Chapter 9 – Trust 

	My mind was a blur as I stumbled back towards the lean-to.  It’s hard to describe what I felt.  I was physically shaking, my stomach clenching in knots, waves of uncertainty and apprehension washing over me in equal measure.  
	It couldn’t be true.
	I’d told Sawyer I didn’t believe him.  Upon first hearing his claims, it had seemed obvious that he was just trying to sew distrust between Finn and I so that I wouldn’t try to convince my father to release him into their custody.
	Or, it could have been a lie they’d been told.  The bounty put out on Finn could be full of lies, and they’d have no way of knowing any better.
	It couldn’t be true.
	But a frightening number of things were playing through my mind, coming together like some grisly tapestry.  And the picture they were creating was dark.  But compelling.  Especially when I looked at it all as a whole.  
	It couldn’t be true.
	But the truth had always been there, if I really thought about it.
	From the first day I’d met Finnegan, I’d sensed he was hiding something from me.  Many things.  And he’d only begun revealing them bit by bit.  But there were still so many facets of the man I’d been traveling with, that I’d grown so strangely attached to, that I couldn’t make sense of.  Until now.
	His story was just the sort of righteous, worthy cause for an adventure you’d tell someone if you wanted their help.  And that’s the part I’d really believed, until now.  Because he spoke on it with such passion.  Maybe that part was true.  Maybe. . . it was hard to believe he might have lied about everything concerning his family.
	But did I really have any evidence?  Of any of it?  We’d been carrying a bag he insisted contained documents proving the whole of his tale, but I’d never read any of them.  Granted we hadn’t had much time, but it’s not as though he’d ever offered.
	If the story about his father and mother was true, why had he come halfway across the world to punish the man?    
	Finnegan had a pistol.  A weapon he rightfully shouldn’t have had, upon reflection.  It was expensive, not just because it was a firearm. . . it was a particularly expensive-looking firearm.  And he’d gone on and on about how he’d been born in poverty, and how desperately he’d needed money for his mother’s treatment.  What about that weapon?  It must have been worth a small fortune.
	But moreover, he’d had a pistol, presumably before he came to our country.  Which means he’d been armed when he was in the same country, possibly the same city, as his father.  If there was one thing about his tale I absolutely did not doubt, it was the hatred he clearly had for that man.
	Had he killed his father?
	That, at least. . . I suppose I might have understood.  It would have been a terrible thing.  An immoral thing, certainly.  But putting myself in his position, given what he’d experienced, (if true) I couldn’t say what I might have done.  
	But he could have told me.  He could have told me the truth, in that case.  I would have listened.  I’m not sure if I’d known right off about a man killing his own kin if I would have still consented to travel with him, but. . . .
	And maybe that had been the point.  I wanted to believe he’d deceived me because he was frightened, because he’d needed my help.  I wanted to believe it had been for a good reason.
	The things we’d been through, the things we’d done together over the last few days. . . .
	I deserved to know.  If this was true, I had deserved to know.
	The one real thorn in my paw, the point on which I kept returning that made my gut sink through the earth, was his remarkable skill with the weapon.  It was something I’d avoided thinking about throughout our travels, and now it was so obvious.
	Finnegan had never mentioned being a soldier of any kind and he clearly wasn’t a hunter.  Why else would he be so steady a hand, so knowledgeable about firearms, unless he had considerable experience with them?  I didn’t understand pistols or rifles well, but I knew enough to know they were difficult and dangerous to use, even for an experienced bearer.  But Finn had always been so focused and calm when he’d had occasion to use his pistol.  I vividly recalled watching him stand, steady as a pine, and aim for the shoreline.  The memory of his startling speed drawing the weapon, just hours ago.  He’d known how to handle Odina and Sawyer on both occasions they’d fired on us, too.  Known whether or not they’d fired based on smoke, how long it might take them to re-load.  Now that I was thinking back on it, he’d checked and cleaned his pistol meticulously every morning after we’d camped.  He’d used up nearly all of his remaining coin to purchase powder, instead of food.
