One Minute Younger Always Second Best Until I Walked Out the Door novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Wound

I did not like the way he said it.

He sat up against the headboard with the sheet low on his hips, and he would not look at me.

"I hated you for three years," Jonas said.

"I know you did."

"You don't. I wanted the person who drew those maps to be a monster."

I pulled the blanket up over my shoulders.

"My brother was twenty-two," he said. "He'd just made lieutenant. He wanted to be the one who went up the Gravel Fork road because it was the hard one, and I said yes."

"Jonas."

"Let me finish."

I closed my mouth.

"I found him at the ford," he said. "He still had his boots on. I carried him up the bank myself, and I read the order in his pocket, and I knew whose pencil was under the signature. Every wolf in the valley said Colt Radley, but I could see it was a different person's line."

"So you came for me."

"I came to your territory for six months. Trading days, the market, every border meet. I stood at the back and I watched you."

"You never once spoke to me."

"I'm good at standing at the back."

I gave a short, shaky laugh.

"I wanted to find some sign that you'd known," he said. "That you were cold. That you'd laughed. I wanted something I could hate in your face."

"And?"

"You carried a pencil behind your ear and you took your brother's coat when he left it on the fence. You'd run the whole tournament and then stand at the edge while he took the cup."

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