Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Callie
I finally checked my phone when the heat fog lifted enough for coherent thought. The screen lit up with a cascade of notifications that made my stomach drop. Among the chaos of trending hashtags and viral clips, Zia's messages stood out like neon warnings.
Guilt twisted through my chest, sharp enough to cut through the pleasant haze of post-heat contentment. Zia had been worried sick while I'd been... well.
"Everything okay?" Milo asked from the kitchen annex, where he was preparing what smelled like cinnamon rolls. His voice carried that particular note of concern that meant he'd already sensed my emotional shift through our bond.
"I forgot about Zia." The admission came out small, ashamed. "She's been trying to reach me since Friday."
Ghost looked up from his tablet, tilting his head in question.
"My friend. The sound engineer." I was already hitting her contact, anxiety building as the phone rang. "She's probably—"
"Callie!" Zia's voice exploded through the speaker, relief and anger tangled together. "Jesus fucking Christ, I was literally filling out a missing person report! Do you have any idea how worried—"
"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out in a rush. "I'm so sorry, Z. Everything happened so fast and then I couldn't think straight and—"
"Are you safe?" Her tone shifted immediately from anger to concern, and this was why I loved her. Priorities always in the right place.
"Yes. I'm safe."
"Are you... okay? I saw the footage. Everyone saw the footage." A pause, then softer: "That looked intense, Cal."
I glanced around the nest at five Alphas who were pretending not to eavesdrop while absolutely eavesdropping. Nova had even set down his phone to focus entirely on my half of the conversation.
"It was intense," I admitted, not sure how to explain that intense didn't even begin to cover what had happened. "But I'm okay. Better than okay, actually."
"You sure? Because I can come get you. I don't care how many Alphas are there, I'll extract you if you need it."
The mental image of Zia, five-foot-nothing with purple hair and glasses, facing down my pack made me laugh despite everything. "I don't need extraction. I'm... processing. But I'm good."
"Processing." She let the word hang between us, not pushing but not letting me off easy either. "Do you need anything? Your apartment? Work stuff? I can handle whatever."
"I..." I hesitated, realizing I hadn't even thought about my apartment, my normal life, anything beyond this nest and these men. "Maybe some clothes? And my good streaming mic if you can grab it?"
"Already packed a bag," she said, and of course she had. "Been sitting by my door since Saturday morning. Just needed to know where to bring it."
Tears pricked at my eyes. While the internet dissected my every expression, while strangers speculated about my choices, Zia had just... packed a bag and waited.
"I'll send you the address," I managed around the lump in my throat.
"Don't need it. Already traced your phone." At my startled noise, she added, "What? You gave me your location permissions two years ago for that convention where you got lost. You never revoked them."
"That's either really creepy or really sweet."
"It's both. I contain multitudes." Her voice gentled. "You want to talk about it? The whole... true mate thing everyone's screaming about?"
I drew my knees up to my chest, very aware of how Nova's shirt hung loose on my frame, how I was surrounded by evidence of what had happened. "Not yet. I'm still figuring out what it even is."
"Fair." She paused, and I could picture her pushing her glasses up, the way she did when thinking. "For what it's worth, you looked happy in the footage. Scared as shit, but also... happy."
"How could you tell?" The convention footage had been chaos, mostly showing my obvious biological meltdown.
"Because I know you, dummy. I've seen you fake smile through a thousand sponsorship deals. That wasn't fake."
Crash chose that moment to drop into the nest with a plate of fresh fruit, his purple and neon green hair still sticking up at odd angles from sleep. He pressed a piece of mango to my lips without asking, and I ate it automatically, the gesture so casually intimate it made my chest tight.
"Listen," Zia continued, "whenever you're ready to talk, I'm here. No judgment, no pressure. And if these Alphas turn out to be assholes, I've got a baseball bat and absolutely no chill."
"They're not assholes," I said softly, watching Ghost adjust the temperature in my zone without being asked, Milo plate food with careful attention to what I'd actually eat, Nova organize my charging cables, and Blitz stretch in a way that was definitely for my benefit.
"Good. Because you deserve not-assholes." She cleared her throat. "Also, Michelle's been calling me. She seems to be handling the media storm through sheer force of will and possibly cocaine."
"Just her usual terrifying competence."
"Right. Well, I'll drop your stuff with her later. Unless you want me to bring it directly?"
The idea of Zia meeting the pack right now, when I couldn't even explain what we were to each other, made my anxiety spike. "Michelle's good for now. But Z? Thank you. For everything."
"That's what friends do, Cal. We worry, we pack bags, we threaten violence against anyone who hurts you." Her voice went serious. "You know that hasn't changed, right? This whole thing doesn't change us?"
