The last time she was in Girdwood, she’d been a girl too shy to speak above a whisper, hands busy with soil and seedlings in the greenhouse I’d let her build behind my grandfather's house. She'd been messy back then, but the right kind of messy.
Now, she looks like she’s made of glass, and one wrong move could cause her to shatter.
When she's done inspecting for threats, she stares at the floor at my feet, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to entertain the rush of memories that comes from seeing her standing in front of me, or comparing the young woman from five years ago to the shell of the woman standing in front of me now.
“You can take the guest bedroom down here,” I say evenly after I've gulped, taking a left turn into the hallway as if to escape the awkward tension. My boots thud against the floorboards, the sound sharp in the silence, a mild distraction from my thoughts. Willow follows, her steps hesitant as she drags her sack as if it weighs more than she does.
I open the guest bedroom door, allowing the dim light to spill across the bed when I flick the switch, and hear Willow's discreet intake of breath.
Clean sheets. A dresser. A window that looks out toward the trees. It's nothing special or extravagant, but it’s safe. That’s more than she had in Seward.
“Make yourself at home,” I tell her, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe as she nods almost too formally, as if she's a caged animal taking instructions from her master.
I don't like it, and when she brushes past me, my breath catches, and I'm frozen in horror, guilt wrapping its tendrils around my neck.
Was I responsible for whatever she endured out there?
Am I the reason she's in this condition, frail, hardly alive?
Willow Barker never announced her departure. She was just…gone by the time I returned victorious from the alpha trials.
Despite rejecting her advances before I left, I came back and searched for her, but she was gone, her small cottage near the forest abandoned as if she’d abruptly left.
That’s exactly what happened, and she was gone without a trace. Always a loner, no one noticed she was missing until I returned two months later from the trials.
Finding her out there in Seward was bittersweet, resurfacing memories I’d rather forget, especially now that I have a real mission to complete. But the determination to find the woman from Rissa and Brooks’s vision is overshadowed by guilt when I catch a glimpse of Willow’s face, her skin dull, the lightning bolt scar shining across her face.
Shit.
I was a real asshole back then.
Willow lifts her eyes tentatively, a flicker of fear shimmering across the wide pools of blue, sending a pang of remorse through my heart. She finally releases the strap of her bag, sending it falling onto the bed, the sound of her only possessions when they hit the mattress breaking the silence like a snapped elastic band.
It should end there. I should turn away, leave her to rest, and get some rest myself. But again, my gaze catches on her profile, on the pale skin marred by the scar that wasn’t there five years ago. It slices down her cheek like an accusation, but it only accuses me of not being there to protect her from getting it.
“Is that all?” she asks, and I can’t help but wonder if the question is rooted in the past, when we last spoke. Is she prompting me to confide what I truly felt that night, as if she knows I wasn’t being truthful? Or is she expecting an apology for the ruthless way I dismissed her, as if her feelings didn’t matter?
As if her feelings were not shared….
Snapping out of my daze when she turns her face to the side, her blonde hair covering her battered cheek, I remind myself not to fall down this rabbit hole. Willow wouldn’t ask me any of that—she’s been through too much to bring up the past now. Especially now, when I just saved her from becoming a sleazy werewolf’s breeding slave.
This is only an opportunity presented by the Moon Goddess to make up for the past, to wipe my slate clean so I may proceed with whatever else fate has in store for me.
“Yeah, that’s all. You should get some rest. You’re safe here,” I manage, though the words taste like acrid bile on my tongue, doused in the sins of my past. She’s safe, yes—but not from me. Not from the past, I left festering. I can see it in thetension rolling through her tight demeanor, and I can’t stand here and make this any harder than it already is for her.
Swiftly turning, I walk out and feel my heart squeezing with the guilt of leaving her alone. But before I can say anything more or even turn around, she murmurs a short “Goodnight,” and the sound of it closes the door on me as surely as her hand does.
I let out a frustrated breath, confused, overwhelmed, my heart thumping with unrest as I stand outside the guest bedroom door and contemplate whether I should try again.
No.
I saw what happened with that group of wolves and the way they were treating Willow. She deserves a break. She deserves a good night’s rest.
I can worry about what to do next in the morning.
As I head to my bedroom, the recollection of the bitter, disbelieving sound of Willow’s laugh back in Seward gnaws at me. It wasn’t the Willow I remembered. The Willow I knew never laughed like that. Whatever she’s endured, it carved into her, hollowed her out until even her laughter must have felt like a weapon.
Finally, in my bedroom, I take a seat on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, hands braced against my face. The silence inside my house is thick enough to choke me, or maybe my mind is filled with too many thoughts. Willow had always been quiet, but this silence isn’t the same. What I witnessed tonight wasn’t shyness. It was hollow.
