Page 15 of Wolf Bane
“It’s me,” I said just loud enough to be heard, padding softly towards the living room.“You look rough.”
“Thanks.”He smiled faintly, a shadow of his old self moving across his drawn features.“Um.I feel like we have a lot to talk about, but also… what the hell, man?”
I snorted.“That about sums it up.”After bringing Justin back from being a man-sized lab rat for Garrow fanboys, things had been… well, awkward isn’t a strong enough word but weird gave the wrong connotation.
Stilted?Quiet?
Okay.Weird.
“Anything you want to jump in with?”I prompted, sitting gingerly at the far end of the couch.Justin huffed softly, one eye open and watching me.
Justin stared at me from under half-closed lids for a long few moments.“I don’t know,” he finally murmured.“You and me, we’re… alike, yeah?With the whole weird animal thing going on?”
“In some ways,” I said cautiously, “yes.I was born with the traits in my DNA.What was done to me when I was a child just triggered those changes to take place.”
Justin was quiet for so long, I leaned forward to check his breathing.His lips curved in a small smile.“I’m just thinking.I… I don’t think those changes were supposed to happen to me, Doc.What they did, it hurt.”
He sounded so childlike, so scared.“I can say I know how you feel, but I don’t think I do.What they did to me, I grew up with it.I didn’t even know theyweredoing something to me for most of my life.By then, I knew Ethan and Tyler and a handful of other weres.I knew they existed.”
“But you didn’t know you were one.”
“I still don’t think I am,” I admitted quietly, knowing Tyler could damn well hear me if he was trying.“And I don’t think I’m entirely human.”
“I… I don’t think I am anymore, either.”
“When I first found out what had been done to me… There were things that made sense, you know?Like…oh, that explains why I’m always on high alert—it’s the were part of me, on guard.But other things…” I blew out a breath, the remembered untethering of my world, of what I thought I knew, not so very long ago, sending uneasy ripples of anxiety through my veins.“People like us—you, me, Mal, hell probably even Mariska—we’re not going to be entirely one thing or the other.Our human parts are always gonna be uneasy with our were or shifter parts.Whether that’s our brains, our bodies, or our spirits.”
Justin shifted, pushing up on his elbow to look at me more fully.“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.Whatever they did to me, my body’s not made for that.It’s trying to reject it and just tearing itself apart in the meantime.”He drew in a long, shaky breath, squeezing his eyes tight.
“Justin…”
He smiled, small and bitter, eyes still shut.“Yeah, thought so.There’s literally nothing to say about it, huh?The people who did this to me… there’s no undoing it, is there?”
I shook my head.“No,” I whispered.“Not as far as I can tell anyway.Maybe…”
“Don’t give false hope, Doc.It’s as bad as lying.”
“I hoped for a long time.Hell, I still do,” I admitted softly.“But it’s part of me.Part of you, now.And the people who did this… They’re not going to undo it.Even if they could.”
Justin nodded, curling up small as his long, lanky frame would allow.“Maybe this flu thing will kill me, and I can stop worrying about it.”
“Justin—”
He burrowed deeper in the thin blanket, pointedly giving me his shoulder.
Fuck.
“Hey.”Tyler’s low, tired voice caught me from down the hallway.“Come and see what I found.”
I gestured helplessly at Justin.“He needs help,” I said softly, tapping my temple.“More than any of us can come up with.”
Tyler eyed him warily, giving me a slow nod.“Yeah.Well.Who doesn’t these days?”With a jerk of his chin towards his office, Tyler turned and left me to follow.He was waiting in his janky desk chair, the thing held together with duct tape and sheer will, when I entered a few moments later.“Before I show this to you, you need to spill, Lan.What are you digging into?You said Cullen gave this to you.Why?Where did he get it?And have you spoken to Ethan today?”
“Reverse order: No, have you?Not entirely sure.Because he thinks the info on it is something I need to know.And yeah, he gave it to me, and what do youthinkI’m digging into?”
“A fucking pile of shit,” he grumbled.“It took less than a minute to get this open—I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing security wise but it’s jack shit.No encoding, not even a middle school computer science class level password.So, I took some initiative,” he added with a small smirk.“Nothing is untraceable.Nothing.You just have to know where to look for the footprints.”
“You’ve been watching one of those CSI shows, haven’t you?”
