Brogan chuckles low in his throat. “That’ll do it. Have I told you it’s a marvel that you came into our lives? Soren hasn’t had enough people in his life to care about him, and he deserves it as much as anybody. I think… no, I know, you’re going to be good for us all.”
He slings his arm around my waist and I mentally flail, my tongue suddenly dripping with too many words and feelings to get anything out.
“Now then, let’s go interview some people. I’ll be good-cop. Soren can be bad-cop and you can flash them a smile and they’ll spill all their secrets to you, babe.”
Our first stop is to a woman who looks to be in her early twenties. She’s welcoming, inviting us into her little one-bedroom apartment despite Soren and Brogan’s enormous forms making the place look even smaller.
I don’t know what I was expecting from a person who donates money every month to have her future read online, but I don’t think I expected for her fridge to be so empty.
“What is it you like about Wren and Cam’s channel?”
She sighs softly, perching on the edge of her bed while I take the only available seat. “I’ve had a pretty tough year. My mom died and my boyfriend broke up with me while I was trying to organize her funeral.”
“The asshole,” Soren growls, surprising me. I thought if anyone was going to get involved in the conversation, it’d be Brogan. Maybe my ice prince is a secret softy.
“I just… wanted to know if things would get better, so I found Wren and Cam online. It made me feel better and then I found myself checking in with them once a week, and then I wound up going on for my fix most days of the week.”
“I get that,” Brogan says, and even Soren nods.
I do too.
???
We take five days to make our way through the list of Camellia's and Wren’s biggest fans and donors.
Mostly, we wind up speaking to a bunch of teenage girls and middle-aged women and none of them give any hint that they might have had any ill will toward Wren. I even do the whole heading into the bathroom, pretending to pee while snooping through their stuff trick that I’ve seen in movies. Just in case they have Wren’s picture with her eyes scratched out taped to the medicine cabinet or something.
The longer this goes on, the more I get a heaviness settling in my gut, like we’re really not the right people to be doing this job. We’re not trained investigators, we’re just three people wandering around and hoping that we’re asking the right people the right questions.
We come up with nothing useful. All of them love Wren and Camellia and their side hustle. It made them feel hopeful, and they were using it to help guide their lives. We get absolutely no hint that any of them might mean Wren harm.
I spend a lot of time with Brogan and Soren and we get to know each other in the way that you do when you spend all day, every day, with someone. I learn Soren hates eggs and crowds, but he chills out when I distract him by holding his hand, and that Brogan runs hot and so wears nothing but a t-shirt, but whenever it rains, Soren plucks an umbrella out from somewhere so he doesn’t get wet. Soren’s also always the one to pick up Brogan’s clothes when he shifts, and they’re always neatly folded and ready for him to put back on again.
They look out for each other, and their relationship is cute as hell. Sure they seem to rub each other up the wrong way half the time. There’s a lot of sniping and bickering, but I can tell that they’re like brothers which makes my little heart squeeze in happiness to see.
Spending time with the two of them leaves me buzzing and elated, but it also makes me feel guilty. I’ve barely had any time to see Finn at all since we’ve been spending so much time away from the garden, making our way through the list of people and then reaping souls whenever Soren is called up, which happens at least once a day. I get to see him every night where we sit down to a meal together, which is always a weirdly domesticated scene. Even so, it doesn’t feel like enough.
It’s difficult juggling three brand new relationships while searching for Wren and I feel like I’m dismally failing at all of it. I know I don’t know Wren, but it feels like I do. I spend so much time talking about her and thinking about her. It’s like she’s inside me as a constant nagging worry.
I know that when I started looking for her, it was mostly for my own self-interest. But ever since Leif gave us his premonition, there’s been a mix of anxiety and dread swirling in my gut like a pukey slushy.
We have to find her and I just hope that we’re not too late when we do.
14
Echo
While there’s not much I can do about the disappointment of reaching the end of Camellia’s list with no further hints of what happened to Wren, Icanat least do something about the issue of neglecting my other mate.
It’s early evening after our most disappointing day, when I leave Soren and Brogan to their own devices and head into Finn’s den unannounced.
I discover him dancing shirtless, wearing only his frilly apron and a pair of jeans as he cleans the gate with a level of enthusiasm most people can only dream of.
The guy hasmovesas well, wiggling his hips and shaking that sexy ass. I’m struck dumb, ogling him. He is very handsome, even from the back. Dangerously gorgeous. And then he spins around and his eyes go comically wide as he spots me, mid-dance move. Instead of being embarrassed, he shimmies forward and grabs me by the hips, dipping me down low with his thick thigh between my legs. He pulls up, spins me around and grins down at me like it’s the best thing ever to see me.
This beautiful man is seriously good for my ego.
“Little treasure! I was just thinking about you. Although, catch me any time, day or night, and I’d say the same thing and it would be the truth.”
