I laughed, genuinely amused that my mother thought it should have been so obvious. “Yeah, well, I bet Natalie can’t drop a stray with a powerhouse right hook.”
“Not in her condition.” My mother frowned, folding the blanket into a neat, fluffy square. “Sometimes I worry about you, Faythe.”
“Right back at ’cha, Mom.” I stepped around her, grateful in spite of my mostly sleep-free night that I had places to go, and werecats to apprehend.
My mother clucked her tongue at me in shame, but I didn’t even pause. It would take much more than her disapproval to make me give up adrenaline and exercise for Lamaze and diapers. Much, much more.
Vic gave me another once-over as I jogged down the front steps and veered toward his black-on-black Jeep Wrangler. He frowned, clearly not pleased by my outfit.
Jace was settled into the back with his earphones on. Owen sat next to him, already half-asleep, so I slid into the front passenger seat.
“You might as well have worn plastic wrap,” Vic mumbled as he shifted into first gear and pulled out of the parking circle and onto the long, straight driveway.
“And you might as well paint that frown on to save your mouth the trouble,” I snapped, turning toward the door to stare out the window. My clothes were perfectly appropriate, even if my jeans were a little snug. Vic could kiss my ass. He was just being snotty because he was Marc’s best friend. But I could be just as snotty.
After half an hour spent listening to traffic sounds, Owen’s snoring, and the bass-thumping beat leaking from Jace’s earphones, I was bored and fighting to stay awake. I couldn’t afford to arrive in Henderson groggy and confused, in which case I might as well hand my cuffs over to Luiz and ram my face into his fist.
Finally, barely able to keep my eyes open, I popped open the glove compartment, in search of something with which to amuse myself. Hopefully, something to read.
“Hey!” Vic snapped, sliding his eyes rapidly back and forth between the road and my hands, which were now wrist-deep in his glove box. “Could you please not ransack my stuff?”
“Sorry. I was just looking for a map.” I closed the glove box with a sharp click, and he huffed in irritation.
His hands clenched around the steering wheel. “I know how to get there.”
I twisted in my seat to frown at him. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been in a pissy mood all morning.”
Sighing, he glanced at me, then back at the road, his face drawn tight in not only anger, but grief. Had I missed something?
“What’s wrong with me? You’re acting like an idiot, that’s what’s wrong. A selfish, spoiled idiot.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I was more confused than angry, which probably said a lot about how tired I was.
Vic inhaled deeply, as if preparing to say something important. Something he dreaded. Great. “With Luiz back, I can’t help thinking about Sara and Anthony, trying to make sense of what happened to them. But I can’t. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Ohh. I nodded in agreement, and in sympathy. Miguel had first kidnapped, then raped and murdered Sara, and Anthony had been killed when we tried to apprehend his sister’s murderer. Vic was right. There was no sense to be found in his siblings’ deaths, or in any random violence. But that was the world we lived in, and even if we could change it, we couldn’t bring back Sara and Anthony.
“I guess that’s my problem,” he continued, glancing at me before turning back to the road. “Life doesn’t make any sense, and neither does death. No one expected them to die so young, but it can happen to anyone, anytime, and there’s no way to prepare for it.”
Okay, he was starting to sound a bit fatalistic. Which worried me. It wasn’t like Vic was going to die anytime soon. Not if I could help it, anyway.
“Ever since they died, I’ve been trying to do everything I always said I was going to do. Trying to really live, you know?” His eyes shined with resolve, as if he’d just found the key to life and was determined to use it before someone changed the lock and left him pounding on the door. “I’ve been reading a bunch of books I’ve had since high school,” he said, staring at the road as he spoke. “I always planned to read them, but never seemed to have the time before. Now I’m making time. I’ve been calling my brothers more often. And my parents. I’ve even been trying weird new foods, like sushi and chocolate-covered ants.”
“Not together, I hope.”
He smiled at my ill-timed joke. A little.
