Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 76

Charlotte

Gareth shuts the door behind him with a quiet click, then turns and looks at my father as if he is measuring every inch of him before deciding how much trouble he has just let into his house. Dad doesn’t look away. He stands there with winter still clinging to his coat, jaw rough with stubble, eyes clear and cold and far too sober for this to be a mistake. There is no sway in him, no slur to soften the edges of what he is. Gareth gestures toward the sitting room. “Come through.” Dad’s gaze drags once more over the house, over the walls, the windows, the people and the exits. We all follow them to the lounge room. Gareth stands near the fireplace. John by the archway. Mara is close to the couch. Theo is by the window. Blake is at my side, and Charlie is half a step ahead of me. Dad remains standing in the centre of it all. “You came looking for the twins,” Gareth says. “I did.”

Gareth grunts. “Well, you found them.”

“I can see that,” Dad replies emotionlessly. Charlie exhales sharply, pushing off the tension already coiling in him. “You tracked us here just to state the obvious?” Dad’s eyes flick to him. “I tracked you here because you disappeared for days.”

“We left.”

“You vanished.”

“Same thing.”

“Charlie,” Mara says softly. He doesn’t look at her. He remains in a stare down with our father until Dad’s eyes flick to me. My stomach flips and my heart races. Gareth must notice my distress because he brings the attention back to himself. “So,” he says evenly, “perhaps you’d like to explain why you’re clearly a human with knowledge about wolves.” Dad’s mouth flattens, and silence stretches in the room before John steps forward, voice low and unyielding. “You know what we are.” Dad’s gaze moves to him without hesitation. “I know exactly what you are.”Charlie lets out a short, humourless laugh. “You’ve got some nerve,” he says. “All this time, we thought we were insane. You knew?”

“I did what I thought was necessary,” Dad says, crossing his arms.  “Necessary?” Charlie’s voice rises. “You let us grow up with no idea what the hell was wrong with us. You shut down every conversation that mattered and drank every time we asked about Mum, and now you walk in here like you get to have an opinion on where we are?” Dad takes it without flinching, but dark settles behind his eyes. “You think I don’t know what I did?”

Charlie opens his mouth again, but Gareth lifts a hand, and the room obeys it before any of us think to question it. Dad sees that. Sees the way we respect Gareth, and it makes his jaw tighten. Gareth’s voice stays level when he says, “You know what we are. You know what this town is. You know what these children are.” His gaze holds our fathers with no room for argument. “You can stop circling the point now.” Dad exhales slowly. For a second, he looks tired. It makes him seem older than I remember. “I was a hunter.”

“A what?” Charlie asks. “A hunter,” Dad repeats. “We tracked rogues. Wolves that were hurting humans and packs that had gone bad. Our job was to protect human towns.” There is a whole life in that sentence I never knew existed. “I was on a job years ago,” he says. “Following a rogue trail. I came across a white wolf being torn apart by a pack. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.” His voice softens. “I should have left her. Should have done what I was trained to do.” His eyes drop briefly. “I didn’t. I killed the rogues,” he continues. “Took her with me. Patched her up. Waited for her to run.” A faint, broken edge touches his mouth. “She didn’t want to run. She was tired of running. And I fell in love with her,” he says. “Against everything I was taught. Against every instinct I had.” His gaze flicks to me. “You have her eyes.”

I don’t know what to do with that. Our father doesn’t talk about her… This man in front of me right now, I don’t know him. Dad looks away quickly. Scanning the room and clearing his throat. “When we realised what she could do… what her howl could do… It changed everything.” Gareth’s voice is low. “The children’s mother could pull rogues back?” Dad nods once. “It made my work easier, and it saved a lot of lives. We kept moving. Stayed hidden. We lived a life just for us.” His eyes close briefly. “Then we stayed in one place too long.” This is it. This is the part that I remember. The aftermath. “They found us. They came for her,” Dad says. “For what she was. For what she could do.” My fingers curl into my palms. My nails digging into my skin while I fight back the burn in my throat that wasn’t to flood my eyes with all the emotions I’ve kept boxed neatly in my mind. “She died because I failed to keep her safe.” One single tear slips free, and I wipe it away quickly. One tear for her. “And after that,” he continues, quieter now, “I hoped neither of you carried enough wolf in you for the world to notice.” Charlie’s voice cuts through it. “So you did know what we are.”

“I had hope with both of you,” he says. “There was always a chance that you would be normal.” His gaze fixes on me now. “But I have heard things recently about another white wolf. In this town.” My stomach drops. “Rogues are flooding in this direction because of it. I know because I still keep my contacts. It’s how I’ve known where to move us. When to move us, just in case.” Dad’s eyes move between Charlie and me slowly. His eyes narrow before he asks, voice flat, “So which one of you is cursed?”

The word lands like a blow, and Shanti rises inside me in a flash of heat. She bristles at the insult, and a growl crawls up my throat. Charlie steps forward immediately. “You don’t get to call her that.”

“I didn’t say her name.”

“You didn’t have to.” My father steps forward, clearly not liking Charlie's newfound confidence to stand up to him. Gareth moves then, standing right between Dad and Charlie as he looks down at our father. “You will not speak about either child that way in my house.” Dad looks up at him, and for the first time in my life, I see he is afraid, but it’s not of Gareth or the pack. He’s afraid of me. Of what I am… and what it cost him once already. He’s afraid of loving me, and what that would do to him if he lost me, too.