And then for a moment—and only that—she also let go of herself, trusting in love and her strength, allowing the door to open enough to brush his mind with tentative, ghostly fingers and truly feel for the boy beneath the monster. She gasped as her chest filled with a deep and bitter ache that was Wolf ’s grief and loneliness and longing.
She opened her eyes. Her monster wasn’t pleased to come back— she could tell from that spastic little flutter—but it knew what it could do to itself. Anyway, she was busy. One more thing she really needed to try.
“I don’t want you to die, Wolf, if you can be Simon again. If you think you might be close.” She withdrew the half of that King Size Almond Joy she’d saved for a treat, a celebration of the possible. Stooping, eyes still on the boy wreathed in shadows, she prized out the cardboard insert. The wrapper crinkled in the hush. A perfume of rich chocolate and sweet coconut and spicy almond swelled. Moving carefully, she set the candy atop its wrapper on the ground between them.
Because what the hell: sometimes, you feel like a nut. Take a chance, honey. Take a deep breath and—
“Jump, Wolf,” she said.
And then Alex took a step back and waited with Buck, in fresh moonlight, to see what would happen next.