Page 37 of Glass

15

POPPY

“Hello?” The last twenty-four hours have been so chaotic that I almost don’t expect it to be Gabe’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Poppy, where are you?” He sounds so urgent that I sit up straighter in my seat, like that might prepare me for whatever new problem he’s preparing to drop in my lap.

I glance at Felix’s curious face before answering.

“It’s a long story.” I already know evasion won’t work with Gabe, and his groan confirms it.

“I’m serious, Poppy. Where the hell did you go?” I’m not used to my level-headed brother sounding so erratic, and I almost impulsively hang up to avoid dealing with it. But before I get the phone more than an inch away from my ear, he adds, “A stunt like that could have killed you both.”

I turn in my seat, looking around as if Gabe is going to appear out of nowhere. But that doesn’t make any sense, considering he’s demanding to know where I am.

“Were you the one following us?” I ask, dumbfounded. Felix’s curiosity devolves into a deep scowl.

Gabe curses under his breath. “Just tell me where you are.”

I’ve never been afraid of Gabe a day in my life, but suddenly I can’t help but feel suspicious. I know my brother is one hell of a tracker, but I have no idea what would have possessed him to trackme. He’s never had any interest in helping me search out our lost siblings. On the few occasions he did me a favor by searching for them himself, he came up with more empty leads than I did when I searched on my own.

“No.” I squirm uncomfortably in my seat.

“No?” he echoes.

“Why are you following me?” The last time I saw Gabe was when all of us were together with Paxton and the Jarreaus. Everything was good when all of us parted as far as I knew. And if he needed to talk to me about anything, he could have called me any time. Why wait until now?

“Dammit, Poppy.” The line is quiet for a moment, so I startle when a door slams on his end. It sounds like he’s getting out of the car, and his breathing grows choppy, as if he’s getting out of breath from exertion. For some reason, I picture the way he stomped around when we were younger and Greg took over the packandthe family.

Every move Greg made angered him—angered all of us—but Gabe took it especially hard. Over time, he stomped less and sulked more, but I’ve never forgotten his reaction to those first months of Greg’s abusive leadership.

Gabe doesn’t like to feel like his hands are tied. He always wants to save someone.

I soften as I listen to my brother’s distress across the phone line. Felix starts to tap his fingers on the center console of the car, his patience wearing thin, but I don’t want to go anywhere until I know what’s going on with Gabe.

Now that I know he’s the one following us, I know hiding for a few minutes won’t keep him away. The second we get back on the highway, it will only be a matter of time before he’s behind us again. Gabe is the best tracker I’ve ever met, and I’ve worked with a few of them over the years in the search for the missing pups.

Gabe breathes deeply into the phone. “Poppy, every decision I’ve ever made was to protect whoever needed it the most at the time.” His voice drips with anguish, and it causes tightness to spread through my chest.

“You’re scaring me a little,” I admit.

Felix has had enough. His hand covers mine around the phone and with his thumb he presses the screen to force the call to speakerphone. “Do you have any idea what your sister has survived today? We’re not playing games with you.” He unceremoniously ends the call and tugs the phone away from me.

My lips part to protest but the words turn to dust in my mouth. Felix drops the phone in a cup holder and grabs my chin, forcing me to face him even though I can barely actually see him.

“No one gets to upset you. Not even family,” he growls.

Part of me wants to explain that I’ll do anything for my family, even if it scares me, but the expression in his eyes stops me. He looks haunted. And I realize that I don’t know how Felix came to be Lost, but whatever it was, it left him with permanent emotional scarring. If he’s ever going to understand my feelings about family, I have to understand his, too.

I’m going to leave him, but the better I understand him, the harder I can try to minimize how much I hurt him. I can’t stay with him, but that doesn’t change my desire to take care of him. A mate bondisforever.

Forever might just look a little different for us. I try to ignore the way my stomach flips uncomfortably at the thought.

My phone starts buzzing again in the cup holder. “Gabe is a professional tracker. He’s inevitably going to find us again whether we stay here or get back on the highway.” Whatever he wants, we can’t avoid it forever.

“Let’s see if we can find a gas station open close by and then get back on the highway.” Felix reaches for my hand, and I let him clasp mine between both of his even though it feels misleading. “If he’s going to follow us, we can at least try to make it into the city before we stop. There will be enough people around that he won’t be able to do anything discreetly.”

“You think he’s following us for a bad reason?” I had the same upsetting thought, but it’s hard to hear Felix share the suspicion.