More tears streamed down her face, and she let out another cry.
“No,” I said, not wanting to believe it. “No, you can’t—”
“Leukemia.” She gripped my hand harder. “I’ve had it for a few years, have been through chemo … and …” She squeezed her eyes shut.
This couldn’t be true. I barely knew her, but she had quickly become one of my only true friends.
“It’s not working,” she finally said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “It’s hard for me to do so many things that I used to be able to do. I can barely run. I can barely fight. I’m just trying to live my last few days happy.”
This was why Ares hadn’t wanted to tell me. He was in too much pain over Charolette. First, his mother had died, and now, Charolette might die too.
She frowned and watched the warriors gather in the field through the trees. “My wolf’s fur is becoming thinner every day, and I’ve lost the hair on my head. That’s why I don’t shift in front of people. I don’t want them to see me without my wig … I always loved how I looked … and now … now, I’m nothing. I’m nothing,” she repeated, voice cracking.
I pulled her into a hug and let her rest her head on my shoulders. She grasped on to me tightly, curling her fingers into my back.
“It’s okay, Charolette.” I gently rubbed her back, trying to be strong for her.
But it wasn’t okay. None of this was okay, and it never would be.
“Ares thinks that if he finds the stone … he’ll be able to fix me …” She shook her head. “But … I don’t believe it. Nothing has been able to fix this, and nothing will ever be able to fix me. I’m broken.”
Chapter 32
Aurora
Ever since Charolette had told me she had cancer this morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The word had been on my mind for hours, terrorizing me in the worst ways possible. Charolette was Ares’s only sibling, just like Jeremy had been mine. And I knew the pain and heartbreak he was feeling, knowing ahead of time that he’d lose her one day if he didn’t find the stone.
We skipped the rest of practice—despite Marcel telling her she needed to train to be strong—and got ice cream at Pandora’s Parlor. She told me that doctors were giving up on her, that the money Ares had poured into chemo was for nothing, and that they thought she only had a few months left at best unless the Moon Goddess presented her with a miracle.
When I got home, I locked myself in Ruffles’s bedroom and cried for the first time today. Ruffles hopped up onto my lap and rubbed her face against my cheek, knowing that something was wrong. I hugged her to my chest, my entire body shaking.
We needed to find the other half of the stone as soon as possible. But even that was iffy. If we found it, could only half the stone treat her cancer and keep her alive? What if it didn’t?
I brushed my fingers across the slightly raised skin on my back, feeling the stone’s power vibrating through them.
If half the stone didn’t work, then I would give her my half too. I had to; I didn’t have any other choice. I would not let Ares or Mars experience what I had when Jeremy died—the anguish, the heartbreak, the feeling of you could’ve done more to save him, but you just didn’t try hard enough. If I had to spend the rest of my life unable to walk or to shift, then I would do that for Charolette. Though I didn’t know her as much as I wished I did, she had helped me so much already—even if it was just hiding Ruffles for me.
But until then, I would try my hardest to find the stone.
I opened a bag of chips to distract Ruffles, picked up the phone as I listened to her little crunches, and dialed Elijah’s number. While I didn’t think he had any new information about the stone yet, I needed to talk to him because his doctor had put the stone in my back. Maybe I could convince him to put the other stone into Charolette once we found it. And if my stone was attracting the hounds like Ares thought, maybe we could somehow find the other half of the stone using this one.
Something.
Anything.
Elijah didn’t answer, so I called him again. The second call went straight to voice mail.
“Elijah, please answer. I need to talk to you about the second half of the stone. We need to find it now. Call me back.”
Mars knocked on the door and peeked his head into the room. Dressed in a short-sleeved pink button-up that hugged his biceps perfectly and a pair of fitted white jeans, he smiled. “Are you ready? My dad wants us over at six.”
I gazed at the clock, which read five fifty p.m. in glowing green numbers, and hurried to his bedroom, throwing on a baby-blue summer dress and a pair of red sandals. Mars snatched up my hand and led me out of the pack house and down the street.
He stayed quieter than usual as we walked down the white-paved sidewalk.
I crossed the middle of the street when I saw Mr. Barrett’s bright blue shutters and said, “Your sister is sick,” before I could stop myself.
Stopping on the cracked pavement, Mars looked over, his eyes soft. “You talked to her?”
“Yes …” Guilt hit me like a fucking train. I had judged him for something I knew nothing about just because Mom had told me. “I’m sorry for getting angry with you and for calling you power hungry. I’m sorry for … for what’s happening. I didn’t know, but”—I grasped his hand tighter and tried to smile up at him—“I am willing to