	And I’d been so certain he was really going to kill Sawyer.  If it weren’t for Odina’s intervention, he might have.
	I realized, in the mire of my thoughts, that I’d made it to the lean-to.  It had really only been a short walk from the river.  Close enough that Sawyer could keep an eye and an ear out for us if we were to flee.  
	I stared at it for a long time, my fingers brushing my palms, my body so on-edge I thought it would simply break.  Every fiber of my being wanted to run away from this.  From all of this.  What had I gotten myself into?
	I could run, I realized.  Our supplies were outside, save Finn’s bag.  I could take some of our food, (my food, really) get back on that raft and go as far up-river as I could before the ice set.  I could leave Finnegan here, with the mountain lions.  I could go home.  
	I had every reason to.
	Except that I’d always regret it.  I knew myself and despite all my fear and apprehension, all of my awkwardness and anxiety, I knew I couldn’t be the kind of man who ran from something like this.  I wouldn’t be able to face myself.  I’d always wonder if I was wrong.
	Whatever the truth was, Finnegan should have told me the full extent of it by now.  But if I ran, I’d be running from that truth.  And even if it was unpleasant, I had to know.  Because I had to make the right decision here, or know at least that I had tried to.
	I steeled myself and kneeled, pushing aside the flap and going back inside.
	Finnegan was awake.  Not just awake, but upright, leaning back against one of the trees the lean-to was pitched on.  He looked indescribably tired, slumped and hollow-eyed.  Like he hadn’t slept at all.
	“I heard,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
	My heart stopped.
	“So, it’s true?”  I asked, in a voice so small it was hard to believe it had come out of me.
	He looked towards me, sidelong.  “That I’ve killed people?  Yes.”  He dropped his gaze to where his hands were sitting lifeless and uncurled in his lap.  “Although your man has the number wrong.  It’s actually eight kills now, all in all.”
	I felt a spike of anger rise inside me.  “How can you be so. . . so flippant about saying that?!”
	He closed his eyes slowly.  “I’m not, Tulimak.  It’s just. . .” he seemed to search for the right words, “. . . hard to. . . to cope with.  If I let myself fully feel it.  I try not to think about it.  It’s the only way.”
	“If you’ve killed people, Finn,” I said, hardly believing the words were leaving my mouth, “you should feel something.  Even if it were at war, o-or. . . like with Odina.  If you were defending yourself.”
	“The last two,” he murmured, “the ones in Stuttgar. . . those were bounty hunters.  Like Odina, or the two foxes.  I had no choice there, I was defending myself.  They came after me, they shot my pony, they cornered me on this bridge, and. . . .” he sighed, running his hands over his muzzle.  “What does it matter?  It feels pointless to even make my case.”
	“It isn’t pointless, Finn,” I insisted.  “I want to know.  I deserve to know.”
	He looked back at me at that and there was a flicker of something across his features.  “You do,” he agreed quietly.
	“So why have you kept all of this from me?”  I pleaded, desperately.  “I-I. . . was really beginning to feel that I knew you.”
	“Because I didn’t want to lose your respect,” he said bluntly, if quietly.  “Even if we parted ways here, I didn’t want you to know this part of me.  I wanted to know you’d be out there somewhere, thinking I was a better man than I am.”
	“Finn,”  I put my paws to my knees, digging my claws into my fur.  “If there was a good reason. . .”  I clenched my jaw.  I couldn’t say I’d forgive him.  I didn’t want to make that promise.  “Any reason,” I said softly.  “Any reason that I could. . . understand.  I want to know.  Why?  Please tell me why.”
	He was silent for longer than made me comfortable.  The air in the lean-to felt hot and constricting, like I couldn’t really breathe it.  But finally, just when I thought it was more than I could bear, he responded.
	“It’s hard to explain,” he said.
	The anger returned.  I lifted my head, speaking between my teeth.  “Try,” I growled out.
	He opened his muzzle for a moment, then shut it.  When he opened it again, this time to speak, his face looked tense and drawn.
