Taken by Storm (Raised by Wolves #3)(49)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“I’ll kill her.” Caroline was holding a knife in her own hand, and she ran her thumb over the tip of the blade, so lightly that it didn’t draw blood. “That’s what I am. A killer.”

I could tell by the tone in her voice that those were someone else’s words, ones she’d heard often enough to believe them.

“It’s what I do, Bryn. It’s what I am. You know that.”

At one point, I would have believed what she was saying, but now?

“You have a knack for hunting,” I said. “That doesn’t make you a killer.”

“I shot Eric. The others killed him, but I shot him, and now he’s dead.”

If you’d told me a week ago that I would be arguing with her about this, I never would have believed it, but she’d weathered the events of the past three days with me. She’d fought by my side.

If she was a killer, so was I.

“You know Sora,” Caroline said finally. “I don’t. It will hurt you. It won’t hurt me. Nothing hurts me.”

“Liar.” Lake beat me to the punch. “Just breathing hurts you so bad, you want to beat the snot out of something.”

Eloquent was Lake.

“I can do it,” Caroline insisted.

I nodded. “You could,” I said, “but I’m not asking you to.”

I owed it to Sora to see this through. To do what she’d asked of me—what Callum couldn’t do.

There has to be another way. I couldn’t push down the part of my brain that was desperate for that to be true. I wished I could believe that wanting a solution, wanting it so badly it hurt, was enough to make it so that one could be found.

But it wasn’t enough, and there wasn’t another solution—and even if there were, we didn’t have the luxury of time to find it.

I don’t want to Change. That thought came fast and vicious, and this time, I didn’t have the mental wherewithal to fight it back. I don’t want to be a werewolf. I don’t want to live forever, having to make these decisions over and over again. I don’t want to stay young and watch Ali and Keely and Caroline grow old and die.

I don’t want to kill my best friend’s mom.

I didn’t want this.

I didn’t want any of it.

I’d already lost Maddy. I couldn’t take losing Devon, too. He was my rock, my friend, my constant from the time I was four years old, and this—this unspeakable thing I had to do—it would always be there between us.

I’d lose him and lose that much more of myself.

I felt Sora approach before I saw her. Her dark hair was pulled into a low, loose ponytail. She was wearing a black tank top and jeans. Her feet were bare.

Without my having to ask it of them, Lake and Caroline fell back. I was standing on one side of the border, Sora was standing on the other. For the longest time, we looked at each other, neither one of us speaking.

“Tell Devon,” Sora said finally, “that he’s the only thing I ever did right.”

I fought the urge to hunch over, to weather the words like an actual blow, because Devon would never get to hear them for himself; because one of the last things his mother would ever hear him say was a complaint that they’d even had to ride in the same car.

“He’s strong, and he’s smart, and I know that he is going to do great things.” A soft, sad smile worked its way onto Sora’s thin lips. “He’ll do what has to be done in a way that I never could.”

I wondered if she was talking about her failure to kill her twin, or about Shay. I wondered if it even mattered, when death was just around the bend.

“I’ll tell him,” I said, my own voice shaking. Sora reached across the border and caught me by the chin. She angled my face upward, my eyes toward hers.

“You’re it for him,” she told me. “You always have been.”

I didn’t pull out of her grasp. I felt it, all the way to my toes.

“Hurting you,” she said, after a moment’s pause, “hurt me.”

Those words nearly undid me—because she’d never acknowledged what had passed between us, never given any hint that ripping my world apart had been anything more than a chore.

“I want you to promise me something.” Sora reached back and pulled her ponytail over to one side, baring her neck on the other. The knife in my hand felt heavy.

Too heavy.

“What?” I asked, my mouth cotton dry, my palms sweating.

“Don’t let things end between you and Callum the way they’re ending for Devon and me. Whatever Callum does, whatever he sees or doesn’t see, says or doesn’t say, however the next year plays out”—she took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling with the effort—“trust that he has his reasons, and that you matter.”

She looked over my shoulder, at the setting sun.

“You’ve always mattered.”

To Callum? To her? To Devon? She didn’t elaborate. Instead, she reached down and took the knife from my right hand and placed it in my left.

“Start with a gun.”

A moment later, I had one in my hand. Was it hers? Mine? I wasn’t sure. I felt like I was moving through a fog. Sora wrapped her hand around mine and brought the gun to rest on the side of her head, where neck met skull. She angled the barrel upward.

“Put a bullet here,” she said, and then she nodded to the knife. “Then cut out my heart.”

My hand shook. My eyes stung with tears. I tried to blink them away, but they built behind my eyelids until I couldn’t see—I couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see her waiting, ready and willing to die.

“You can do this,” Sora whispered. “You have to.”

I hurt for Dev. I hurt for me. I hurt, and I hurt, and I hurt—and I had to kill her.

“Bryn.” The voice came from behind me, but I didn’t recognize it. Chase? Griffin? Jed?

I didn’t know. I didn’t care, because I was standing there with a gun, and Sora was waiting. The trigger was cool against my finger. My injured shoulder was screaming with the effort it took to hold the gun.

Do it, I thought.

“He’s back, Bryn. He’s coming.”

So the voice was Griffin’s, then. There was tension in it, and exhaustion. The monster was here and ready to play. Maddy’s distraction had only worked so long.

Do it.

“Bryn.” Sora’s voice was gentle, but unwavering. If I didn’t kill her, she’d take care of the job herself, and I owed her more than that.