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As promised, Luke’s camp was deep in the forest. Bird song took the place of road noise and cell-phone signals were spotty at best.
Bastion grew sleeker every hour in this setting, but Grace chaffed at the isolation. Each time I took over sitting with our cousin, she retreated to her cabin in silence. I wondered what she was doing there until the third morning when she showed up in the dining hall wearing a bed sheet turned into a haute-couture dress.
“That’s...impressive.” Luke’s murmur was wry. He’d done his best to charm my twin, and when that failed he started meeting each snub with a snub of equal or greater measure. Surprisingly, he drew more flies with vinegar than with honey, and this morning was no exception.
Because Grace—who still refused to speak to me—at least answered Luke. “If you don’t have the balls to say it aloud, don’t say it at all,” she called across the room. Was she teasing? Did I dare hope that? I tried to catch her eye, but she pointedly looked away.
Or, wait, this time Grace wasn’t ignoring me. Her right hand rose to finger the spot where our friendship necklace use to lie in the small of her throat. And her eyes widened as something outside the window drew her away from bantering with a pro.
“He’s awake.”
Silverware struck the floor. Oatmeal splattered on linoleum. I didn’t know who dropped what and I didn’t care. Unleashing coiled muscles, I ran faster than one of the skinless out the door.
There, I took in the most beautiful vision I’d ever been treated to. Ramshackle cabins with barred windows—I’d need to ask Luke about that later. Bits of plastic tucked in amidst the gravel where a raccoon had gotten into the garbage bin and shredded a hotdog wrapper. Weeds, weeds, weeds, and more weeds.
So, yeah, it wasn’t the location that made the scene beautiful. It was the inhabitants.
One man and one wolf, strolling toward us across that plastic-littered gravel. Brothers together. Both awake, both vibrant.
Justice’s hand drifted down to land on Bastion’s furry head.
***
I’D LIKE TO SAY WE all lived happily ever after. But lack of worry over Bastion returned my relationship with Grace to the potential explosion of baking soda in the proximity of vinegar. Bastion and Luke were running in wolf form—four legs still being easier for my favorite cousin than two legs—when the science-fair volcano came to a head.
It started with Grace stomping into the common room, the scab on her cheek a slice of fury. Her tone matched her facial adornment when she barked out our cousin’s name: “Justice!”
He glanced up from the thick law tomes he’d lugged out of the car to fill his hours, lifting reading glasses off his nose. “Yes?”
Grace didn’t so much as glance at me, but I knew chance wasn’t responsible for my presence during this conversation. Instead, my twin’s words, although aimed at Justice, were entirely for my benefit.
“It’s time for the scheidung.”
Luckily, I was sitting. Because the declaration made me lose all feeling in my legs.
For the first time in nearly a week, I spoke to her directly. “Grace, listen. I know you’re disappointed in me. But Bastion is getting better....”
She actually answered, but her reply wiped away any gratitude I might have nurtured for breaking through her silent treatment. “This isn’t about Bastion.”
“Luke then.” I pressed one hand into my gut in a futile attempt to block the pain. “I understand your hesitation about spending time with the skinless. If that’s what it takes for us to be twins again, he and I can slow things down.”
I wasn’t willing to say I’d leave Luke forever at my sister’s insistence. But, time for her to get used to a werewolf joining our family? That I could provide.
Unfortunately, my twin only shook her head. “You think this is about everyone other than yourself. You....”
To my profound relief, Bastion blew in then like a turkey vulture scenting carrion. “Who’s in trouble?”
His eyes twinkled and I fully expected Grace’s shoulders to soften. After all, she’d been so relieved by Bastion’s appetite last night at dinner that she gave him all of her tomato-and-cucumber salad—and quality tomato-and-cucumber salad was second only to designer handbags as the center of her life.
Now, though, she merely glanced at Justice rather than answering his brother. In response, the lawyer-in-training rose, his gesture unbearably formal. Hands clasped behind his back, he spoke in Grace’s place.
“It’s good you’re here, bro. Grace is about to request a temporary scheidung.”
Temporary. I was so relieved that I laughed aloud...realizing one second too late that Grace would think I was making light of a situation that weighed a million tons.
“For your information, 79% of trial separations end in divorce,” my sister bit out. “That part’s only to make Justice happy. Don’t get cocky.”
So Justice had gone to bat for me. The room—shut up for nine months before this week—was musty. I wiped a speck of dust out of my tearing eye.
I wasn’t the only one affected. “You plan to accept this?” Bastion asked his brother. “To force the two of us to choose between them?”
Justice’s nod was bobble-headed—gliding and repeated. “It’s the only way.”
Our cousins’ eyes met then. Two men who looked identical. Two men whose life paths had diverged to run miles apart.
I could almost see the twin-sense bouncing back and forth between them, the silent communication Grace and I now lacked. Bastion raised his eyebrows. Justice shook his head in negation.
I faltered as the twin who had been my partner for the better part of the last decade took a step past me to stand by my sister’s side instead.
“Alright then.” Bastion’s puppy-dog eyes made it impossible to hate him. “Temporarily only.”
I turned away to hide my tears—okay, so that damp stinging hadn’t been due to dust after all. Outside the window, the camp appeared empty. Wherever Luke had gone after his run, it wasn’t here.
So I’d be alone. I could handle that. I mean, I’d learn to handle it. After all, Luke had lived for years without his family. A woelfin was even less animalistic. Surely we didn’t require a pack.
I stood and was surprised to find my legs still able to support me. “I hope you’ll change your mind,” I told my sister, even though I knew she wouldn’t. My gaze slid over our cousins. “I hope you’ll all change your minds.”
Not that I expected them to. I’d started this ball rolling ten years ago when I failed to protect my family’s pelts. The only surprise was that it had taken so long for the other shoe to drop.
Only, I apparently wasn’t an expert on shoes. I should have known that already. Grace had always been the one with the heightened fashion sense.
“There’s no ‘all’ about it.” Justice’s voice was rough as he grabbed up his law texts and came to stand beside me. “It’s a 50/50 split, Honor. I’m going with you.”