	“I’ve never lied to you, Tulimak.  I swear on my mother’s grave.  I have tried to be as honest with you as I could.  There are just some things about my life that are hard for me to talk about.  Not just because of the language or the cultural barrier.  Because. . . I’m ashamed of them.”
	I stayed kneeling where I was, giving him time to continue speaking.  It was clear he had more to say.
	“Remember when I told you I had a trade, back home?”  He asked, although it was clear he required no answer.  “As a mediator, of a sort?  That wasn’t. . . a lie.  But it also wasn’t the whole of it.”
	“That sounds like an Otherwolf expression for ‘a lie’,” I said, sternly.
	He huffed.  “You’re not wrong.  But it wasn’t just my shame that kept me from explaining my. . . profession.  It’s a hard tradition to explain to an outsider.  Because honestly, it’s barbaric, and stupid.  And it’s not something I ever saw myself getting involved in.  But an opportunity came my way when I was desperate for money, and. . . .”  
	He held out his hands, helplessly, gesturing at nothing.  Then he dropped them back in his lap and let his breath out slowly.  “I’m a Professional Second, Tulimak.  Or at least, I was.  Back in Amuresca.”
	He must have felt my uncertainty, or knew what he’d said would make no sense to me.  “A Duelist,” he amended, in a subdued voice.  He finally summoned the nerve to look me in the eyes, searching for any signs of comprehension.  “You still don’t understand, do you?”
	It was frustrating to be proving him right.  “No,” I admitted.  “I know some of the words, but not what you mean by them.”
	“I shoot people, for money,” he said.  “Or at least, I used to.”
	“Like a bounty hunter?”  I asked uncertainly.  If the men he’d killed were criminals, surely he’d have told me that earlier.
	“No, not like a bounty hunter,” he sighed and slowly turned to face me.  “In Amuresca, there is an old tradition whereby men who wish to settle disputes. . . arguments. . . over various things, they. . . fight one another.  To determine who is in the right.”
	“That would only determine who is the better warrior,” I pointed out.
	“It’s even less sensible than you realize,” he muttered.  “Because men with enough money can, and often do, simply pay someone else to fight for them.  They call that man a ‘Second’.  He fights in their stead, against their opponent.  Often another Second.  In five of the duels I took part in, I was simply facing off against another man like myself.  A stranger.  Although to be honest, they were all strangers to me. . . even the men who fought their own battles.  I was just a hired hand.  I never really had any stakes in what the duel was over, save the coin I was being paid and my own survival.”
	“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, baffled and disturbed.
	“It never made much sense to me, either,” he agreed.  “It’s an ancient, brutal tradition that usually solves very little, except wounding or killing one or both of the participants.  There’s some thought that Pedigree Lords used to duel to avoid larger battles that might cost many more lives, but those times are long past.  Nowadays it’s primarily engaged over social slights, or a woman.  Or ‘honor’, which is especially hypocritical when the Lords in question employ men to fight for them.  It’s more like a cock fight, a spectator sport.”
	“Then why do it?”  I moaned, imploringly.
	He tipped his ears back.  “The money,” he replied simply.  “It pays like nothing else a man like me can aspire to.  The medicine my mother needed near the end of the wasting rot that took her. . . it’s from Mataa.  Imported.  Illegal, in fact, which just made it more expensive.  But it was the only thing that eased her pain.”
	“You could have sold your weapon,” I said, recalling my thoughts from earlier.  “Instead of using it to. . . to kill.  For coin.”  That part still didn’t make sense to me, and it was hard to say, in reference to this man I’d grown so fond of.
	“Tulimak, I only have this pistol,” he explained, “because of the first duel I agreed to be a Second for.”
	I didn’t say anything, but I kept my gaze pinned on him, saying wordlessly what he had to know by now.  Explain.  
