Chapter 9 - Thalia
Three days into our surveillance, I've memorized every creak in the safehouse's wooden floors, every pattern the shadows make as wintry sunlight moves across the walls.
The cabin is larger than it looks from the outside—two bedrooms, a decent kitchen, and a living room that doubles as our command center. Comfortable enough to feel like a home, if you ignore the arsenal hidden behind the paneling, and the fact that we're here as glorified bait.
Rafael and I fall into an uneasy rhythm. He takes first watch while I sleep. I take over a few hours before dawn. We share meals in careful silence, both hyper-aware of the other's presence. Even when we're in different rooms, I can feel him—his scent, his movements. Even the steady whisper of his breathing is becoming familiar as my own.
It's dangerous, this growing awareness. More dangerous than any threat we're meant to be watching for, my instincts tell me, and I try to ignore them.
"Coffee?" he asks from the kitchen doorway, startling me from my thoughts. Early morning light catches his hair, turning the dark strands almost gold. He's wearing a faded t-shirt that does nothing to hide the lean muscle underneath.
"Thanks." I accept the mug without meeting his eyes, focusing instead on the surveillance feeds displayed on the laptops across the coffee table. Nothing but snow and trees and the occasional deer. No sign of the attackers we're meant to draw out.
He settles into the armchair across from me, and I try not to notice how he moves—all predator grace, even doing something as simple as drinking coffee. "Anything?"
"Just wildlife. And that fox that keeps trying to den under the porch."
His lips quirk. "Better than the alternative."
"Is it?" The words slip out before I can stop them. "At least if they attacked, we'd be doing something besides... this."
"This being?"
Pretending we're not watching each other as much as the woods. Pretending I don't want to cross this room and—
"Nothing." I stand abruptly, needing space. "I'm going to check the perimeter."
"Again? You just did an hour ago."
"Better safe than sorry."
His eyes follow me as I gather my coat and weapons. I can feel the weight of his gaze like a physical thing, pressing between my shoulder blades as I head for the door.
"Thalia." Something in his voice makes me pause, hand on the doorknob. "You don't have to keep doing this."
If you only knew, I think, but all I say is, "I'm not running. I'm patrolling. I’m doing my job."
Outside, the morning air is bitter with the approaching winter. Autumn came so fast this year. Back in Illinois, it still felt like late summer when I left, with some warmth lingering over the mountains and flats beyond my city despite everything turning brown.
Here in Minnesota, it’s frigid most days. My boots crunch through fresh snow as I make my circuit of the property, checking motion sensors and cameras. Everything is secure, just like it was an hour ago. Just like it will be an hour from now.
My phone feels heavy in my pocket. The Smoke want another update—their messages are getting increasingly pointed. Time is running out, the last one said. Don't forget what's at stake.
As if I could forget. As if my best friend’s face doesn't haunt my dreams.
But with each day that passes in this quiet cabin, with each moment spent in Rafael's orbit, it gets harder to remember why I'm here. I feel crazed sometimes, as if I’m losing myself somehow. As if the essential truth of myself—what I’d be willing to do to keep me and Maia alive—is being fuzzed by my time here, blurred and washed away. I feel so frazzled all the time, thoughts muddy with desire.
A twig snaps behind me. I spin, gun already drawn, but it's just Rafael.
He holds up his hands, showing he's unarmed.
"Didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't." A lie. We both know it.
He moves closer. Soft, gently falling snow catches in his long, dark hair. "You've been out here for almost an hour."
Has it been that long? I've lost track of time, lost in my thoughts and guilt. "I'm being thorough."
"You're being avoidant."
"I'm being professional," I correct, holstering my weapon. "One of us has to be."
"Meaning?"
"Stop watching me like I'm about to explode." I start walking back toward the house, but he steps beside me. "I took a bullet for you, remember? If I wanted to hurt you, I've had plenty of chances."
"Maybe that's what worries me."
I glance at him sharply. "What?"
"That you'd take a bullet for me." His voice is quiet, thoughtful. "It was a reckless move. It could have gone badly. We were alone out there.”
My heart stutters. He's too close, and I stride ahead. "Maybe I just have good instincts."
Inside, the cabin's warmth hits like a wall. I shed my coat, aware of Rafael doing the same, aware of how the small entryway forces us closer than necessary. His scent surrounds me—pine and rain and that metallic undertone.