“I’m glad you’re broadening your horizons, Vic.” Beneath us, smooth blacktop gave way to the rougher surface of a much older road. “But I don’t understand what that has to do with your being mad at me.”
He sighed in frustration, as if it should have been obvious. “I don’t have a sister anymore, Faythe. But I’ve known you since before you turned thirteen, and I kind of think of you as a sister now. Especially since Sara died.”
Understanding soaked into me like water into a sponge, leaving me heavy with heartache. I swallowed thickly and blinked to stop my eyes from watering. I knew where he was going now, and it broke my heart.“I want you to have all the things she didn’t live long enough to experience. I want you to have a wedding, with a long white dress and a bunch of handsome groomsmen.” He grinned at his own joke, and I bit my lip to keep from reminding him that I’d already rejected that particular experience.
“And a honeymoon someplace tropical,” he continued, oblivious to my discomfort. “And a family of your own. With Marc.” Vic’s eyes left the road to zero in on me, pinning me with an almost physical force. This was the heart of the matter. “He’s as much a brother to me as my own brothers are. As Anthony was.”
I grinned, hoping to lighten the mood. “So the two of us together would be like incest, right?”
He didn’t even smile, though he did turn back to the road, just in time to swerve around a series of orange cones set up around some road construction. “I’m serious, Faythe. You and Marc belong together, and it kills me to see you walk away from each other like there’s nothing there.”
Yeah, join the club. I stared out my window to avoid his eyes. As much as I appreciated Vic’s concern, Marc and I were none of his business. We were perfectly capable of screwing up our relationship all on our own.
“When I found out you bit your ex, I thought it was all over between you and Marc. I couldn’t believe you’d do that to him, even when you guys were split up. He doesn’t deserve any of this.” The road construction ended, and Vic pulled back into the right-hand lane. “He went through hell every day you were gone, and now that you’re back, he should be happy. But he’s not. He’s alone and miserable, and you’re here—all dressed up—with Jace looking at you like you hung the fucking moon. It’s no wonder Marc talked Greg into sending me with you two instead of Parker.”
Ahh, so that’s what happened. Marc knew he could count on Vic to keep an eye on me and Jace, and to re-create every awkward moment of this miserable assignment, whereas Parker—the Switzerland of the south-central Pride—would have been careful to stay out of our business.
I glanced in the rearview mirror to see Jace with his head back, eyes closed, earphones still in place. Fortunately.
“I’m not dressed up for Jace,” I insisted, glancing down at the mid-to-low neckline of my blouse. If anything, I was dressed up for Marc, though I could never have admitted that aloud, unless I wanted Marc to hear about it later. Which I did not.
“Besides, you’re missing something pretty important in all this.” I turned sideways again to face him, ignoring the door handle poking my lower back. “Marc dumped me. Not the other way around. If you want us back together, talk to him.”
“I already have.” He flicked the left blinker on and glanced back before changing lanes to pass a slow-moving VW Beetle. “Marc would do anything for you, Faythe, and I don’t think you understand that.”
“Of course I—”
He cut me off, swerving back into the right-hand lane. “He would fucking die for you if you asked him to. But that’s not good enough for you. You have to have him on your own terms. With no strings. No commitment. But for him, that means no security. No guarantee that you won’t just take off again.”
“That’s not fair.” My left hand found the headrest and squeezed out of frustration. “I only left him because he wouldn’t go with me. He wouldn’t leave the Pride.”
“You should never have asked him to. You gave him Sophie’s choice, then told him to live with it. That’s unfair. And now you’re doing it again.”
I faced forward and let my head fall against the headrest. “I’m not going anywhere, Vic.”
“But he doesn’t know that. Not for sure. And Marc needs to be sure.” He paused, and for a moment there was only the sound of our tires on the road, and the regular rhythm of Jace’s sleep-breathing from the backseat. “He told me what Kevin said.”
“About wh—” Then I remembered. Faythe’s the only reason you’re even here. Without her, you’re just another stray cat licking the Alpha’s boots, one false move away from the wrong side of the river.