Chapter 23

Jason

 

 

I hit the punching bag in front of me again and again until sweat was dripping down my back and my knuckles were cracked and bleeding. That little physical pain was nothing compared to the agony that was currently tearing up my heart. Mason had gone in search of food, but I couldn’t take a break from punishing myself. I needed to feel the pain in my muscles screaming at me to stop and the exhaustion that was settling deep in my bones.

I didn’t deserve a break. I deserved to suffer.

Quiet footsteps tracked across the gym towards me but I kept my head down, not ready to talk to anyone. “None of this was your fault,” Cody said softly behind me.

I ignored him and went back to taking my aggression out on the swinging bag in front of me. I hit as hard as I could, but my muscles were starting to fail. My punches were becoming weak, just like me.

“You couldn’t have known-”

“Anna knew,” I spat out. “She knew there was something off with Gemma, her instincts were screaming at her that something was wrong. But she didn’t trust herself because we kept telling her she was wrong. We kept telling it was all in her head, that Gemma could be trusted.” I shook my head. “The worst part is that Anna trusted us completely, she trusted us over her own instincts. And because of us…” My voice broke and I lowered my head in shame.

Because of us, a friend of the pack lost his life defending Anna. Mason and I were weak and useless against the enemy, but Talen had given everything to defend her. We should have been the ones to stand between Anna and danger, not him. We should have recognized the evil in Gemma before she even took one step near Anna, the first day we had picked her up from the airport.

Instead of recognizing her as an enemy, we had coddled her. I hated myself for all the time we wasted on Gemma when we could have been with Anna. I despised myself for falling for her shitty victim act. Yeah, Austin had explained to us that Gemma had been using magic to manipulate us, but that didn’t make it okay. We should have been strong enough to fight it. We should have been strong enough to fight for Anna.

Cody was quiet as I steadied the bag in front of me, preparing to assault it again. “We’re all wrong sometimes-”

I whirled around to cut him off. “I don’t need your psycho-babble bullshit right now. I fucked up.” Talen’s blood was on my hands whether or not I was the one actually wielding the knife. Anna was in pain and grieving right now because I failed her.

Cody raised an eyebrow at me as I clenched my fists. “You wanna go?” He gestured to the mat behind him, the space that we usually used for sparring.

“Yeah,” I said darkly. “Let’s go.” Cody was the biggest wolf in the pack and he had years of experience over me. There was no way that I would be able to take him down, but I wasn’t looking to win a fight. I was looking to take a beating.

Cody and I faced off. I hadn’t wrapped my hands or put boxing gloves on before I starting beating on the punching bag, so my hands were in bad shape. A couple drops of blood splattered on the mat as we circled each other, but we both ignored it. Cody watched me carefully, waiting for me to make the first move.

I didn’t disappoint him. I rushed forward and feinted with my right before taking a jab with my left. He wasn’t fooled and blocked both easily. We traded blows but after a few minutes it was clear that he was holding back. He was blocking my punches with ease, but not trying to take me down.

I doubled my efforts to get a hit in, directing all my rage in his direction. My frustration only grew when my body wouldn’t obey my commands. I was moving too slow and my hits lacked the necessary force to do any real damage. Cody was hardly affected by the few strikes that I managed to get in. The fucker wasn’t even really hitting me back.

Something inside me snapped and I ran at him in an attempt to take him down in a flying tackle. We both hit the ground with a grunt and Cody twisted to get the upper hand on me. I didn’t even try to get leverage, I just pummeled him with the free fist that I had. “Hit me back!” I screamed in frustration.

“Is that what you want?” Cody growled as he pinned me to the ground. “You think that having some bruises and broken bones is going to help you take care of Anna?”

I got one arm free and elbowed him in the face. “I don’t deserve her,” I said in despair.

“You’re right,” Cody said as he twisted my arm up and pain shot through my body. “You’re acting like a selfish prick right now. She needs you and you’re down here, wallowing in your own self-pity.”

“It’s not self-pity.” Mason’s voice came to us as he strode into the room. “We’re not good for her.”

“Bullshit,” Cody said as he smashed my face into the mat while I frantically tried to break free of his hold. “That girl needs you just as much as the rest of us. Like it or not, you made a commitment to her and abandoning her when things get rough isn’t an option.”

“She’s better off without us,” I panted.

Cody gave me a shove and got to his feet. “You have one day to get your shit together, pull your heads out of your asses, and do what you need to do. Marines don’t abandon their commitments and don’t give up when a battle takes a turn for the worse. You stand up and you give it all you have until your last dying breath.”

The door to the gym slammed shut behind Cody and then it was just me and my brother. “We’re a couple of fuckups,” I told him.

“We’ve always been fuckups,” Mason confirmed as he gave me a hand up. “But he’s right. We need to be better. Better for Anna, better for our pack.”

I just looked at him hopelessly.

“We fucked up this time, but we can make sure we don’t do it again,” Mason assured me. “We train until we’re good enough for her.”

“We can’t train to be smarter,” I pointed out.

Mason grinned. “Anna will always be the brains of our operation. We just need to be the brawn to back her up.”

I sighed. “And the next time a Gemma comes along?”

“We trust Anna. But there’s not going to be a next time,” Mason said darkly. “We don’t give anyone a chance to get close to us again. Gemma used us to get to Anna and we were blind to it.”

I nodded. “We don’t need anyone but Anna and our pack.”

“That’s right,” Mason confirmed. “C’mon, I made you a protein shake.”

I staggered over to where Mason had set down our protein shakes and water. He was right. Cody was right. Making myself weaker wouldn’t help Anna. I needed to be better and stronger. Starving myself wouldn’t help, I needed to be in top shape for what was coming next.