The rest of the morning passes in our new normal. I monitor camera feeds, tap into the airways as the Rosecreek team taught me. Rafael makes calls back to the pack center, checking in with Aris, with Keira, with various external contacts watching for signs of another attack. His voice creates a steady backdrop to my thoughts, professional and controlled until someone makes him laugh—the sound rich and unexpected, making my wolf stir with want.
By afternoon, cabin fever sets in. Rafael suggests sparring in the cleared space behind the house—"To stay sharp," but we both know it's just for something to do. I agree against my better judgment.
It's different than training at the pack center. More intimate somehow, just the two of us in the snow, breath fogging between us. He's careful of my healing shoulder but otherwise holds nothing back. We move together like we've done this for years instead of days.
"Your form's improving," he says after a particularly smooth combination.
"Or you're getting sloppy."
His answering grin is sharp. "Want to test that theory?"
He comes at me faster now, pushing my limits. I meet him step for step, strike for strike. Snow flies as we move, melting where it lands on overheated skin. When he pins me, it's not through strength alone—he reads my telegraphed counter perfectly, using my own momentum against me.
"Sloppy?" he asks, breath warm against my ear.
I'm suddenly acutely aware of everywhere we touch. His chest against my back, his hand around my wrist, his thigh pressed along mine. One shift of weight and I could break his hold—we both know it—but I stay still, heart racing.
"Lucky shot," I manage.
He laughs softly, and I feel it rumble through his chest. "You keep telling yourself that."
His phone rings, shattering the spell. He releases me instantly, stepping back as he answers.
I don't wait to hear the call. I retreat to the house, to my room, to the shower, where I can pretend the heat in my cheeks is just from the hot water.
Sleep, when it comes, is fitful. In my dreams, I'm back at the Smoke's rundown compound in downtown Rockford, in the windowless room where they teach their lessons.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh, unnatural shadows. The concrete floor is cold under my knees. My wrists are bound tight in front of me, and I keep staring at the rope digging into my skin.
"You had one job," Yannick says, pacing before me. He looks younger. He hasn’t started to go grey yet. "One simple task."
Behind him, Maia struggles against the men holding her, but she's too small, too weak from days without food. They'd caught us trying to run—a stupid, desperate attempt at freedom that only proved what they'd been telling us: we had nowhere else to go.
"I'm sorry," I hear myself say. "It won't happen again."
"No." Yannick crouches before me, his smile gentle in a way that makes my stomach turn. "It won't. Because now you understand, don't you? What happens when you disappoint us?"
Maia's first scream echoes off the concrete walls.
I wake with a cry caught in my throat, sheets tangled around my legs. Sweat plasters my shirt to my skin despite the room's chill.
For a moment, I can't remember where I am, can't separate memory from reality. My shoulder throbs where the bullet grazed it—a reminder of my new, temporary life bleeding into memories of the old, permanent one.
Through the wall, I hear Rafael shift in his bed, probably sensing my distress. But he doesn't knock, doesn't come to check on me. Perhaps he knows I’d die to hide this from him. Maybe he knows, on some level, how desperately I can’t afford weakness.
I sit up, pressing my forehead to my knees as I wait for my heart to slow. The dream lingers, too close to memory for comfort. We'd been so young then, Maia and I. Barely twenty, thinking we could outsmart the people who'd been controlling us since our fathers' deaths. Thinking there was still some way out.
They'd let me watch what they did to her. Made sure I understood exactly what my disobedience cost. For three days they kept her in that concrete room, teaching us both what happened to people who tried to leave the Smoke.
I never attempted escape again. Instead, I became what they wanted—the perfect operative, cold and efficient. I learned to bury my heart so deeply that I forgot where I'd hidden it.
Until now.
My phone glows in the darkness—another message from my handlers. My hands are steady now as I type:
Subject displays enhanced strength and speed. Healing factor accelerated. Suspicious by nature but not particularly discerning. Will send full report on combat capabilities tomorrow.
The response is immediate: Good girl.
I turn off my phone and curl onto my side. I watch moonlight crawl across the wall. In the morning, I'll hate myself for this. But for now, I let the emptiness take me, let it wash away everything but the mission.
It's easier this way. It has to be.
Because the alternative—caring about Rafael, caring about any of them—will only end in concrete rooms, fluorescent lights, and screams that echo forever.