	“One of the men,” he sighed, “that my mother used to work for.  They were very close.  I guess you could say he was her primary patron.  He obviously wasn’t the man who’d sired me, but for whatever reason, maybe because he had no sons of his own, he didn’t mind my coming to the estate with her.  We’d spend weeks there.  I loved it,” he admitted.  “It was in the country.  Sprawling grounds, so many places to play.  His stable hands and gardeners had children my age.  You could really breathe the air. . . .”  he looked nostalgic for a short time.  “He had no sons, like I said, but he’d been a military man when he was young, and I think he’d always wanted to pass on some of his knowledge.  So every now and then, while my mother wasn’t occupying him, he’d take me out on the grounds and show me what a fine soldier he’d once been.  And he’d let me try things I never would have had occasion to learn, back in the Risers.  Like fencing.  And shooting.”
	He leaned forward, knitting his hands over one knee.  “I never took to the foil well.  But for whatever reason, I was a natural with a pistol.  It’s the only thing I’ve ever discovered that I have a real gift for.  God, if he exists, gave me nothing else.”  
	He drew a breath in through his nose.  “When I was thirteen I started looking for a trade, and there weren’t many opportunities available to me.  I considered enlisting, I tried my hand at getting a few apprenticeships, none of which I was chosen for.  I didn’t have any desire to, but I wouldn’t have even been able to follow in my mother’s footsteps and be a Courtesan.  Not as successful as my uncle Mikhail, in any case.  Black fur is frightfully commonplace in Amuresca, and I’m too wolfish besides.  My mother at least had a beautiful white pelt,” he looked bitter.  “But I inherited my father’s fur, more than anything else.”
	He looked up at me again, as if to ensure I was following along.  I was so far, so he continued.  “I thought I had time.  Until my mother’s condition became apparent and she couldn’t work anymore.  We got by for a time on the kindness of our neighbors, but that couldn’t last.  And this disease, Tulimak. . . God,” he narrowed his eyes, expression pained.  “It ate away at her.  Rotted her face out, until you could see bone.”
	I wanted so badly to reach for him.  I had to fight everything inside me, remind myself that once again, no matter how hurt, how earnest, how heartfelt he sounded, they were all just words.  Still just words.
	But spirits, it was hard.  The emotion laced through his voice was undeniable.  If he was lying to me now, he was summoning forth deception I hadn’t known a soul was capable of.
	“I was so desperate,” he continued, solemnly.  “I sent letters to all of my mother’s prior patrons, to see if any of them were willing to show some compassion for her condition.  This Lord, the man who once showed me how to shoot, he was the only one who got back to me,” he held up a finger, “and made me an offer.  Apparently, sourcing a Second from the lowest rungs of society is fairly common practice.  He thought nothing of asking me to shoot his rival for him.  I was hesitant at first, sure, but he offered me so much money.  More than I could earn in years doing any other kind of trade available to refuse like me.  I didn’t see that I had a choice.  I would have done anything for my mother.”  He stared me straight in the eyes.  “Anything.”
	This was why I’d wanted answers.  Because I’d suspected there might be some reasoning that would explain things.  I’d worried it might be something muddy like this.  Complex.  Hard to make any kind of judgment on.  So much of this was so difficult, nearly impossible, for me to understand.  But I was determined to try.
	“You said you killed eight people,” I said softly.  “Or, well, including the two hunters who came after you here.  Which I have no reason to disbelieve, and. . . I can forgive you for that.  Or at least, I would have.  If you’d told me about it, rather than hiding it from me.”  I let out a shuddering breath.  “But you said eight, Finn.  Not three.  Your story only explains away the first.”
	“That first duel was so simple,” he said in a single breath.  “I went to his estate.  I hadn’t touched a pistol in five years, but it didn’t matter.  I practiced on his property for a day or so before the duel, picked it right back up.  And when the day came, I shot that man dead.  He didn’t even graze me.  I was so resolute, so certain in my conviction.  I figured if two men were going to fire on one another that day regardless, it ought to at least be for a good reason.   It was so easy to convince myself of that.”
	“How do two people fight with pistols?”  I asked, having trouble picturing this.
	“You stand a set distance apart, wait for a count, and then fire on one another,” he explained matter-of-factly.  “If no one hits, you move closer, and repeat.  You do so either until first blood, or death.  Although since most duels now are done with pistols instead of blades, death is a lot more common than it used to be.  I didn’t shoot dead six people right on the spot.  I’ve wounded over a dozen.  It’s just that some of them died after the fact.”
