Chapter 46
Kara
Asher picks up the thread.
"I thought you were adorable too. Like a lost princess in a fairy tale. But my parents... they drilled into me that bloodlines mattered. That your parents were failures. Drug addicts. Gamblers. Embarrassments."
His voice is tight with self-loathing. "You'd talk about your parents—'My dad used to make me pancakes,' 'My mom sang so beautifully.' You still loved them. Even after they abandoned you."
"And I thought you were ungrateful," Asher admits. "I thought you didn't understand what an honor it was that my parents took you in. So I treated you like... like a debt to be repaid. Like a burden."
He cups my face gently. "But now I understand. If my parents treated me the way they treated you—cold, exploitative, cruel—I'd miss anyone who ever showed me warmth too. Even if they weren't perfect."
Tears stream down my temples into my hair. "I just wanted my parents. I didn't care that they had problems. They loved me."
"I know." Asher's thumb brushes my cheek. "And their flawed love was worth more than ten years of my parents' 'charity.'"
---
Cole's voice is the softest.
"I was a coward. I just followed along. Blake and Asher did something mean, I joined in. Mom said you were just here to repay debts, I believed her."
His mint scent is icy with shame. "I remember when you cut your finger in the kitchen. Blood dripping on the cutting board. You looked up at me with this... this desperate hope in your eyes. Like you were begging me to help."
Cole's hands tremble on my arm. "And I walked away. I went to my room and closed the door and told myself it wasn't my problem."
"You got an infection," he whispers. "Fever for three days. And we just watched you stumble through chores, pretending you were fine."
I pull my hand free, touching the scar on my finger. "I used cold water from the tap. No disinfectant. I thought I'd die."
"We should've helped." Cole's tears fall on my wrist. "I should've done something. But I was too afraid of Mom, too afraid of my brothers. I'm the worst kind of coward—the kind who stands by and does nothing."
---
The confession hangs heavy in the air.
Then I sit up, pushing their hands away.
"There's one more thing we need to talk about."
All three of them go rigid.
"The snow," I say quietly. "I need to talk about the snow."
Blake makes a strangled sound. Asher's eyes close. Cole starts shaking.
"I was eleven," I begin, voice mechanical. Detached. " I sat on the porch with my wolf plushie, wishing for my parents to come back."
"Cole, you walked past with Blake and Asher. You said..." My voice wavers. "'Still waiting for those junkie losers? They probably died in a ditch somewhere.'"
"I snapped. I jumped up and punched you. Broke your nose."
Cole nods miserably, blood draining from his face.
"Then you three..." My breath comes faster. "Blake, you slapped me first. Left side. My ear rang. Asher, you were second. Right side. I bit through my lip. Cole, you finished. Left side again. My vision blurred."
"I fell in the snow. And Blake said, 'The little debt slave needs to learn her place.'"
My hands clench into fists. "You said we'd play hide and seek. I should hide first. You'd come find me."
"I ran into the forest. Hid behind a tree. Waited for you to come."
Tears spill over. "But you never came."
"The temperature dropped to negative thirty. My clothes were too thin. I called your names. No answer."
"I tried to find my way back. Got lost. Walked for hours. Fell in the snow. Couldn't get up."
I look at them, vision swimming. "I thought I was going to die. Frozen like a corpse. Buried under snow."
"A Beta patrol found me. Carried me back. You left me in the storage room. No doctor. No dry clothes. Just dumped me there like garbage."
"Fever for a week. Shaking under a thin blanket. Drinking tap water. And you all just... watched."
My voice rises. "I could've died. Do you understand? Ten more minutes in that forest and I'd be dead. You'd be murderers."
"So tell me." I stare at them through my tears. "Was it a joke that went wrong? Or did you actually want me dead?"
---
Blake speaks first, voice wrecked.
"We almost killed you. Jesus fucking Christ, we almost killed you."
His hands shake violently. "That wasn't a joke, Kara. That was premeditated. We knew about the blizzard. We knew you could die. And we did it anyway."
Asher's voice is hollow. "I suggested the hide-and-seek game. I said, 'Let her hide and we won't look for her. Let her feel what it's like to be forgotten.' I was the ringleader."
"I remember the next morning," Cole whispers. "The Beta said your lips were purple. Your skin was cold as... as a corpse. I asked Blake, 'Did we kill her?' And Blake said, 'She's still breathing. Get her upstairs before anyone sees.'"
Blake's face is in his hands. "We made the Beta carry you to the storage room. You were like ice. I said if you died, we'd claim you ran outside by yourself. An accident."
"Then I left. Locked the door. Pretended nothing happened."
Asher continues, voice breaking. "The next morning, I snuck in to check. You were curled in the corner, soaking wet, burning with fever. But breathing."
"I was relieved," he spits. "Not because I cared about you. Because I was glad we weren't murderers."
Cole looks at me with devastated eyes. "You had fever for a week. We saw you collapse while working. Saw you vomit. Saw you shake. And we just... watched. Like it was nothing."
They turn to me as one.
"We don't deserve forgiveness," Blake says. "We don't deserve to fucking live."
"But we want to spend the rest of our lives making this right," Asher adds. "If you'll let us."
"Please," Cole begs. "Please give us that chance."
The room falls silent except for our collective breathing.