“I suppose you can smell how much I want him, then. It really isn’t just sex, El. There is something in me that needs him to fit into. I don’t know how else to explain, but I am more of myself when he’s around or whenever I think about him being in my life.” Gibson tossed the pillow back at his brother, a gentle arc so Ellis didn’t mistake it for an act of war. “You said you are thankful I was here for you, but see, I’m the one who owes you, because you kind of brought Zach to me. You’ve changed my world, you’ve changed everything, and I’m really glad you’re here with me to see it. It sounds stupid, but that’s really how it is. I am crazy stupid in love with him, and I think he loves me. Or at least he loves me enough to eat what I make for dinner, because God, he’s right, I am going to poison us all one day.”
“Probably. Food is bad, but yes, glowing, both of you.” His brother chuckled. “Like fallen stars. But just fuck already. Driving me nuts watching you need him. Let yourself love. You deserve it. Better man than me. Better wolf than me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, brother,” Gibson said, picking up the other throw pillow to arm himself in case Ellis decided to launch another attack. “I think you have officially out-wolfed any other of our kind in all existence. And you know the best part about you being human again? I no longer have to hide my shoes.”
Nine
THREE DAYS later, Ellis was gone.
There was a note, sort of. A scavenger hunt of notes. Gibson found the first one when he came down the steps, a neon-pink square stuck to the picture window at the bend of the stairwell. It informed him to go to his laptop, where a sickly green note suggested he open the lid after he helped himself to the filled-to-the-top fresh pot of coffee left for him. Gibson didn’t get coffee. The handwriting on the notes was uneven, barely scratches of ink from an unsteady hand, not the heavy block writing Ellis used before he wolfed.
The trail of Post-its worried him more than if he’d found a mound of parchment-dry skin ribbons on the floor. He would’ve been able to handle Ellis going wolf. It would be something he expected, like a backlash from a spring stretched too far. But the notes—oh God, the notes—were a totally different story, and not one Gibson suspected he wanted to hear.
His laptop woke up when he lifted the lid, and an open document was waiting for him. It was short, and for some reason, Gibson couldn’t see the screen past the blur in his eyes. He sat down hard, the chair groaning at the dead weight he’d deposited on the seat, but it held up. A hell of a lot better than Gibson was.
He blinked to clear away the tears that were threatening to fall, focusing on the screen to see what his brother had left him. It was the emptiness in the cabin that scared him the most. There was such a finality to it, an echoing resonance he could feel humming on his back teeth. He didn’t need to see the words on the screen to tell him his brother was gone.
But he needed to see where Ellis went so he could hunt him down and possibly skin him for that rug he’d always wanted in front of the fireplace.
“Fitting,” Gibson muttered angrily. “Especially since it’s your fucking house.”
His fingers were trembling when he pushed the lid back to minimize the play of sunlight across the screen. A part of him wished for that cup of coffee, but not as much as he longed to hear Zach driving up the road or Ellis stomping across the deck to get the snow off his feet before he came inside. Taking a deep breath, Gibson began to read.
By the time you read this, I’ll be pretty far away. Going to make this short because it’s hard to type, but I love you and it’s time you let me go. You need to live, Gibson. You need to stop living for me and live for you. Live for Zach. I have the cell phone you got me, but I won’t be answering it for a couple of days. I took my old truck out of the barn. Thanks for keeping it going while I was trapped in my own head. There’s a few things I need to do, and someone I need to find. Keep the cabin. It’s more yours than mine, and I can always build another one. We do own a lot of land up there. I’m pretty sure I can find another space. Don’t come looking for me. I’ll call you when I get some place I can talk. I just don’t know where that place is yet. Don’t forget that I love you and that you really are a better man than I am—in all things—I also just saved this and hopefully haven’t fucked up anything, so if I have, I’m sorry, but you’re smart enough to figure stuff out if I have. I’ve got faith in you, baby brother. I’ve always had faith in you. You make me proud.
As if he were conjured up out of Gibson’s deepest desires, Zach walked through the cabin’s front door. He stood framed on the threshold, sunlight pouring around him, and once again, Gibson sucked in his breath, remembering he’d been given an angel that day by the lake.
“Ellis is gone.” Gibson stared at the screen in front of him, his world shaky beneath him. “I don’t know if I should be pissed off at him or…. Jesus, he can’t even write yet. Look at this! You can barely read it and he’s out there driving a car.”
Zach held up his phone, crossing the room to join Gibson at the table. “I know. He texted me about fifteen minutes ago. He says he’s going to be okay—”
“He hasn’t regained fine motor skills. He shouldn’t be….” He let his head drop back to rest on the chair’s high back. “I’m sorry. It’s not on you, and I shouldn’t lash out at you because Ellis has gone and done something stupid. I don’t know what he’s thinking. What the hell is going through his mind?”
Zach closed the laptop’s lid, then slid it away from Gibson. Leaning against the table, he ran his fingers through Gibson’s hair, as if trying to smooth away the unruliness of his thoughts. “Well, according to what he told me, he thinks it’s time he takes back control of himself. Of his life.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Gibson snagged Zach’s wrist, grateful for the feel of the man’s skin beneath his fingers. “There’s a plan. We worked on it together and adjusted it when it looked like he was getting better quicker than we anticipated. He isn’t even close to a benchmark that we set for going out to town, much less driving off into the sunset to look for… something or someone.”
“I know you’re not going to like to hear this, but no matter what we have planned,” Zach started, “it still is Ellis’s life. We can’t keep him here just because he hasn’t ticked off all of the boxes we want him to. He’s your brother, and if there is one thing the two of you share besides being able to change into a wolf, it’s that you’re both proud and stubborn.”
“That stubborn went a long way in keeping Ellis alive and safe from my fucked-up family.” He was spoiling for a fight, but there was no way Zach was going to give him one, nor did he deserve to be dragged into one. No, the person Gibson was angry at probably was at least a few hundred miles away in some unknown direction, so beating the shit out of his older brother wasn’t going to be on the day’s to-do list. “Ellis was there when our father and a couple of my uncles argued with me about putting him down. I’m worried about him going after them, but… we never talked about what happened that day…. I just told them all to fuck off, and I took him, warned them off of him. I don’t know if he’s holding a grudge or he just doesn’t give a shit.”