Page 368 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"You okay?" I manage.

"Perfectly fine," Valek says.

"Val."

He heads down the hall, tapping my hand on his way by so I follow him. As if there was any chance I was going back into Claire's room.

Neither of us says anything until we're outside. The cherry trees along the walkway are partially bare, their leaves fluttering free in the wind.

Valek stops walking, pushing his white hair back from his face. "She kept Wraith in a basement, and he still buys her flowers in her favorite color."

"I know." My eyes start burning. "For one second, Val… for one second she remembered the dandelions and I thought⁠—"

"I know."

"I thought maybe."

"Ivy…" He turns to face me fully. "Sometimes there is no maybe. Sometimes there's nothing. Wraith's mother is never going to look at him and see her son. Not for more than a few seconds at a time, and those seconds of wondering if she wants him will hurt him more than anything else."

"It's not fair," I mumble, embarrassed I'm crying, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand. "None of it's fair."

"No. It isn't. But he doesn't visit because he wants something. He visits because he's good, and he doesn't care about hurting himself." He glances back at the building, then down at the wilted flowers under his arm. "There is nothing for him but pain here."

"He shouldn't come here anymore," I murmur, hugging myself against the wind picking up. "We should do this for him. He has a pack now. There's no reason he should have to do it alone."

Valek nods, his lips curving. "Whiskey should do it. He'll bring her the perfect purple every week, and he'll forget every ugly thing she says by the time he hits the parking lot. She can't hurt Whiskey. Nothing can." He thinks for a second. "Should we tell him she likes Venus flytraps best?"

Despite everything, I manage a soft laugh. "Wraith would say no."

"We'll tell him only what he needs to know," Valek murmurs, plucking a leaf from my hair. "That she's safe, and cared for, and that she remembered the dandelions and purple weeds for exactly three seconds."

I wipe my eyes one more time and look up at him.

His face is impassive. He always looks like this when he's locking everything down. The split lip and the yellowed bruise on his cheekbone are the only evidence anything has touched him recently, inside or out.

"What about you?" I ask him.

"What about me?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Ivy."

I step in front of him, blocking his path to the parking lot. He could step around me. Hell, he could pick me up and move me if he wanted to. He stops instead, looking down at me.

"What she said was fucked up," I say. "And it wasn't true."

His jaw flexes once. "It is true, Ivy."

"It isn't."

The wilted bouquet is still tucked under his arm, dried petals crumbling against his sleeve. He adjusts his grip on it, but I think it's more to have something to do with his hands than because it needs adjusting.

"Sit down," I say gently.

"I don't need to sit down."

"Okay. Well, I do, because you and Wraith rearranged my insides last night, and you can stand there looking pretty while I talk, if you want."