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“The Dale is twenty times the town you’ll ever be.”

They keep bickering between themselves, but I let the voices fade out. All my attention is on Lynx and the way he’s gritting his teeth. He looks like an animal about to pounce.

“Do you want to leave?”

Lynx shakes his head. “I don’t trust him being left alone.”

“Neither do I. But it doesn’t always have to be your responsibility.”

“Yes, it does.” He turns to me, hazel eyes filled with something that looks like desperation. “If I don’t keep my pack safe, who am I?”

The words are heavier than I’m prepared for, and I hate that I don’t have an answer for him. I want to tell him that he’s kind and sweet and cares about people. That he’s a leader, that he’s smart, that he’s the only place I’ve ever felt safe.

The thoughts are too big to organize though.

So I say, “You’re Lynx. And that’s more than enough for me.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

LYNX

You’re Lynx. And that’s more than enough for me.

I don’t know how Sasha can say that so easily and how his words can burrow into my head. I’m trying to ignore them by spending most of my days lurking around the mechanic and making sure he’s doing his job. The last thing I want is for Sasha’s car to be fixed, but I refuse to let this man wander around Wilde’s End unwatched either.

I trade off shifts with Nixon, Matt’s older brother, and between the two of us, we’re able to catalogue his every movement. While he’s in the End, I’ll never be able to relax.

It’s too much, too many outsiders.

I can’t stand the way they’re infecting this town. My cubs should never have had to face Antonio, and I can’t stop ripping at my mind over the fact that I didn’t make them leave. It’s a relief that things ended positively and that Wilde was able to deliver those men directly to Wayward’s sheriff’s department, but the threat isn’t gone. The threat is never gone.

We have to be on guard our entire lives.

A small, sneaky voice asks me what the point of it is. I’m trying to protect people, but what’s the point when I can’t perform when it’s needed? When I freeze and let panic set in?

Sasha was supposed to be a fluke.

Turns out it was a warning. No amount of preparation could make me kill someone.

I replay the moment so many times, I’m sure it’s not healthy, but I can’t move on from it. Can’t stop remembering that I’d had the chance to free Sasha, to make my rabbit safe for good, and I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t save my family.

All these years, I thought I was keeping the End safe.

Turns out I’m useless.

I get back home after a night spent outside Gage’s cabin in Hobby Straight. Those little houses sicken me more than they ever have before, and I’m convinced the only thing we can do with them is rip them apart and never go to that part of the End again.

My forehead aches as I climb my front stairs, ready for sleep, but when I walk inside and find my bed empty, my whole body goes tense. The air mattress we got for Sasha is lying abandoned on the floor, never used, and his clothes are still cluttering up my entire house.

But he’s missing.

I can’t deal with him missing.

I’m about to walk back outside again and scream his name when he follows me inside.

“You’re back.”