Page 62 of Fangs
He said nothing for several breaths, and unease started creeping through me. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough.
“Em, that’s not true.”
I blinked at him, my brain struggling to process what he said.
“That’s not true,” Wolf repeated, his brow pinched together like he was in pain.
“What’s not true?”
“The Ministry doesn’t burnanyonealive.”
I stared at him.
“They don’t burnanyone,” he repeated, hurt creeping into his voice again. “You thought I knew this and was just fine with it?”
“You’re lying,” I snapped.
“I’m not. I swear,” Wolf said, his face gravely serious. “I swear, Em, that’s not true.”
Wolf had to be lying. Dune would never lie to me. I remembered the fear in his face. That was real.
My hands started trembling. “What about the nights when Pa would come home smellin’ like ash?”
“He probably smelled like ash ’cause he was standing next to one of the fires on his watch shift.”
“Dune saidyoutold him this, that when he turned ten, you told him he was old enough to know!” My voice was rising, anger creeping in.
Wolf closed his eyes briefly, his throat bobbing. “If Dune told you that, he was lyin’. Inevertold him that, Em.”
“Why the fuck would Dune lie to me?” I demanded, and I could hear the desperation in my voice. I didn’t understand what was happening. This didn’t make any sense.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, then his eyes focused back on me, and the pain in his voice speared through me. “How could you think I would just let the Ministry burn you alive?”
I was dangerously close to falling apart and gripped my anger like a lifeline. “Because you let them drag me away and throw me in a fuckin’ cell when I was onlyten years old!” I hissed.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “What were you doin’ with Madame in the dungeon?”
The change in subject threw me off balance, and the nausea surged back.
“You said you were torturing people, so what were you doing?”
I could practically smell the blood and that awful, sickly-sweet smell?—
“You can hurt people with your powers, can’t you?”
I knew I should saysomethingto explain myself, but the shame seemed to seal my mouth shut.
“How the fuck am I supposed to trust you when you still aren’t tellin’ me the whole truth?” Anger sharpened in his voice again. “How do I know that whole story about Dune isn’t another lie?”
I tried to shove all the emotion down before I lost my shit again, trying to tap into the old Bones who could do that on command.
“You wanna know how we found you?”
I glanced back up at him, startled.
“We met up with a woman who claimed she’d seen you. She told us all about how her crew rescued you from mercenaries, but you got her brother killed, and then, if that wasn’t enough, you turned her crew against her and got herexiled.”
Lana.
