EIGHTEEN #2
Rain drums heavily through holes in the ceiling.
Water spills in steady sheets near the back wall, turning the psychedelic patterned carpet into a swamp of mold and childhood germs. I lead them around the worst patches, stepping over fallen signs and half-drowned prize tokens.
A plastic claw machine sits cracked open near the counter, stuffed animals inside collapsed into sad, wet little corpses of youth.
One doggy bear stares at me with one remaining button eye, looking particularly wrung out and over it all.
Same, buddy.
Same.
My skin is running too hot under my wet clothes, and that’s the first real warning I notice.
Not the slipping scent, or the awareness of Alpha bodies around me.
It’s the heat. It crawls under my collar, across my shoulders, and down my spine.
It’s not a full heat. Not yet. More like my body is testing the door handle and finding it loose.
Panic flares and my scent sharpens.
Kaito drops back instantly, because this time he can.
Fletcher has the pilot braced against the wall while Xeon checks his pulse.
And Ewan is near the hallway behind us, listening to movement now that he’s not eyeing the machines like he’s willing to see if one will boot up despite the six years that have passed.
Not a word leaves Kaito’s mouth as he moves to the broken side door where rain and wind keep billowing through.
He simply positions himself between me and the opening, blocking the air current before it can drag my scent through the hallway.
Again. No announcement, no noble sacrifice, no “I’m helping you, how amazing am I? ”
Just movement. A quiet choice he’s made, and it only pisses me off because it helps. My shoulders ease by a fraction of an inch before I can stop them, because they’re as much traitors as the rest of my body.
We reach the rear hallway, where it’s narrow, dark, and still smells of old popcorn, damp plaster, and rat shit. A door at the end hangs open onto the indoor market, but the space beyond it is way too exposed. Broken skylights, rain pouring through, rows of stalls creating too many blind spots.
Fletcher lowers the pilot against the wall once more, commanding, “We pause here. Two minutes.”
“No,” I contradict, because that seems to be the way things have settled between Scar and me.
He gives me a tired look. “He needs it.”
I glance at the pilot. His face is ashen and gray, and Xeon is already crouched beside him with his fingers pressed against his throat, checking his pulse. I raise an eyebrow. “He needs a lot of things. A personality. Better hobbies. A helicopter that doesn’t fall out of the sky.”
Ewan leans against the opposite wall, water dripping from his hair, and he says, “To be fair, that last one wasn’t really his fault.”
“Debatable,” I say with a shrug.
Kaito stands near the broken side, between me and the wind. Not quite in front of me, just enough to shield me. Again.
I can’t help it. I snap. Not loudly or dramatically, just inside where all the important structural damage happens.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
Everyone looks at me, but Kaito’s eyes meet mine. I can see it in his eyes that he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I know that he knows, and that just makes it worse.
“Standing,” he answers.
“Oh. So we’re lying now? That’s a fun little group activity,” I grouch.
Very quietly, I hear Ewan whisper, “I’m actually really good at that one.”
Fletcher sighs. “Ewan.”
“Sorry.”
I step toward Kaito, gaze boring into him. “You keep moving.”
His face remains calm, his voice steady when he says, “Yes.”
“Every doorway,” I point out. “Every window. Every single time the wind changes, you move.”
“Yes,” he says again.
“Why?” I push.
He doesn’t answer straight away. Rain lashes through the broken door behind him, and he shifts half a step, blocking more of it from reaching me. The movement says so much, and my chest tightens.
No. No, no, absolutely not.
I don’t want quiet protection. I don’t want someone noticing what I need before I even say it out loud. I don’t want someone shielding me without making a leash out of it. That’s an unfair tactic. It’s emotional warfare with a steel spine and excellent posture.
“You think they don’t notice?” I practically hiss.
Kaito’s eyes flick briefly toward the others before he says, “Pretty sure they notice more if I don’t.”
That shuts me the hell up for one whole second, and I consider it a very impressive tragedy.
Then his voice drops lower to say, “The rain is stripping away your masking.”
“Congratulations on having a nose,” I snap.
“I can help,” he offers.
“I didn’t ask for it,” I damn near growl, agitated and frustrated and going absolutely crazy.
“I know,” he says, and the worst part is that he does. He does know. He knows I didn’t ask, he knows I’d rather eat moldy plaster than ask. He knows he’s walking along the edge of a line I’ve drawn with a knife and he’s daring not to put a single toe over it.
I hate him.
But my body doesn’t.
My body, the betraying disaster of a bitch, wants to move closer until burning wood and worn flannel outweigh the damp, the fear, the other Alphas, the old arcade, and the whole fucked-up city outside.
Biology. That’s all this is. Chemistry and really bad fucking timing. A failing blocker and an Alpha who has spent too much time being annoyingly and distractingly decent. Nothing more than that.
Kaito takes a slow, steadying breath before he says, “Dakota.”
My name in his mouth shouldn’t do a damned thing. It shouldn’t, but it does. It slices through the rain and noise and mold and panic.
Behind us, Xeon says something quiet to Fletcher. Ewan shifts away, probably pretending to inspect the hallway, giving us space and acting as though he doesn’t notice anything.
I don’t care.
I care too much.
And both are absolutely horrible options.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
Kaito stills instantly. “Okay.”
Just that. Okay. No argument, no step forward, no reaching. He gives me the word and space at the very same time, and my hand lifts before I’ve decided to even move it.
It’s my bad arm, too. Pain zaps up my arm as my fingers curl into the front of his wet shirt, but I barely feel it over the sudden, horrible thundering of my pulse.
His breath catches, and so does mine.
For a weighted second, neither of us moves.
My fist is twisted in his shirt, my knuckles pressed against the hard heat of his chest under the damp fabric.
He could touch me, and he wants to. I can see it in the locked tension of his shoulders, the careful stillness of his hands, and the way his pupils have blown wide enough to swallow those dark brown irises.
He doesn’t touch me, though.
And that’s the thing that breaks me.
Not his scent.
Not the rain.
And not my stupid body or the word NOVAC that still haunts the back of my skull.
It’s his restraint. It’s the fact that he wants it but still waits.
My hand leaves his shirt just long enough to drag the bandana down beneath my chin, because I’ve apparently chosen this very moment to lose my entire mind.
Then I yank him down, his mouth hitting mine with an eerie accuracy, and the whole world fades to quiet in the most violent way possible.
There’s nothing sweet about it. Sweet is for before. Sweet is for window rain and school buses and yards that still smell green. This is frenzied. It’s desperate. A collision I’ve started and am still not ready for.