	“You just stand there and shoot one another?!”  I exclaimed, horrified.  I couldn’t think of anything more insane.  This is how Otherwolves won arguments?
	“It can be more nuanced than that,” he shrugged.  “Honestly, a lot of people just don’t show up in the morning, or lose their nerve before the count.  You can admit defeat before things have begun and avoid the whole mess.  Once I started getting a reputation, that happened to me a few times.”
	“A reputation?”
	“Dueling is legal in Amuresca, Tulimak,” he explained.  “It’s legal here, in fact.  So yes, if you make it your profession, it’s good to build a reputation.  It doesn’t just get you more work, it can intimidate people.  Frightened people have unsteady hands.  So even if they elect to go through with the duel. . . .”
	“Why not stop after the first?”  I pressed.  “You said you won.  Did he not pay you?”
	“Oh, he paid me,” he said, glancing down at his holstered pistol.  “And he gave me that pistol, besides.  Out of gratitude.  It’s specifically a dueling pistol, that’s why the barrel is a little longer than most.”
	“Then why?”
	“The money I made was enough to care for my mother for a while,” he said.  “But the disease she had was. . . a lingering one.  And she continued to need medicine.  For years.  More and more, as time went by.  It was the only thing that kept her calm and stopped the pain.  I just wanted her to have peace.”  His voice sounded strained on the last word.  “I thought about selling the pistol, but I realized I could make more over time if I just. . . kept winning duels.  And I did.  I’ve never missed a man at ten paces.  I’ve been hit, but-“
	“You’ve been shot doing this?”  I balked.
	“No one who’s done this for years on end hasn’t been shot at least once,” he muttered.  “A few grazes, two bad ones, but I came out the other side.  I still have lead in my hip.”
	I put a paw up over my eyes for a moment, swiping it slowly down my muzzle.  “Of course,” I murmured.
	“Luckily I’ve always been kind of scrawny.  But I’ve also intentionally stayed lean to keep a slim profile,” he explained.  “Helps more than you’d think.  Most of the men I’ve gone up against are Pedigree or well-paid Duelists, both of which live the good life and. . . eat well, suffice it to say.  When you’re half their size, you’re half as wide a target.”  
	“You were killing complete strangers, Finn,” I emphasized, my voice strained.
	“Don’t you think I agonized over that?”  He replied with a bit of a snap in his voice.  He immediately tipped his ears back and looked ashamed of his defensiveness, though.  “I didn’t,” he said, visibly trying to calm his tone, “know. . . what else. . . to do.  It seemed. . . what I was meant for.”
	“It can’t possibly be,” I said softly.  “Killing for no reason can’t be what anyone is meant for.”
	“I don’t know,” he said darkly, in a defeated tone.  “As far as most of the world is concerned, a person like me is worthless.  Low-bred, guttersnipe son of a whore.  But as a duelist. . .” he got a distant look, narrowing his eyes.  “I was a force to be reckoned with.  Am.  A force to be reckoned with,” he corrected.
	“I thought you were a force to be reckoned with before I knew all of this,” I said quietly.
	He looked up at me, surprised.
	“Finnegan, you’re one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met,” I said sincerely.  “You made me care about something I knew nothing about until just last week.  You drew me into your story, into this quest of yours, and made me consider leaving my home, leaving the world I know, just to be with you.  To help you see this goal of yours through.”  I hunched down, leaning in closer to him, my voice plaintive.  “Was that all a lie?”
	“No,” he said firmly, and immediately.  “I told you, I haven’t lied to you.  Not once.  I fucking meant that.”
	“So this bounty out on you,” I said.  “It really is because of your father?”
	“Of course it is,” he said indignantly.  “That man knew my profession.  He had the gall to mock me for it, the one time we met after I put my mother in the ground.  As if any of it, any of it, would ever have been necessary if he’d just lived up to his responsibilities!”
