“You are not God. And you wouldn’t want to take away people’s free will anyway.”
She threw up her hands. “This is not a philosophical debate. Raoul is going to get them killed!”
He just looked at her, his blue eyes practically luminous in the floodlights. She read compassion in his expression, and an implacable steadiness in his eyes. Firm, calm, and cold. Like a steel blade honed to a razor’s edge.
“There is nothing you can do,” he said.
“Stop saying that!” There had to be something.
He sighed. “You’ve done everything you can. Now it’s up to them to choose.”
“But they’re choosing wrong!” she huffed.
“And that’s their right.”
He was right. Sheknewhe was right, but God she hated it. To the depths of her soul, she despised what her brother had done. Somehow, he’d subverted the pack, put her on the outside when all she wanted was to help them. It was her right to serve and protect the pack, and yes, she felt the irony in those words. Ryan’s job was to serve and protect all of Detroit, and she’d fought him every step of the way.
Pack business. Shifter politics. Hell. And now she felt just as he did. Sitting outside when the very people he was spending his life trying to help cut him out, ignored him, or worse, hated him for doing his job.
“How do you stand it?” she whispered. “You’re on the gang task force. You work with kids. How do you make them listen?”
He lifted his hand in a vague gesture before letting it drop. Then he sighed. “Same way you have. I talk and talk. I reason, I plead. I even apply pressure when I can. But in the end…”
“You have to let them choose.”
“You know a teenager who isn’t hell-bent on deciding things for him or herself?”
No. She sighed and crossed back to the bed. Nothing was happening out there right now. Her people had the place surrounded, but they hadn’t yet stepped into the light. And thankfully, Simon wasn’t pushing things but sat waiting for the pack to decide what it wanted to do.
“I hate this.” Her body twitched as she looked at the door. She almost went straight for it because, come hell or high water, she needed to be with her pack. But that was stupid, and she knew it. They’d chosen Raoul. All she could do was inflame matters—and emotions—even more.
So she sat and entwined her fingers with Ryan. “How’d you get so wise?”
“I work with teenagers. It’s the only way to keep sane.”
“But the stakes are so high. A wrong choice—”
“Gets people killed. Yeah, I know. And the bystanders are the worst casualties. They haunt me at night.”
Yet one more reason why he couldn’t sleep. The hollow note in his voice pulled at her. Especially since it was an echo of the pain she felt now. If the pack chose to fight, there would be casualties on both sides. Bear, wolf, human bystander. She’d remember every one and feel the loss until the day she died.
“How many bystanders?” she asked. “How many souls haunt you, Ryan?”
“After three years working in gangs? Seven. Two were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Five were too young to have a chance to think on their own. They were just used by the people who said they’d protect them.”
She touched the worry lines on his face, smoothing them gently with her thumb. “You can’t hold on to them. It wasn’t your fault.”
“You can’t go out there. You’ve done everything you can.”
She looked at his face and saw the pain etched in every line. He wasn’t hiding his feelings from her. Right now, he was showing her the path she was on. He was letting her see the pain that came from not letting go of what you couldn’t control. It was eating him alive, and she was a few hours away from that exact same place.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said softly. “I’ll stay right here, right now, if you forgive me for not knowing how to do better. I’ve failed to convince my own people to see reason.”
“You can’t convince people who won’t listen. What is happening is not your fault.”
She nodded, knowing it was true. “So am I forgiven?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
