I spent the rest of the evening wrapped in the rare warmth of peace. Close friends gathered around me—Archie, Cole, Rebecca, Kevin, Lisa, Janet, and a few others whose faces I'd once scanned for signs of hostility now beamed with hesitant admiration. I introduced Gabriel and Charmeine to them, trying not to get too sentimental about it. We'd survived. We'd won. We were standing here with laughter in our lungs instead of ash.
Andrew was conspicuously absent. And no one dared to mention it. Smart of them, really. Even the loudest among the wolves seemed to have caught the scent of tension and thought better than to poke the wounded bear—me. Or the bigger bear—him.
That night, I didn't sleep. Not really. I stared at the ceiling, thinking of everything I'd said, and everything I hadn't. His