	His voice had risen to a crescendo over the end of his statement, and I let him, without flinching.  I could feel how much he wanted this out of him.  The anger was coming off of him like heat off a stone, his green eyes burning, even in the dim lean-to.  
	I had so many conflicting feelings.  So many.  But overwhelmingly, I pitied him.  I wasn’t entirely certain of my trust for him.  He’d kept this facet of who he was a secret from me all this time, and it was no minor thing. . . but I believed his anger.  I believed that he’d been terribly hurt over the course of his life and I had no reason to think he’d invented the reasons why.  Everything seemed to fit, now.  In a way it hadn’t when I’d been missing pieces.
	The question was, how did I feel about him now that I knew all of this?
	There wasn’t an easy answer to that.  But one thing I knew for certain was that my perception of him had fundamentally changed.  And I needed to think on all of this, come to make sense of it all somehow, and learn how I felt about him all over again.
	I’d already been contending with so many new feelings over the last week, things he’d brought out in me that were forcing me to confront who I was.  It was so much, all at once.  I hardly knew where to start.
	“I don’t know how he used his channels on this continent to get a bounty out on me here,” he muttered.  “I suspect I know which duel he’s citing as a ‘murder’.  The last man I shot, the duel wasn’t officiated properly.  There was some question as to the credentials of the man overseeing it, and the young deerhound I killed was from a prominent family who were demanding an investigation.  I got the hell out of town before things got bad.  Which,” he paused, “maybe I shouldn’t have done.  Upon retrospect.  But I’ve learned to fear what Pedigree families can do with their money and station, whether they’re in the right or not.  I didn’t want to be hung over a job.”
	“You said you were just the hired gun,” I said, still trying to make sense of this ritual of theirs.  “Wouldn’t they come after the man who. . . started the. . . argument?  ‘Duel’?”
	“He was also a Pedigree,” he said pointedly.  “It’s messier when families of means go at it.  Simpler to make a point by offing the pawn, someone no one’ll miss.  Less chance of continued retribution, too.”
	“No offense Finnegan,” I said, exhaustedly.  “But your country sounds awful.”
	“So yeah, there might be a legitimate warrant out for me,” he let out a breath.  “That or he lied.  Not exactly difficult for a man of his means to forge a warrant.  But he knew I was digging into his financials.  I’d gotten a whiff of how dirty his business dealings were years ago, when I managed to get one of his associates drunk and talking.  At the time, I won’t lie. . . I was looking for a way into his Estate.  I was angry, Tulimak.  So angry.  But the bastard never went anywhere in public without an armed escort.”
	“You were planning to kill him,” I nodded.
	“I didn’t, for the record,” he growled out.  “I got as far as his grounds once, got a look at what my mother and I should have had, and. . .” he trailed off.  “He had other children.  Purebloods, of course.  But still, just. . . kids. . . .”  He turned his chin aside, posture slumped and small.  “I’d only lost my mother a few months earlier.  I couldn’t do it.”  He gave a snuff.  “I can kill a man I’ve never met before, who might have a family of his own.  But I couldn’t put that bastard in the ground, because for once, I had to confront what I was really doing.  Pretty fucking cowardly, hnh?”
	“If anything,” I uttered, “I think it’s the bravest thing you’ve said so far.”
	He looked up at me at that.  And scowled.  “I’m not a good person, Tulimak.  Don’t try to reason that I am just because you’re attracted to me, and you want me to be.”
	“Is this,” I paused, “why you wanted us to part ways?”
	“I told you, I didn’t want you knowing all of this,” he said.  “I’ve enjoyed being with you.  Truly.  Not just because. . . well, because you are a good person.  But. . . because for a while, I got to pretend I was one, too.”  He lifted his ears ever-so-slightly.  “I’m the only person left alive who will ever ultimately care what I’ve done with my life.  What I’ve made of myself.  I don’t want to. . . be. . .” he swallowed heavily, his jaw trembling, “. . . this.”
	“Then,” I steeled my nerve, and reached for him.  Not his hand, but his shoulder.  “Don’t,” I said simply.
