I could see the exact moment when Lou remembered. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted. I knew what came next—pity. Of course, Lou surprised me again. She was good at that. She skipped pity and went right to horror, followed by absolute rage. I had forgotten about the binding for a second, forgotten that she was getting more than just my words.

Lou’s beautiful face twisted up in a snarl. “I will fucking kill him. I will track him down and rip off his balls and deep fry them in Lara’s food truck.” She tried to stand, but I pulled her back down. Then she looked at me, blinked quickly, and burst into tears. I did the only thing I could think of—I pulled her into my arms and let her cry.

Chapter Thirteen

Lou

I was an asshole.

That was the only possible reason I could think of for my reaction, as it was completely ridiculous that Declan was comforting me.

Juliet once showed us all an article about ring theory, which explained how to comfort someone going through trauma. Basically, the person going through the ordeal is at the center, then close family, then friends, then acquaintances, and so on, going out like the rings on a target.

Let’s say your coworker gets cancer. They’re the bullseye. You know them, but not well, so you’re on the outer edge of the target. You can only pass comfort down to the bullseye, and the people on the inside can only “dump out” their emotional issues to the rings outside themselves. So if your coworker has cancer, you don’t complain to their sister about how stressed you are over the illness or how much more work you have to do while they’re sick. You can complain to your spouse, who is further outside the circle than you, having only seen your coworker once or twice. But for those inside the circle, you listen, you help, you make a gods-be-damned casserole. You don’t add by making it about you.

I liked the ring theory. I used it at work when comforting patients.

Declan was at the center of this trauma. I was just his roommate. This wasn’t about me, and yet I was sobbing uncontrollably and he was making soothing noises and rocking me as best as he could in the cheap, shitty chair. Yes, I’m sure some of it was runoff from the binding, but not all. I’d followed the case as best I could then—I think I was about nine or ten when it hit the news, but I wasn’t quite sure. It wasn’t every day something like that happened, but my mom wouldn’t let me watch the stories on the news if she could help it. She didn’t think it was appropriate for a kid to watch.

I hadn’t even been allowed to watch it. Declan had lived it.

Angus Campbell had perverted the pack system. I remember Mama Ami trying to explain it all to me, but I didn’t understand much of it. What I do remember? How angry she was—so mad that she would stop midexplanation, almost chewing on the words. I remember one part very clearly—she said what he did to his pack was unconscionable, and what he’d done to his children was an abomination.