Chapter 19: The Real Counterattack

 

Mabel's parents lived forty minutes outside the city in a house that had been added to so many times over the years that it no longer had a coherent architectural style, just room after room that had been needed and built and made comfortable. There were plants on every windowsill. The kitchen smelled like something that had been simmering for hours. A dog of indeterminate breed was asleep on the couch and did not move when they came in.

Mr. Finch took Briar's bag from her before she had finished getting out of the car. Mrs. Finch came out of the kitchen with flour on her hands and said, "There you are, we've been expecting you," like Briar was someone who had been coming here for years and was simply a little late.

Briar stood in the hallway and did not know what to do with her hands.

They had made up the small bedroom at the end of the hall. There were fresh towels folded on the chair and a spare blanket at the foot of the bed and a glass of water on the nightstand.

Briar sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the towels for a long time.

Dinner was a real meal, the kind that had multiple components and required multiple pots and produced more food than four people could reasonably eat. Mrs. Finch kept adding things to Briar's plate without asking and Mr. Finch kept refilling her water glass and the dog had migrated from the couch to under the table and was leaning against Briar's feet with its full weight.

She could not remember the last time she had sat at a table that felt like this.

At some point Mabel said something about school, about how Briar had been top of her year before everything, and Mrs. Finch looked at Briar with genuine interest and said, "Mabel told us you had a real gift for medicine. Your mother was a healer, wasn't she? A good one."

"She was," Briar said. "People used to come from other packs."

"It shows in you," Mrs. Finch said.

Briar looked down at her plate.

She did not know when she started crying. One moment she was fine and the next moment she was not, and it was not the loud ugly crying she was used to, it was quieter than that and somehow worse.

Mrs. Finch did not say anything. She just moved her chair closer and put her hand over Briar's and left it there.

Briar cried for a long time. She could not have said exactly what she was crying about. Mrs. Finch kept her hand there and Mr. Finch refilled her water glass again and Mabel passed her a stack of paper napkins without comment.

After, she felt hollowed out in the way that is not emptiness but relief.

"Nursing," Mr. Finch said, when she had dried her face. "You'd be good at it. There's a program at the human university, mixed enrollment, they take wolves. You could do it in two years."

"You think so?" Briar said.

"You corrected the pack medic when you were fourteen," Mabel said. "He told her she was right and ordered her a textbook."

Briar had forgotten that. The memory came back slowly, the smell of the medical office, the medic's surprised face. She had been right. She had known she was right and she had said so.

"Maybe," she said.

"Not maybe," Mrs. Finch said. "Think about it properly."

Briar thought about it. She thought about it all the way to sleep.

---

Eliza's birthday party was at a venue in the city, the kind of place with a private room and a champagne menu and a guest list that was not posted anywhere but was nonetheless very clearly enforced. Briar had not been on it originally.

Mabel had found out about it through three degrees of connection and had spent two days arguing that Briar needed to be there, that Eliza was the witch she needed to reach, that opportunities did not arrive on schedules.

"They didn't invite you," Briar said.

"No," Mabel said. "But they invited you. Technically. You're still the Luna."

This was true in the technical sense only and both of them knew it. But Briar put on the best thing she had brought from Mabel's apartment, a dark green dress that fit properly, and she bought a gift she had thought about carefully, and she went.

---

Eliza had been in a good mood until Briar walked in.

Vivienne had spent the better part of the afternoon ensuring that mood was built on the right foundation. and between the champagne and the gift table, she had said the things she needed to say.

She framed everything as reluctant disclosure, the things she had been keeping to herself because she did not want to cause trouble.

I just worry about her effect on Killian. On all of you.

I've tried to see the good in her. I really have.

She doesn't mean badly. She just. She can't seem to help it.

Kallie purred.

Eliza, who was twenty-three and had grown up watching her brother become increasingly burdened by a Luna the pack had never accepted, had been receptive to every word of it. By the time the party was in full swing she had constructed a complete and detailed picture of Briar as a dragging weight on everything Vivienne cared about.

I love it when they do the work themselves, Kallie said.

Then Briar walked in.

She was wearing something that fit. Her hair was down. She crossed the room and went directly to the gift table and set her wrapped box down carefully.

Eliza's eyes moved to Vivienne's face.

Vivienne gave a small, regretful shrug.

Eliza crossed to the gift table and picked up Briar's box. Then she dropped it on the floor and stepped on it, one clean deliberate press of her heel.

