They were all that was left of my father…
A wave of despair hit me. I couldn’t do anything for him back then. No, I wasn’t good for anything. If anything, I was a burden on my pack.
My resolve turned to steel. Ihadto leave.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” I murmured, unable to face them any longer. I stared at the ground, letting my messy hair spill over my eyes. “This is something I have to do. I just need some time to reflect and think about what I want. I don’t know when I’ll be back, so don’t wait up for me, okay?”
Hot tears stung my eyes and I turned away so nobody could see them. I didn’t want to get emotional but it was too late.
As I turned to leave, a hand gripped my shoulder.
“Wait, Remmy,” Hugo said urgently. “Why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”
My throat hitched. I didn’t want to drag this out anymore. The longer it went on, the worse it hurt. And I was tired of hurting.
I carefully shrugged out of Hugo’s grip. He shot me a sympathetic frown. Len wore the exact same expression. Gods, they really were perfect for each other. Would I ever have anyone like that in my life? Did Ideserveto?
“We’ll always be here for you, Remington,” Morgan’s cool, calm voice came from behind me.
I couldn’t bear to face him. If I looked back, I knew I might buckle and stay. I couldn’t risk it.
“Is Uncle Remmy mad at us?” Leveret said in a small voice muffled by sadness. I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest.
“No, Lev, of course not,” Len reassured his son immediately. But I heard the pang of sadness in his tone, too, like he wasn’t quite sure either.
Great. All I’m doing is upsetting everyone.
I half looked over my shoulder, careful to avoid eye contact with anyone and said, “Goodbye for now, guys.”
My voice hitched as I spoke. I’d already shed my human form, leaping ahead with wolf’s paws, eating up the ground until I passed the grove and disappeared over the grassy hills, leaving the pack and everything I knew behind.
2
Nero
“Man, you know what I miss?”I announced suddenly. “The internet.”
Me and my brother were outside soaking up the sun together, sitting as close to the sky as possible. It was a bright, open blue with nary a cloud in sight.Nary.God, I was spending too much time around Nishiki. His vivid vocabulary was rubbing off on me.
Nishiki’s lower half was underwater in a pool of fresh water while his upper half rested on the flat rocky surface. He would’ve looked like a fashion model lounging by the pool if it weren’t for the fact that we were in the middle of a canyon.
“Me too.” Nishiki pouted. “I miss being complimented on my selfies.”
“Maybe you should’ve been more careful with your phone,” I said. “Not like we’d get Wi-Fi out here anyway…”
“Excuseme,” Nishiki retorted, putting an offended hand on his chest. “I was very careful with my phone. If I recall, there was a certain someone who demanded to use mine—and what little battery I had left, I may add—to take a picture of a bear, and thendroppedit in a bog.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on. I didn’t drop it on purpose. When was the last time you saw a bear? It was cool.”
Nishiki sighed. “Okay. It was pretty cool,” he admitted. “But losing my thousand-dollar phone wasn’t.”
“It’s not like we had anywhere to charge them anyway. Phones are basically useless out here in the wilderness.”
“It would’ve helped keep in touch with Mother,” Nishiki murmured.
Our mom was the whole reason my brother and I had left human civilization. After we’d grown up to be fully functional adults, she suddenly disappeared. But it was all right since we’d reunited with her now. She was a single mom who raised us alone after our asshole dad left her to do all the work. We didn’t know anything about him, and I didn’t want to. Mom was the only parent I acknowledged.
But if I was being honest, it was alittlesore spot that she’d left us to go live in a fucking canyon by herself. I loved her to death and I was so happy to be reunited with her, but seriously, who does that? Not only that, but Mom was one-hundred percent human. She had no real reason to disappear into the wilderness, right?
