“No, probably not. Silver does a number on us. Body basically has to work out every single cell that was touched by it, because it’s completely dead.” He sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his gloved hand, then straightened. “You’re real sick, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. But there are a lot of people who are a lot worse off. It’s not like it’s cancer or something.”
“I would have smelled if it was. I mean, you do smelloff, but you’re right, not that bad.”
Exsqueeze me? I smelled off?
Oh my god, didBenthink I smelledoff?
This wasn’t the moment to fixate on us, especially when the subject was going to pop up in my head right as I went to bed. The ruminating could wait until then.
“Sorry, I probably didn’t word that the best. Never been the best speaker. But now that everything’s settled…” He shook his head and finally pushed himself off my car, taking a few steps as he pulled out a set of keys. “Gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with my life. Ain’t a lot of options out there for a wolf with no pack. You can tell Poynter he doesn’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ve got my own shit to worry about. And if he wants to go after me because of what my brother did to him and what I did to you, I get it. I’m a big boy. I can face the consequences of my own actions.”
“I’ll tell him, but he’s not going to come after you. I know that much.”
“You know that, huh?” He sounded so wounded, so hurt, that I walked around to face him again. Some would call me certified crazy for wanting to comfort a man who had turned my entire world inside out, but he was just another victim in a cycle of violence that Charles, Ben, and everyone involved had all been drawn into.
“Yes. I know. You fucked up, but it’s understandable. And if anyone understands pain making you do things you wouldn’t normally, it’s Ben.”
He narrowed his stormy eyes at me. “What are you, some sort of Qilin with a human glamour?”
“I don’t know what that is,” I answered, filing it away in my mind to look up later. “But no, I’m just a human. I promise.”
“Huh, must be one of the good ones. You’re kinder than you should be, lady.”
“Giselle. I’m sure you heard my students call me Miss Fischbacher, but you’re too old for that.”
“I suppose I am.” He offered his non-snotty hand. “Melton.”
“Melton?” I blurted.
Thankfully, the man laughed. “Yeah, on top of my dad being an abusive asshole, he also gave me a shit name.”
“Why don’t you change it?”
“What?”
“I mean, you owe nothing to your family, and if the name doesn’t serve you, why not change it?”
He blinked at me, long and slow with his tear-stained eye, and just shook his head. “You really are something else. No wonder Poynter has you.”
“He doesn’thaveme. You interrupted our first date.”
“First date?” I knew it was such a little thing, but his horrified expression was pretty hilarious. “Man, have you got stories to tell if you make the distance.”
“Yeah, we definitely do.”
“You’re certifiable.”
“At this point? Probably.”
Never in a million years would I have expected to be bantering with the man who had kidnapped me. And the craziest thing was that I actually did forgive him.
“Well, hopefully I’ll never see you again, Giselle. I wish you well.”
“And I wish you well too, whoever you are.”
He huffed another tiny laugh, then walked off to a motorbike just a few spots away. Ofcoursehe had a motorbike. With one last little salute—and of course no helmet—he gunned his engine and took off, going faster than I appreciated for a school zone.
