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Not for the gate, not for the paper, not for forty people standing in a yard watching me try to leave. Eleven days, and I had not laid eyes on him once unless he was lurking from some corner like a creep.

Everyone’s lives were going to shit and River as usual was nowhere to be found. I decided that was something I should focus and aim my anger at.

“Go eat.” Alex nudged me toward the house. “We can talk later.” He sunk his thick fingers into the red wolf’s fur and they walked away together with Jack trotting after them, his one sock sliding down his skinny leg.

I looked up at the third-floor window on the east side, where a light was on behind a drawn curtain, and something cold walked down my spine but determination settled much stronger.

Fine.

If the pigeon wouldn't come to me, I'd go to him and pluck his feathers one by one if I had to.

Chapter Three

I made it four steps into the kitchen before I screeched to a stop, my eyes going straight to the bread roll sitting unassuming on a small chipped plate.

It sat in the middle of the counter the way you'd put out a plate of food for someone that mattered. Golden brown. Perfectly shaped. Hard as a hockey puck and going harder by the hour, because a nine-year-old had decided that I was coming down to eat, and had defended that opinion against three sisters and two parents for a full day.

I picked it up. It weighed about the same as a brick and had roughly the same give to it when I squeezed it gently.

"You're supposed to eat it, not stare at it." I hadn't heard Sissily follow me inside so I glanced over my shoulder at her when she spoke. She leaned in the doorway with her arms crossed across her chest and her hip cocked, looking like a Sunday school teacher no one wants to deal with. "He asked me twice today if you'd eaten it."

"I'm going to eat it."

"You're holding it like it has a disease."

"I'm appreciating it." A lump was forming in my throat and an unfamiliar feeling started churning in my gut. I set the roll back down on its little chipped plate with the care you'd give a religious artifact or, an explosive, and pointed at her with the boot still hanging from my other hand. "And don't you start lecturing me today, little jerk. I have a very full afternoon ahead of me."

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "Full of what exactly?"

"Things. Activities. Personal growth." I waved my hand in a circle just for the dramatic effect of it.

"Hazel."

"I'm going upstairs." With no intention on arguing with my best friend I marched out of the kitchen determined to deal with the pigeon once and for all.

"Like hell you are." She moved so fast she nearly took the towel rack with her, and got between me and the stairs, all five foot nothing, her ponytail askew bobbing on her head, which is a mistake she has made roughly four hundred times in her life and has never once learned from it. "Don't go up there, Hazel." Arms spread wide she implored me with her eyes.

That stopped me. It wasn't the words as much as it was the way she said them. Low and fast, like she'd been sitting on that sentence all day waiting for the right moment to say it. Which she probably did because she knew me better than I knew myself.

"Why not?" My voice came out flat and unimpressed as a headache started to pulse behind my eyeballs.

"Because he asked us not to disturb him."

"Us."

"Alex. Amber. Me…Especially you." She had the grace to look distraught about it. "Hazel, River is honestly not okay. He is hurting and trying to recover. He asked to be left alone for the time, and Alex agreed because he looked like he really needed it. I've been…"

"You've been keeping it from me because of what? My fragile ego? My unhinged attitude?" A cold little draft went through my chest leaving dread in its wake. "He walked out of that chamber on his own two feet. He drove home. He argued with me about the seatbelt. Then he went up those stairs and for eleven days he's been lurking around like a ghoul, and you knew something was wrong but let me sit in a room down the hall without thinking it's important to mention it?" The accusation hung between us like a chasm.

"Because he asked me not to!" Her voice broke into a whisper and she had the decency to look down at her feet. "And because you have been sleeping four hours a night and having conversations with your own ceiling lately. And if I'd told you, you would have gone up there that same day and kicked the door in if he didn't open it."

"I absolutely would have."

"Yes, I know." She gave me a pointed look as if to say "duh."

"I'm going to do it now anyway." It came out like a threat from a five year old having a tantrum for not getting things go their way. I didn't care.

Sissily looked at me for a long moment. Then she stepped out of the way and pressed her back flat against the wall with a resigned look on her face. The thing that frightened me most about the whole exchange was that she didn't continue to argue. She always argues twice, it's kinda her thing to agitate me for no reason like it's a sport. She counts her reasons off on her fingers and she gets to at least three before she runs out of steam.