chapter SIXTY-FOUR
• ISABEL •
It took me five minutes after Cole hung up on me to think that what he had said wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. It took me ten minutes to think that I should’ve called him back right away. It took me fifteen to find out he wasn’t answering the phone. Twenty to think I shouldn’t have said the bit about killing himself. Twenty-five to realize that it might end up being the last thing I ever said to him.
Why had I said it? Maybe Rachel was right with her bitch comment. I wished I knew how to set my weapons to stun instead of eviscerate.
It took what felt like half the night to realize that I couldn’t stand myself if I didn’t try to do something about the hunt.
I tried Cole’s number and then Sam’s one last time — nothing — and then I headed downstairs. In my head I rehearsed what I would say to my father. First the arguments, then the pleas, and finally, the justification for my concerns that wouldn’t lead it back to Sam and Beck, because I knew that would go nowhere with my father. This was going to go nowhere anyway.
But at least I could tell Cole that I’d tried. Then, maybe, I wouldn’t feel so sick.
I hated it. I hated this. I hated feeling so terrible because of someone else. I pressed my hand to my right eye, but the tear there stayed safely inside.
The house was dark. I had to flip light switches on as I went down staircases. There was no one in the kitchen. No one in the living room. Finally I found my mother in the library, reclining easily on the leather sofa, a glass of white wine in her hand. She was watching a hospital reality show. Normally the irony of such a thing would have amused me, but right now, all I could think about was the last thing I told Cole.
“Mom,” I said. I tried to sound casual. “Where’s Dad?”
“Hm?” Something about her hm focused me, made me feel more solid. The world was not collapsing. My mother still said hm when I asked her questions.
“My father. The creature that mated with you to make me. Where is he?”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” my mother said. “He’s gone to the helicopter.”
“The. Helicopter.”
My mother barely looked up from the television. There was nothing new in my tone to alarm her. “Marshall got him a seat. Said because he was such a good shot, it wouldn’t be wasted. God, I’ll be glad when this whole thing is over.”
“Dad is riding in the helicopter that is shooting the wolves,” I said. Slowly. I felt like an idiot. Of course my father would want to ride on the front lines with an elephant gun. Of course Marshall would make that happen for him.
“It takes off at some terrible hour,” Mom said. “So he headed out now to meet Marshall for coffee. So I get the TV.”
I was too late. I had spent too long debating with myself and now I was too late.
There was nothing I could do.
Cole had said, You owe it to me to try.
I still didn’t think I owed him anything. But, taking care not to signal my clawing distress to my mother, I slid out of the library and back through the house. I got my white jacket and my car keys and my cell phone and I pushed the back door open. Not that long ago, Cole had stood there as a wolf, his green eyes on mine. I’d told him that my brother was dead. That I wasn’t a nice person. He’d just watched me, unflinching, trapped in that body he’d chosen for himself.
Everything had changed.
When I left, I hit the gas pedal so hard that the wheels spun in the gravel.