Chapter 10
Boone
It’s Sawyer again. It’s a rare kind of dream that’s both gift and punishment all at once.
He’s laughing—full, loud, that deep-chested sound that always hit before I even knew what the joke was. We’re young again, standing outside the station on a summer evening, gear half-on, waiting for the alarm to sound.
He’s telling me some stupid story about our training days, about how he still can’t believe I managed to fall asleep in the middle of a safety briefing, and I’m rolling my eyes because he’s told it a hundred times before.
I want to keep him here. Keep the light in his eyes, keep the heat of the sun on his shoulders, keep that life. But then something shifts. There’s a shadow—smoke, maybe—and just like that, the dream breaks.
I wake up abruptly.
The TV’s still on. It takes me a second to register where I am—Shepard’s living room, Gus sprawled out, the faint smell of coffee gone cold in the air.
And then I see her.
Sadie. Curled on her side on the couch, one hand tucked under her cheek, breathing soft. Shepard’s sweatshirt swallows her frame, the hem hanging halfway down her thighs.
She looks… peaceful. Which feels like something rare for her, even after knowing her only a day.
I sit there for a moment, letting the quiet sink in, before glancing at my phone. 5:54 a.m. Normally, this is the part of the morning where I’d shower, throw on my uniform, and head to the station.
Instead, I stand, stretching my back, and cross the room to where she’s sleeping. I crouch down, close enough to feel the soft pull of her breath. My hand hovers before I touch her forehead.
Cooler. Fever’s broken.
Her lashes flutter, and then one storm-gray eye cracks open, fixing on me.
Goddamn. Up close, even half-awake, she’s stunning in a way that sneaks up on you. Not the polished, practiced kind of beautiful—raw, real, like the edge of a storm rolling in.
“How you feeling?” I keep my voice low, steady.
“Tired,” she murmurs sleepily.
I nod toward the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s check that wrist of yours.”
She pushes herself upright, slow but without complaint, and follows me. The light in Shepard’s kitchen is soft, early-morning gold spilling through the blinds. I grab a stool for her and take her hand gently, turning it over.
The swelling’s there, faint but visible, and she flinches when I press near the joint.
“Not broken,” I tell her, rotating it carefully. “But it’s strained. Needs to be iced.”
She nods, quiet. I move to the freezer, wrap a handful of ice cubes in a clean dish towel, and press it gently to her wrist. She doesn’t pull away.
Up this close, I can see the faint scatter of freckles over her pale skin. There’s something… fragile about her in this light. Not weak, not breakable, but like someone who’s had more than her fair share of storms and is still standing anyway.
I push a strand of her pink-streaked hair back from her face. “I still think it’s a good idea for you to get checked out at the hospital.”
Her gaze cuts to mine, sharp even in her tiredness. “You’re a paramedic,” she says softly. “How about you do the tests?”
There’s something in the way she says it—a mix of stubbornness and quiet trust—that gets me.
“I can do that,” I say after a beat. “Swing by the station later. I’ll run you through a more thorough check. No crowd, no paperwork, just us.”
She nods once, and I know that’s all I’ll get for now.
Before I can say more, Gus’s bark cuts through the quiet, deep and insistent. The sound is followed by a rustle from the living room.
Shepard walks in, running a hand through his hair and blinking against the light. “Guess that’s my cue to take him out.” He’s already reaching for the leash hanging by the door.
“Good idea,” I say.
Gabe’s voice comes next, rough from sleep but still carrying that edge of confidence he always has. “I can make us breakfast.”
He steps into the kitchen, already pulling open cabinets.
“I should go,” Sadie says, shifting like she’s about to stand.
Gabe shakes his head, giving her a look that would probably make a lesser person sit back down instantly. “I’d rather you stay and eat with us.”
She hesitates, clearly weighing her options. I can’t tell if she’s afraid of overstaying her welcome or just unused to people wanting her to stay.
“Sit,” I tell her, moving the ice on her wrist to a better angle. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”
Sadie… she’s different. I can’t place it yet, but something in her eyes tells me she’s not here by accident.
By the time Shepard’s back from taking Gus out, the smell of breakfast is filling the apartment. Gabe’s at the stove, flipping eggs like a pro, a pot of coffee brewing beside him.
Sadie’s still at the counter, watching everything with quiet eyes.
“Coffee?” Gabe asks her.
She shakes her head. “Not right now, thanks.”
I lean against the counter across from her. “So. Memphis.”
Her mouth pulls into a faint smile. “You ever been?”
I shake my head.
“It’s… louder than here. Busier.” Sadie smiles faintly at that.
The conversation flows smoothly, and that unnerves me just a bit. It’s clear that she’s keeping secrets but I’m not one to pry them out of her. Hopefully one day I’ll learn what has her looking like she’s about to bolt, if all she’s scared of is Scott.
And hopefully I’ll be able to keep her safe when she needs me to.
She tells us about growing up with two women who never stopped moving, about murals in Memphis that still have her signature on them, about how she likes the quiet here.
Shepard tells her about New Hampshire winters, about the first time he saw the harbor frozen over. Gabe talks about the fishing crews, about how the mayor still insists on going out himself even when he doesn’t have to.
And for a while, it feels like she’s not just a stranger we pulled out of a ditch.
It feels like she’s already part of the pack.
Charlie and I hadn’t even finished cleaning up from lunch when the radio call came in—a collision on the far edge of Harbor Road.
