Over more Oreos—well, one more for Hadley anyway—she and Carter discussed whether they’d ever find a stubborn skinwalker who refused to leave town.
“Kat is working on a tracking spell to locate one,” Hadley said. “She thinks whoever she finds will agree since it’d just make a skinwalker more of what they already are. Although, she also admitted there’s a small chance he or she could be driven mad by that much power.”
Carter blew out a breath. “This just keeps getting better and better. What’s the good news then?”
It was Hadley’s turn to wince. “I’m not sure how good it is, but Kat thinks she has the warding circle ready. If she finds someone willing to serve as a vessel for Kamden’s skinwalker side, she’s confident she can turn him into a human again.”
With the package of the Oreos now much smaller—thanks to Carter—than it was when they’d sat down, she decided it was time to call it a night. If they continued to sit there on the couch, she’d end up eating another cookie and then another, which would be a really bad plan.
She got ready for bed first and then wandered around the bedroom while Carter jumped in the shower. As the sound of flowing water filled the background, she looked at the framed photos on the walls, realizing she hadn’t gotten a chance to study them closely. Then it was onto the bookcase, and all the knickknacks and smaller photos set up there.
While there was a lot of SWAT-related stuff there, Hadley also noticed a couple shelves devoted to Carter’s time in the Marines, with several pictures showing men and women in military uniforms and tactical gear, and a collection of green and black patches that didn’t mean much of anything to her. Then she caught sight of a picture that was clearly older than the rest. Even though the man in the picture was wearing a military uniform, it was a completely different style than in all the other photos. This picture stood out even more due to the set of dog tags which was draped across the top of the frame.
“Those belonged to my father,” Carter said, and she turned to find him standing in the doorway in his usual T-shirt and shorts. “He was killed while on a deployment in Beirut, October twenty-third, 1983.” He came over to trace a fingertip across the tags, turning them so that she could see the surname on them—Nelson. “My father died the same day I was born.”
Hadley’s head immediately spun at the implications of that reveal. She’d already figured out that he didn’t consider his birthday as something to be celebrated, and now she understood why. His birthday was the same day that his father died.
Then another thought hit her as she began to do some quick calculations in her head. “How old did you just turn?”
“Forty,” Carter murmured, not looking at her, instead focused intently on the dog tags, positioning them ever so reverently across the picture frame again.
“How old was your father when he died in Beirut?” she nudged gently, sure she already knew the answer to the question.
“He was a month short of his fortieth birthday,” Carter answered, seemingly not fazed by the question at all. “He could have gotten out of the Marines before the deployment but decided to stay with his platoon for one more rotation. I guess it was one deployment too many.”
Hadley gazed down at the picture, thinking it couldn’t be a coincidence that Carter’s control issues had started around the birthday he’d reached the age his father never had.
“It must hurt that you never got a chance to spend time with your father, or get to know him,” she said gently.
Carter didn’t say anything for so long that Hadley thought he might not answer at all. But then he scooped up his father’s dog tags and moved over to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he finally said, not looking up from the dog tags in his hand. “Or at least I try not to think about it.”
While Hadley doubted the first part of Carter’s claim, she could easily accept the second. It was her experience as a psychiatrist that most people avoided thinking about things that brought them pain. Unfortunately, ignoring something didn’t make it go away. In fact, she was beginning to think she’d found the crux of his problem.
“And if you were to think about it?” she prompted, joining him on the bed and sliding back toward the middle of the mattress, tucking her legs under her crisscross. “The fact that you never even got to meet your father, I mean.”
Carter lay back on the bed with a sigh, his head in Hadley’s lap. “Should I assume that this is one of our official therapy sessions?”
“If it helps you talk about it, then yes,” she said. “Consider this part of a regular therapy session. And just like our regular sessions, if you don’t want to talk about something, you don’t have to. But I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.”
“If I were to think about it, I guess I’m angry more than hurt,” Carter said after lying there quietly for a while. “Which is crazy. It’s not like I can blame my dad for getting killed. It wasn’t his fault. It just happened.”
“Just because it wasn’t your dad’s fault, doesn’t mean it can’t still bother you,” Hadley said softly, reaching out to run her fingers through his thick hair. “Emotions are rarely rational and reasonable. It clearly had a big effect on your life and getting mad at things outside of our control is kind of a standard thing in my line of work.”
She didn’t have to point out that anger was part and parcel of Carter’s omega identity. Moreover, his anger was likely the reason he’d become an omega versus an alpha in the first place.
“Sometimes I’m mad at the people who killed my father,” he said, the words pouring out as explained how he’d been angry for as long as he could remember and couldn’t understand why. “Other times, I’m furious at him for not retiring when he had the chance. He could have been done with the Marines. Instead, he died, leaving my mother and me behind.”
Hadley considered telling him that his father had been doing what he thought was the right thing to do at the moment. But it wasn’t the time for that. It was time for her to simply listen.
After Carter finished railing against his father, he moved on to the insurgents who’d planted the IED in Uganda without even knowing who’d hit it. At the twist of fate that had put his vehicle on that road at that exact moment with everyone dying except for him. Anger at going into that burning building fully expecting to die and living anyway.
Carter’s eyes glowed bright blue as he spoke, signifying the arrival of his omega. Amazingly, he wasn’t out of control. Both sides of him were fully present.
Hadley wasn’t sure how that was possible but could only assume it had something to do with what Carter had described the night before, about being able to see and hear everything going on while his omega took control.
Was this the next step in the journey Carter would have to take to find peace with his omega? Or was it actually a sign that his inner wolf was intruding even further into his normal life, making an appearance even without the anger or rage that typically brought it out? If so, did that mean Carter was getting worse, not better?
