Page 63 of The Girl and the Cobra

Again, Wolf says my name: “Tristan. Are you going to talk or just sit there and lose yourself in your thoughts?”

I snap back to reality, and as I do so I jerk the sleeve on my left arm up to my elbow, revealing the ugly, scarred flesh underneath. The most notable scars are the ones that form my sister’s name. “I don’t want this anymore.”

Wolf laces his fingers together. “Do you even know how many times you carved your sister’s name into your skin? You can’t simply undo something like that. You know that already, so what are you really saying?”

Even though I have not a single doubt that Wolf already knows about the encounter in my room with Mabel earlier, I still say, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, how it shouldn’t be Shay’s name there. Not anymore. It should be Mabel’s. I thought I’d… carve her name on top or something, but Mabel found me with the knife.”

“And she stopped you.”

I nod once. “Yeah, she did. She doesn’t want me to hurt myself anymore, even if it means I’ll be forever stuck with my sister’s name on my arm, a constant reminder of what I did—and what I used to want.”

“What surprises me is not the fact that you wanted to put Mabel’s name on your skin,” Wolf remarks dryly. “It’s the fact that you let Mabel stop you. It makes me wonder if things were different, if the situation was, say, heated, she’d still be the angel on your shoulder, stopping you from violence.”

As his comment sinks in, it hits me. Finally, after all this time; something I should have recognized a long time ago. Wolf didn’t take the collar off because he thinks I love Mabel. He took it off becauseMabelis my collar. She’s become what keeps me in check.

Was this his goal all along?

Wolf goes on, “You want to pay tribute to her, but you’ve only ever known self-harm. If only there was a way to… immortalize something on your skin that didn’t involve you taking a knife toit.” Based on the way he says it, I can tell he has an idea, and he’s trying to lead me to it.

My mind doesn’t want to connect these dots, so I stay silent.

He sets his hands down on his desk and gives me an unimpressed look. “A tattoo, Tristan. I’m talking about a tattoo.” I’m pretty sure he’s seconds from rolling his eyes at me, but he manages to hold his eternal disappointment in. “People use tattoos to hide scars all the time. You would hardly be the first.”

A tattoo. Right. That… actually makes a lot of sense. I feel ridiculous for not coming up with the idea myself—though it should shock absolutely no one that my first instinct was to go for a knife.

The only thing is tattoos cost money. I’m fairly certain Shay or Atticus is funding this whole stint here; I doubt I’d be allowed to contact either of them to ask if they could give me a bit of an allowance so I can get my girl’s name tattooed over the scars on my arm.

Ugh. Fuck. I hate this. Why can’t I be normal?

Although, if I was normal, I would never have met Mabel to begin with—and I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

Wolf must sense where my thought are, because he leans forward on his desk and says, “Perhaps if you continue to show progress, I’ll make an appointment for you to get what you want.”

That’s all I can ask for. I don’t thank him. I don’t say another word as I get up and leave his office. In the past I would have gravitated toward Mabel’s room, laid in her bed while I waited for time to pass and missed her like crazy, but for the past week or so I’ve been doing what I can with what I have, workout-wise. Wolf doesn’t own any machines, but you’d be surprised at what you can do if you use your imagination.

Stretches, core-strengthening, push-ups and the like. You don’t need a dozen machines to work out; they do help, though.It would be nice to transform one of the many, many empty bedrooms in this house into an exercise room.

In the past, I worked out to tone my body, so I would be as dangerous an enemy as possible. When you kill people for a living, you have to be ready at a moment’s notice. Good with all sorts of weapons and equally as good at improvising. Basically, you had to be ready to run a marathon at any given point of time. You can plan for years, but sometimes things backfire and sticking to the shadows becomes impossible.

I was weak for a while, after Shay shot me. I couldn’t bear to get up and make use of my body when I was in that cell with Nix as my main captor. And then, as my body slowly healed, I lost what little will I had left. I don’t know that I’d say I was depressed, but… maybe I was.

Maybe I was depressed and I thought nothing and no one would ever pull me out of it. Then when I was brought here, I thought surely this was the end for me. Tristan Arrowwood, the Cobra, would die in this house, under Wolf’s watchful eyes.

But I didn’t, and things took a turn I could never have expected. Mabel was the unforeseen tide that turned everything around for me, and I want to be better for her. To be my best self—and being my best self doesn’t include wallowing or being depressed. It’s high time I melded together everything that made me the Cobra and the heir of the Arrowwood family with the light that Mabel brings into my life and create something new.

A new man.

Time passes, and I keep busy, pushing my body to its limits but not overdoing it. Certain exercises would be easier with dumbbells, but I do what I can. Before I know it, it’s time to pick Mabel up from The Drip. I hop in the backseat, leaving the front vacant for Mabel.

I used to worry that her getting a job would mean she’d pull away from me. Find friends, find a normal guy, and wantsomething different for her life. A part of me still worries, of course; that particular concern of mine hasn’t completely disappeared, but I do feel better about it. I… I trust Mabel, as bizarre as it is.

I trust her and she trusts me. It’s something I’m totally unprepared for and yet addicted to all at the same time.

It’s dark by the time we pull up to the front of The Drip, and Mabel is nowhere to be found. Wolf parks in one of the empty spots before the shop, and I lean forward between the driver and passenger seat, whipping my head back and forth as I try to find her.

“Where is she?” I ask, my heart skipping a beat in my chest. Every single time we’ve come to get her, we got here a few minutes before she and the girl she works with walk out. Tonight we must’ve ran a few minutes late, because I don’t see that Penny girl anywhere, either.

“I don’t know,” Wolf says, glancing around.

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