Something crunched inside.

"You shouldn't have come," Eliza said.

Briar looked at the crushed box on the floor. She had spent two hours choosing that gift. Her heart broke.

"It's a party," she said.

"Not yours." Eliza's voice was flat. "You have humiliated this family for three years! You have embarrassed my brother in front of his entire pack! And you still show up here with a gift like that makes any of it acceptable!!"

"Eliza." Vivienne appeared at her shoulder, right on time. "It's your birthday. Don't let this ruin it."

"You have not been faithful to the Moon Goddess," Eliza said, ignoring Vivienne's hand. "Three years with my brother and no child. That is not natural. That is a spiritual failing." She looked at Briar with complete conviction. "You should be confessing, not attending parties. You are a waste of a bond."

Briar looked past Eliza.

Killian was standing on the far side of the room with a drink in his hand, watching. His face was doing nothing visible. He did not step forward. He did not say his sister's name.

Briar looked at the crushed box on the floor.

"I'm going to go," she said.

She turned toward the exit.

Vivienne was there before her, smooth and unhurried, positioned in the space between Briar and the door.

"Briar." Her voice was low. Just the two of them. "You don't have to leave. Stay. I'll smooth things over with Eliza, she just needs time."

"I'm fine," Briar said. "I'd like to go."

"I'm worried about you." Vivienne tilted her head. "You've been isolating yourself. Staying at that friend's place, not coming home. I know things have been difficult but running away doesn't help."

"I'm not running," Briar said.

"You've been doing this for days. Going off without telling anyone, not answering the link." Vivienne's voice went softer. "You don't have to fight everything on your own. I know we've had our difficulties but I'm still here. That's what sisters are for."

Briar looked at her.

Three years of this face. Three years of this voice, warm and patient and pointing her in the wrong direction every single time while looking exactly like the most helpful person in any room.

"You told me to do the wolf run," Briar said.

Vivienne's expression shifted into something gentle and slightly concerned.

"Briar"

"You practiced the howl with me. You sent me letters when you were abroad telling me how to behave, how to dress, what to say to Killian. And then every time something went wrong you stood in front of everyone and said you had nothing to do with it." Briar's voice was very steady. Steadier than she expected. "You told me not to wear nice underwear and then you had a Victoria's Secret bag in the laundry room. You told me Killian liked natural and then you showed up to everything perfect." She paused. "The earrings you gave me are from a secondhand bin. Two dollars."

The warmth in Vivienne's expression did not completely disappear. But it thinned.

"You're upset," Vivienne said. "You're reading things into"

"You tried to get me to pour hot coffee on you twice! " Briar said. "In the office corridor and in the coffee shop! The second time you said horrible things about my mother to make me angry enough to actually do it!!"

Something shifted in Vivienne's face.

"Well, it's really a pity. I thought you would always be stupid...This is what you deserve." she said. Her voice had changed. The softness was gone from it entirely. "Don’t you dare glare at me with those vacant, stupid eyes. I bet your mother didn’t even have time to teach you how to be a proper bitch before she kicked the bucket. What did she leave you besides those fat genes and a head full of rocks? Nothing. She was garbage, and you’re just the trash she left"

Briar hit her.

Open-palmed, hard, across the face. The sound cut through the room.

Vivienne's head turned sideways. She caught herself on the table behind her. Her hand slowly rose and reached towards her face. Her gaze towards Briar was filled with shock. She never expected Briar to resist so strongly.

The room had gone silent.

Eliza stepped forward. She had seen the end of something but not the beginning of it, and what she had seen was Briar's hand and Vivienne's cheek and that was enough.

"You stupid pig! You've ruined everything!! Get out!!! " she said.

Briar picked up the crushed gift box from the floor. She tucked it under her arm.

"You think you’re so smart, Elise," Briar said. Her voice was steady, without the usual stutter. "But you’re just a puppet with closed eyes. Vivienne pulls your strings and you bark whenever she tells you to. It’s sad."

Elise stiffened, her face flushing with indignation. "How dare you—"

"You are very arrogant," Briar interrupted. "You look down at me and think I’m the stupid one. But I see the truth, and you’re too proud to even look for it. You’re not a leader. You’re just someone’s loud, mean shadow. Keep your hate. I don't want it anymore."

Without waiting for a response, Briar turned her back on the stunned Alpha female and walked away. Elise stood frozen, her mouth slightly open, watching the girl she called a "pig" walk out with more dignity than anyone in the room.