My throat tightened. "Promise?"
"Promise. You're still the disaster bisexual who got lost in a convention center that was literally a square. I'm still the chaos gremlin who accidentally became a vtuber because showing my face required putting on pants. Some things are constants."
The memory made me laugh. It was during one of her first streams and she forgot to turn on her avatar. She’d just had a black screen for twenty minutes while rambling about sound waves. "God, we were such disasters."
"Were?" She snorted. "Speak for yourself. I'm still a disaster, just a semi-successful one now."
"Same, apparently." I gestured vaguely at my situation, even though she couldn't see it.
"At least your disaster is hot. Mine just involves too much coffee and arguing with tech bros about audio compression."
There was a pause, comfortable and familiar, the kind only old friends could maintain over phone lines.
"I should tell you," I started, then stopped, not sure how to continue.
"That you're probably going to bond with them? That this is real?" She said it gently, without judgment. "Yeah, I figured. You don't do anything halfway, Cal. Never have."
"It's happening really fast."
"So? You decided to come out as Omega after one conversation with Kara. You practically changed your entire brand in a weekend. Fast is kind of your thing."
She was right, but this felt different. Bigger. More permanent.
"Remember freshman year?" she continued. "When you taught yourself Final Cut in forty-eight hours because you decided you wanted to edit videos?"
"I didn't sleep for two days."
"And you made the best damn video in the class. My point is, when you know something's right, you commit. Full send, no hesitation."
"This could destroy everything I built," I admitted quietly.
"Or it could make it better. Not different. Better." She paused. "Look, I watched the footage like everyone else. But I also know you. And the way you looked at them... Cal, I've never seen you look at anyone like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you were home."
The words hit deeper than expected, and I felt Nova's fingers find mine, a silent support that didn't intrude on the conversation.
"I need to process more before I can talk about it properly," I said finally.
"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." Her voice warmed. "But when you're ready, I want all the details. For science."
"For gossip, you mean."
"That too. I'm only human." She paused. "Well, technically I'm a digital fox, but you get it."
"Speaking of, how's the streaming going?"
"Deflection! Classic Callie." But she went with it. "Good. That ASMR series you suggested is doing numbers. Turns out people really want a fox girl to whisper about sound engineering at them."
"Because you make it weirdly soothing."
"It's a gift." Another pause. "Seriously though, you good?"
I looked around the nest, at Milo's concerned hovering, Ghost's silent support, Crash's chaotic energy, Blitz's protective presence, Nova's steady strength.
"Yeah," I said, meaning it. "I'm good."
"Then I'll let you get back to... whatever it is you're doing."
"Eating," I said as Milo pushed another plate toward me. "Lots of eating."
"Good. You always forget when you're stressed." Her voice went stern. "And Callie? Next time something this big happens, maybe don't wait three days to call?"
"I promise."
"Liar. But I love you anyway."
"Love you too, Z."
After I hung up, the nest felt oddly quiet. Five pairs of eyes watched me with varying degrees of concern.
"That's Zia," I said unnecessarily. "She's..."
"Your real friend," Nova finished. "Not just an industry connection."
I nodded, throat tight. "One of the only people who knew me before. When I was nobody."
"You were never nobody," Milo said firmly, and I felt the conviction through our bond.
"She seems protective," Ghost observed quietly.
"She is. She once chased off an Alpha who was harassing me at a convention with nothing but a wireless mic and determination."
"I like her already," Crash declared. "Anyone who threatens violence for you is good people."
My phone buzzed with a text.
Zia: Forgot to mention. Luke says hi. Yes, THAT Luke. Yes, I know his editor. No, I won't give Michelle his number. She needs to work for it.
I laughed, showing Nova the message. "She knows everyone in the industry. It's actually terrifying."
"Useful though," he mused, already probably calculating networking opportunities.
But that was future Callie's concern. Right now, surrounded by pack and knowing my best friend was still my best friend despite everything, I felt something settle in my chest. The outside world was still chaos, but my inner circle, the people who actually mattered? They were solid.
"She's right, you know," Milo said, offering me a cinnamon roll that was perfectly warm and gooey. "You do forget to eat when stressed."
"I've been eating constantly for three days."
"That doesn't count. That was heat eating. This is real eating."
I took a bite just to appease him, but the familiar comfort of cinnamon and sugar, combined with knowing Zia was out there ready to fight anyone who hurt me, made something loosen in my chest.
I had pack. I had my best friend. I had my manager fighting the internet on my behalf.
Maybe, just maybe, I could have it all without losing myself in the process.