Small sedan versus a delivery truck, light damage, but the driver of the sedan had fainted behind the wheel.
We got there fast, stabilized her, and transferred her to the hospital.
It’s barely twenty minutes later when we’re back at the station, pulling the rig into the bay. My gloves are still damp from the disinfectant I used to wipe down the stretcher, and the faint smell of saline and coffee lingers in the air.
Charlie’s tossing a used blanket into the laundry bin when he pauses mid-step. His head tilts toward the open bay door.
“Who the hell is that?”
I glance up from where I’m securing the oxygen tank straps.
Sadie.
She’s standing just outside the shadow line of the bay, the midday light catching the pale pink streaks in her hair.
Yesterday’s washed-out, rain-damp look is gone; today she’s in a fitted black turtleneck tucked into high-waisted dark jeans, a soft charcoal coat hanging open around her shoulders. Her boots are clean, polished.
The little flesh-colored bandage I put on her forehead is still there, just above her brow, a faint reminder of yesterday’s crash.
And damn, she looks better. A lot better. Not just healthier—more… herself.
I can feel the warmth in my chest, low and steady. I make a conscious effort to keep my expression neutral. The last thing I want is for her to catch even a whisper of how much she affects me.
“Hey,” I say, stepping toward her.
Her lips curve faintly, but there’s still a guarded edge to her eyes. She’s pressing a cold can of Coke against her palm, the metal sweating from condensation.
“That still hurting?” I nod toward her hand.
She glances down, as if she’d forgotten she was holding it there. “Yeah. A little.”
“You iced it all day?”
She nods again, then takes a small step closer. “I hope you’re not too busy, but… I wanted to come in and see if there’s any need to be concerned.”
I jerk my head toward the back. “We’ve got a private space. Come on.”
The exam room isn’t fancy—just a converted office with an exam table, a rolling stool, and a metal cabinet of supplies—but it’s quiet.
Charlie stays behind in the bay, giving us privacy. I motion for her to sit on the table and grab a clipboard.
“Standard intake. Just fill in what you can.”
She picks up the pen, writing slow but neat. That’s when I see it.
Sadie Devereaux. Omega. 24 years old.
I file her age away, the same way I do with every patient. I don’t let my eyes linger.
When she passes the clipboard back, I scan it quickly. “Any previous injuries I should be aware of?”
There’s the faintest hesitation. Not long enough to be obvious, but I’ve been reading people in crisis for years, and I catch the beat of it.
“Nothing recent,” she says.
“Medications?”
Her voice stays steady, but there’s a note under it—one I can’t name—that surfaces as she lists them. “Anxiety meds, heat suppressants… and melatonin, sometimes.”
The heat suppressants don’t surprise me, but the way she says it makes something in my gut twist.
I push past it, keeping my tone even. “Alright. Let’s do a full-body exam. I can get one of the female EMTs in here if you’re more comfortable—”
Her hand shoots out, fingers curling around my forearm. “I’d rather not. Please.”
Her grip is firmer than I expect, but her eyes… there’s something sharp and scared in them.
“I want all of this off the record.”
That gets my full attention. “Off the record?”
She nods once.
I set the clipboard down, leaning a little closer. “Are you really scared of your previous pack?”
Her gaze slides away. “It’s… complicated.”
She shrugs out of her coat, movements careful, deliberate.
The first thing I see is the ink. A phoenix, wings unfurled, its tail feathers curling in intricate detail along the curve of her ribcage, the edge just disappearing under her bra.
But the ink isn’t what stops me cold.
It’s the bruises.
Faded but unmistakable, scattered along her hip bones, across the sides of her thighs, and a cluster along her spine. Not fresh, but healed wrong—like whatever caused them went deep enough to leave their shape in muscle memory.
I force myself to keep my hands steady as I trace the edge of one along her hip. “These aren’t from yesterday.”
“No.”
“You been in another kind of accident?”
Her voice is flat. “No.”
“Then what—” My throat feels dry. I have to swallow before I can say it. “Who did this to you?”
She exhales slowly, like the air’s been trapped for years. “A long time ago. I didn’t heal right.”
I shake my head, palm still hovering over the faded marks. “Sadie, this isn’t—”
I stop, because I can feel my voice tightening, and the last thing she needs is my anger on top of her own pain.
Her eyes flick up to mine, and for a second, the walls she keeps around herself slip. I see the fear, but I also see the grit—like she’s spent years telling herself she can survive anything if she just keeps moving forward.
“I’m not in that pack anymore,” she says finally. But the way she says it doesn’t sound like freedom.
I move methodically through the rest of the exam, checking reflexes, range of motion, balance. Every so often, her sleeve shifts and I catch another faint bruise, another shadow of something that shouldn’t be there.
I keep my questions neutral, my tone steady. When I finish, I step back, giving her space.
“You’re clear for concussion symptoms,” I tell her, “but I want you icing that wrist a few more days. And if you get dizzy, nauseous, or the headache spikes—”
“I’ll call,” she says.
I hand her coat back, but she doesn’t put it on right away. She just sits there for a moment, holding it in her lap, like she’s gathering herself.
As she leaves, I feel that same low heat in my chest from when I first saw her in the bay. Only now it’s mixed with something sharper.
Because I don’t just want her safe.
I want to know who the hell thought they could put their hands on her and walk away.