Page 40 of Fate, Interrupted

“And you’re going to prove him wrong,” she says.

Her tone tells me she’s stopped trying to talk me out of it.

Not quite a question and not quite a statement. It sits somewhere between the two, in the tone Penny uses when she’s made her peace with a decision she can’t talk me out of and is moving toward acceptance.

“Yes,” I say.

She looks at me for a long moment.

“He could hurt you,” she says. But this doesn’t come out in the wolves-are-dangerous version. This is different, and more honest.

“So could anyone.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It’s true.”

She exhales. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” I say.

I see Silas across the street again, blood at the corner of his mouth, already braced for me to leave.

She gives me the look that says we both know that’s not entirely accurate, and I give her the look that says I know and I love her for worrying, and for a moment neither of us says anything.

I think about the resignation on his face.

That’s the thing I keep returning to, underneath everything else—the resignation. The look of a man who saw me across the street and started preparing for the version of things where I walk away.

I push back from the table.

“I’m going to find him,” I say.

Penny watches me stand. “Because?”

I reach for my bag.

“Because I don’t want him assuming I’m afraid of him.”

She doesn’t stop me. She stands, pushing her chair back in. “Take my rain jacket. You’re going to need it.”

From Penny, this is equivalent to a blessing. I grab it from the hook by the door, and I go.

The decision feels easy while Penny is standing there watching me leave. I suspect it will feel considerably less easy once I’m alone in the car.

Chapter twelve

Norah

Ipull away from the curb and ease into traffic, my hands light on the wheel, while my brain immediately convenes a small internal committee to review the decision I have made.

Now that I’m alone in the car, the decision feels considerably less simple.

Norah v.1 has concerns. She’d like to note that I’m driving across a city to find a wolf at his place of business, which I know is definitely on the wolf side of Larkin. That I have no guarantee he is there, no guarantee he will come out if he is, and no guarantee that whatever I’m planning to say will be received how I intend it to rather than some other, awkward way.

Norah v.1 wants to know what the plan is.

The plan, I tell her, is to show up.