“My…my sweater?”
“You wore that sweater when you gave me the letters.” Wren turned away. “I’ll be in touch about the case.”
“Wren…” Teddy called but he shook his head and kept walking, tears burning in his eyes, his chest feeling like it’d explode.
Chapter 7
Wren
Regret didn’t taste like ash as everyone else said.
It tasted like nothing.
An absence of taste and sensation. A liminal space of emptiness highlighting just how cavernous the hole in Wren’s chest was.
Once, Wren had wished he felt nothing, that maybe it would be easier on him if his stupid heart didn’t feel too much all the time. But the pain reminded him of everything he fought for. Of everything he loved. This sudden numbness he’d been left with as he’d watched from the shadow of the precinct as Teddy pulled away from Slatehollow for the second time was worse.
Because he’d had the opportunity to go with him.
Wren groaned and ground his face deeper into the dirt under his face, feeling the hot wash of Sable’s breath breaking through the curtain of his messy hair as he copied him. They were lying belly down, only their faces perpendicular.
Wren peeked through the strands at those soulful yellow eyes between two massive paws, Blu nestled down between his ears. Surrounding them on all sides were members of the Fluffy CluckHut and Friends, casually climbing all over Wren and Sable without a care like they were newly installed play equipment.
“It’ll be fine,” Wren murmured. “I have responsibilities here.”
“Teddy,” Blu chirped.
Wren’s heart ached. “Blu…”
“Where’s Teddy?”
“Gone…” Wren said. “He’s gone again.”
“Find Teddy. Where’s Teddy?”
Wren pushed himself up from the dirt, meeting Blu’s intelligent eyes while a rabbit climbed through the new gap, ears tickling his chin. “I couldn’t go… I couldn’t…”
Blu tilted his head. “Find Teddy.”
“Blu.” His tone was firmer now. “What do you want me to do? Leave everything and chase him?”
Blu’s chirp was very much an affirmative and Wren scowled.
“I can’t.”
Blu flapped his wings, making one of Sable’s ears twitch and his chest rumble.
“The attitude!” Wren exclaimed. “I know we don’t usually care about ‘can’t’ but this is different.”
Blu chirped again, once. Short and dry.
“It is! It’s complicated, okay? I spent years thinking he just left us.”
Another burst of twitters.
“I know we have the letters…” Wren murmured, “but it’s still been so long and there’s so much we don’t even know or understand. We can’t just pick up where we left off. I can’t just forget…”
“Find Tedd—” Blu cut his chirp off when they both heard the back door handle, the words turning into a twitter.
