Chapter 16: Her Own Terms

I dressed in the grey light with my back to the window.

Hamish sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees and watched me do it.

"You're going," he said.

"Yes."

"Because they've called the pack."

"Because she's dying, and I'm the only one who can stop it."

"That isn't a reason. That's a fact."

I stopped with one boot in my hand.

"Then what is a reason?"

"Wanting to," he said. "Do you want to?"

I thought about my sister's voice cracking in the dark.

I thought about her hand in the herb shed, soft and clever, handing me over to Tobias with one sentence.

"Part of me wants to put my hand on her back and never lift it," I said. "Part of me wants to sit in this cabin and listen to her die."

"Which part is bigger?"

"I don't know yet."

He nodded as if that were an answer.

"Then you don't go because they cried," he said. "You go on your own terms, or you don't go."

I sat down on the bed and pulled the boot on.

"That's the thing," I said. "I've done everything on someone's terms my whole life. I'm only just learning I can set my own."

"So set them."

"I'm going to."

"Good." He took a breath. "Whatever you decide, I'm walking in beside you."

I looked at him.

"I could do something for you first," I said. "While I still have the strength to spare."

"What?"

"Your hands." I took one of them and turned it over. "They're cracked from the winter. You sleep three hours a night, Hamish. I hear you."

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