Alex took a deep breath through his nose. “Maybe we should sit down,” he said, gesturing towards a patch of grass.

A patch of grass I had never seen before.

Here’s the thing about my little piece of paradise by the lake - the scenery never changed. We stayed on the same stretch of beach. Always. We would walk for hours and hours, and always see the same fifty feet or so. It just kept looping over and over. At this point I knew every square inch of land, and this patch of grass was not part of it.

“Where are we?” I asked. “How did we get here?”

And then I remembered how I got there. I remembered the growls and fur, the teeth and blood. I remembered my throat being torn out.

My knees went rubbery, dumping me onto the ground.

“I’m dead.” Oh God. I thought I was ready for this moment, but I was wrong. “I died.”

A little hand touched my cheek. When I raised my head, it was to meet Nicole’s calculating gaze. She had her head cocked to one side, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Not yet,” she said. “Close, but not quite there.”

“I thought it would be the Alphas. I thought I would die for a cause, for something important.” My eyes stung, and I blinked back the tears threatening to fall. “I was going to be a martyr, but ended up being just a random victim.”

Nicole continued her intense assessment, which was quickly becoming unsettling. Alex, however, didn’t leave me to wallow in my misery alone. His arms wrapped around me in a strong embrace as his warm lips pressed against my temple.

At least there was one upside to this being dead thing.

“I get to stay here with you now, right?”

Alex leaned back so I could see his face. There was no hint of a smile on his lips, the graveness from before still etched in every line of his face. “Maybe. There are rules to the afterlife, but mostly we get to choose for ourselves.”

Oh good. Cryptic Alex was back. “What kind of choices?”

“Lots,” he shrugged. “Right now your most pressing one is whether or not to stay.”

I felt a bit like I was being ripped in two. Here was comfortable. Here was safe and warm. Here was where Alex was. But there was so much I still wanted to do in life. I wanted to travel around, visit foreign lands and all that. I wanted to go to college, learn stuff, and make a few bad decisions, like getting a tattoo.

I wanted to see the Alphas overthrown.

And then there were all the people I would leave behind. Angel. Jase. My parents. Talley. Charlie. Liam…

“Liam!” My shout was so abrupt and loud Nicole jumped back in shock. “Alex, Liam was there. He was fighting, and he was hurt.” I looked around, half expecting to see him walking up the shore to join us. “I don’t know if he’s okay.” I grabbed onto Alex’s arm, my fingernails biting into his skin. “Do you know? Do you know if he’s okay?”

If it was possible, Alex looked even grimmer.

“Alex, damn it, is Liam okay?”

“No.”

It was a good thing I was sitting. Otherwise, I would have collapsed. It felt as if everything inside of me had vanished, leaving a brittle shell, ready to crumble in upon itself.

“What’s happened to him?” The image in my head kept flipping from a broken and battered Wolf Liam to a broken and battered Human Liam. It occurred to me he might be more than injured, but I quickly dismissed the idea. If Liam was dead, he would be with us. With me. “Alex, please. Please. You have to tell me.”

He slid his knuckles along my jaw. “He needs you.”

“So, that’s my choice? I can die and stay here with you, or live and go back to Liam?”

A stiff, slow nod.

“I have to go.” I forced the words out of my mouth, and even though I put all my strength into it, they were little more than a whisper.

“I know.”

“I won’t get to come back here again, will I?”

He replied with a small, heavyhearted shake of his head.

I had said goodbye to him so many times before, but it never got any easier. This time there was no melding of mouths or wracking sobs. As I clung onto him, my arms latched so tightly he would probably have bruises, I actually felt all the emotions battering through my heart instead of the numb emptiness which had accompanied his death. Maybe it was because this time the leaving was my choice, or maybe it was because I was filled with resolve and purpose. Whatever it was, my heart ached at the knowledge I would never see him again, but I was able to appreciate and be grateful for the time we had been given together.

“I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life, however long that may be.”

His arms tightened around me. “You better make sure it’s a long, long time.”

“I did love you,” I confessed into his chest. “I still do.”

“And I have always and will always love you.” He finally loosened his grip on me. When he pulled back to meet my eyes I could see a hint of dimples underneath the tears. “But you’re going to keep doing the living thing, and I’m not.” A kiss against my brow. “You’ve got a big heart, Scout. Don’t be stingy with it.”

Speaking of stingy… I pulled his face to mine and gave him a real kiss. “Goodbye, Alex Cole.”

“Goodbye, Scout Donovan.”

“Bye, Scout,” came the small voice from around my hip. I knelt down and gathered her in my arms.

“I’m going to fight for you, kid,” I said to the girl who should have been given the same choice, the choice to go back and make things right. “I’m going to make sure no more little girls have to come here too soon.”

“We’ve been waiting a long time for you,” she said.

“I won’t let you down.” It was a promise; one I had every intention of keeping.

“Okay,” I said standing up. “Tell me how to go home.”

Alex’s smile was genuine, and I was glad since it would be the last time I saw him. “All you have to do is Change.”

At first I was confused, but then I was staring up at him from a completely different angle. The pain came about the same time the smell of blood hit my nose. I reached down deep inside of myself, and began the process of making myself human once more.

Chapter 22

The transformation from Wolf Scout to Human Scout was long and arduous. There was no way to mark the time, but I know I laid there for what seemed like an eternity, feeling my body knit itself back together. Bones cracked. Skin ripped. Muscles tore. It was the same song and dance as any other Change, but the intensity had a whole new beat. It was like going from the Foxtrot to the Salsa. When I finally came through it - human, alive, and whole - I sent a silent prayer up to God, thanking him for the miracle. And then, because He was obviously pleased with my consideration, He let me pass out.