‘So I go through with the trial,’ I said, working through my non-existent alternatives in real time. ‘And I have to win. Or I’ll persuade them to move it or at least to let me complete the ritual before they come to a verdict.’
‘Emily, they’ve already come to a verdict.’ Wyn pushed his hands through his hair, frustrated. ‘They have declared you responsible for the death of a wolf and the only acceptable retribution is a life for a life. That’s why the trial takes place on the full moon. Even if they give you a chance to explain how it happened, the outcome will be the same. They confirm it’s you and you die.’
The words echoed around the room, the birds and the trees and the vines and the clouds all whipped up into a frenzy, despairing at the thought. If I died, the Bell family magic died along with me. Wyn reached a hand towards me then hesitated, afraid to make contact.
‘From the outside, the Weres might look cruel. From the inside, they’re vicious. That’s the reason they’ve managed to stay hidden for so long. Zero tolerance, no mercy. Asking permission to bring another witch into the world before they take you out will only get you killed faster.’
They. Them. As if we were talking about some strange enemy and not his actual family, his blood relations.
‘And what about you?’ They’re in Savannah, you’re in Savannah. You can’t hide from them forever.’
‘If I leave here,’ he whispered, words thick with tears we were both willing not to fall, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.’
It was like watching someone tear him in two. I nestled into him, pushing his arms up until he had no choice but to let me in, and rested my head on his chest. Tremors of pain ricocheted from his heart and into mine. He was so lost, so churned up inside, and I knew he was searching for a way out, one that would keep us all alive and the two of us together.
‘You have to leave,’ I said.
‘What?’
I extricated myself from his arms and it felt like pulling my own soul from my body. Wyn looked up, blinking, the threat of tears still clinging to his golden lashes.
‘Members of your pack are here in Savannah, right now. You don’t think they’re looking for you? To warn you about the big bad wolf killer?’
‘And that’s best-case scenario,’ Ashley added as Wyn clung to his denial. ‘Seems to me if they know so much about Em and her part in Cole’s death, they might have a notion about the two of you being such good buddies and all.’
‘No, I would know, I would know, I would know,’ he said over and over again, convincing us or convincing himself, Iwasn’t sure. ‘They wouldn’t allow it, they wouldn’t have let me come back. They would’ve acted before now.’
She looked at him with her head half-cocked to the side.
‘You’re one hundred per cent sure about that? Completely certain you know what these vicious wolves would do? Your words, Wyn, not mine.’
His shoulders slumped, head hung low.
‘You have to leave,’ I said again, more forceful, less certain.
What if he went and never came back?
‘You told them you met someone down here, right?’ I reminded him, pulling what scraps of energy I could find in myself and pushing them into him. ‘Go home, tell them we broke up and you don’t want to talk about it. If they know about us, if they know what I am, tell them I lied to you and you had no idea. If they don’t know, you don’t say anything at all.’
‘I won’t. I won’t leave you to save myself.’
Shaking his head again and again, he screwed his eyes shut, as though the gesture was causing him as much pain as the idea. I placed my hands on his thighs and squeezed.
‘You have to,’ I insisted. ‘You staying here makes things more dangerous for both of us. Right now we don’t know anything, not really, only that the pack believes I killed Cole. Why do they think that? What do they know? If you go home, you could ask questions, find a way to let me know what to expect. You staying here puts me in more danger.’
‘If you care about her as much as you say you do, you’ll get into that little red truck of yours and get the hell out of Georgia,’ Ashley ordered, much less interested in coddling his feelings. ‘You run your ass right back to mama wolf and start listening in, otherwise Em here is as good as cooked.’
He gripped my wrists as though he were hanging over the edge of a cliff and I were the only thing keeping him from falling.
‘Please don’t ask me to go,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’
I noticed the change right away. Before he said he wouldn’t leave. Now, he said he didn’t want to.
‘This is the best chance we have. Me, you, Lydia, all of us,’ I told him, nodding. One more push, that’s all it would take, and then the worst part would be over. ‘Please, Wyn, do it for me.’
‘Maybe they’d listen to me,’ he mumbled but I shook my head, pressing my fingers to his mouth to stop that thought in its tracks.
‘And maybe they’d put you on trial alongside me and kill us both.’