	He looked up at me with a fragile tremor, like some part of his expression was about to give way.  “I can’t undo what’s done,” he said, quietly.  “I lived that life for years.  I’ve taken eight souls.  Wounded twice as many.”
	“I don’t understand your peoples’ ways,” I said, putting my feelings on the matter as kindly as I could.  I’d accepted at this point that I needed to think on this all much more before I really decided how I felt about this ‘dueling’ practice.  And I wanted to know more, too.  “And my tribe has not gone to war for many generations.  I’ve never experienced war.  So I can’t say I even have an understanding of killing, as my people see it.  But killing to protect, or even to ease the suffering, of one’s family. . . I can’t say I wouldn’t be willing to do the same.  I’d have to be put in that position.  And that’s a thing I never hope to face.”  
	My expression softened.  “Whether you did the wrong thing by taking on this ‘profession’ or not,” I said, “or by continuing it for so long. . . the fact that you had to make such an awful choice at all isn’t fair.  It wouldn’t be right for me to judge you the same way I would someone who had more options in life and still took so dark a path.”
	His shoulders and gaze lifted marginally.  I felt bad cutting him down after I’d managed to lift him up some, but I continued.
	“That being said,” I sighed out.  “I don’t care how many times you say you didn’t lie to me.  You hid this from me.  Intentionally.  You had a lot of chances to explain this to me and you chose not to.”  I tightened my jaw, knowing the betrayal was showing in my features.  “If we’d just travelled together for a few days Finn, I might have understood that.  But you. . . let things. . . happen. . . between us. . . .”
	The wolfdog curled in on himself, the shame evident in every part of his body.  His tail was tucked, ears folded back, knuckles tense where his hands gripped his knees.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.  “I didn’t. . . think. . . .”
	“I deserved to know who you were.  Who you are.” 
	He nodded slowly.  “You did.  You do.”
	“Is the guilt why you’re doing all of this?”  I asked, honestly uncertain what he’d say.  It was clear what I wanted him to say.  If he kept feeding me what I wanted to hear, I wasn’t certain I could repair any of the trust I’d had in him.	
	He seemed to think about that for a long while.  “Maybe, on some level,” he reasoned.  “I’m hoping to be redeemed?  But.  I think it’s more about. . . not just revenge, but certainly that.  I want to ruin what he values most, without having to hurt his family.  I want to ruin his reputation, his business, his respect amongst his fellows.  I want them to know what a monster he is.  I know he’ll likely never be brought up on charges for any of this, or lose enough of his fortune to be forced to live the kind of life we did.  But I want. . . .”
	Again, silence.  He tipped his head back, clearly thinking.  It was so strange to see the wolfdog uncertain about anything.  Lost for words.
	“I don’t just want him to have less,” he stated.  “I want him to be less.  And I want to show him, and maybe myself?  That I can be more.  I can at least be a better man than him, if nothing else.  I can put a stop to the worst thing he’s ever done and is continuing to do.  It’s a sort of redemption I guess, but also I’ll be kicking him in the teeth.  It just feels like it’s the only thing left for me to do.”
	I felt the hint of a smile finally come to me, albeit briefly.  Not because he’d professed his noble aspirations, but because he’d admitted to his selfish, angry reasons for them.  It was real.  It was the truth.
	It was a start.
	“Finn?”
	His ears perked and he looked at me expectantly.
	I took in a breath.  “I want to know everything,” I said.
	He blinked.  “What?  ‘Everything’?”
	“Everything you haven’t already told me,” I said.  “Anything that might affect me.  About this bounty, any part of your past that might end up mattering to us now, here.  Anything about your plans to bring these papers in.  Everything that might involve me.  Or my tribe.”  I shifted to sit cross-legged, getting comfortable.  “I don’t expect you to tell me everything there is about yourself.  Everyone has things about themselves they’d rather not share.  But things like this?  Things that might involve armed and dangerous hunters shooting at me?  Those things, I need to know.”
	He let out a long, staggered breath, slowly closing his eyes.  “Alright,” he agreed.