I watch it take him. I watch Max's whole body go taut and then slack as his will is torn out of his own hands, his face slackening into something terrible and helpless, and when he answers his voice is not quite his own, dragged up out of him from a place he cannot guard.
"No."
The word falls into the silence, pure and forced and absolutely true.
"Have you leaked any plan, any route, any secret of this pack to anyone who would do us harm?"
"No."
Eli holds him a moment longer, then releases him, and Max staggers as his will slams back into him, his hand going to his chest, his breath ragged.
And he looks at me again.
And this look is worse than the first.
Because the first was fury. This one is something that breaks me, fills me up with guilt and wrecks me again.
I can hear Max’s u
