucker? But you’re actually considering joining him?”

“I don’t have to trust him to work for him.”
I tried to sound light and jokey and failed miserably.

“It’ll be a lot harder to hang out with me if
you leave, Kelsey. Not to mention Jed—”

“I just think it might be better for everyone
if I left.”

He studied my face for a long moment, opened
his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “It wouldn’t be better
for me, Kelsey. You really are my best friend.”