Chapter 13 Knox
Knox
For a split second, my heart stops. A woman with blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail walks past the end of the corridor, her profile a perfect, heart-stopping echo of Millie. My entire body tenses, the Alpha inside me rising with a stupid, hopeful surge.
It’s her. It has to be.
Then she turns, and I see it’s not her. The face is all wrong, the eyes brown instead of that green that haunts my dreams. A wave of something cold and disappointing washes over me.
This is getting out of control. I’m seeing her everywhere. In the crowd at the grocery store, walking down the street, in my goddamn sleep. It’s like I’m bewitched, haunted by a scent I can’t escape and a memory I can’t outrun.
I rub a hand over my face, trying to scrub the image from my mind. I need to focus. I’m here for a reason, and it has nothing to do with a librarian with eyes that see right through me.
I push open the door to the conference room.
Mayor Jake Marshall is already there, pacing the length of the small room like a caged animal. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, his sandy hair disheveled, a permanent groove etched between his brows.
Seated at the table is Dr. Avery, a woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and a no-nonsense demeanor. Beside her is a man I recognize as Mr. Henderson, the hospital director. He looks pale, his hands clasped on the table as if in prayer.
“Knox,” Jake says, his voice rough. He stops pacing and gestures to a chair. “Thanks for coming.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it,” I say, my tone dry. I take a seat, the cheap plastic chair groaning under my weight. “What’s the crisis?”
Jake shares a look with Henderson, who sighs and leans forward.
“It’s the generators,” he begins, his voice thin.
“The temporary units we have running the hospital… they’re not enough.
They’re handling the essentials, life support, and the ER, but they can’t keep up with the full load. Especially not the cold storage.”
Dr. Avery picks up where he left off, her voice clinical and precise. “The temperature in the main pharmaceutical storage unit has been fluctuating for the past seventy-two hours. We’ve been logging the data. The dips, while brief, have been enough to compromise certain medications.”
My stomach tightens. I know where this is going. “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” she says, pushing a folder across the table. I open it. It’s full of inventory lists with large sections highlighted in red. “We’ve had to dispose of nearly forty percent of our vaccine stock. Insulin, antibiotics… a significant loss. But that’s not the worst of it.”
She pauses, and the silence in the room becomes a physical weight. Jake is the one who says it. “It’s the suppressants, Knox. The entire supply of heat suppressants is gone.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Fuck. My mind races, calculating the fallout. Driftwood Cove has a higher-than-average Omega population. A lot of people rely on that medication to live normal, predictable lives.
Without it… it’s not just about inconvenience. It’s about safety. It’s about control. An uncontrolled heat in a town full of stressed-out Alphas and Betas, with infrastructure still in shambles? It’s a recipe for disaster.
“We can’t let this get out,” Jake says, his voice low and urgent, confirming my own thoughts. “If people find out we’re out of suppressants, there will be panic. Full-blown, town-wide panic. It’ll make the fire look like a campfire sing-along.”
“He’s right,” Henderson adds, wringing his hands. “We’d have riots at the pharmacy doors.”
I lean back in my chair, my mind shifting into crisis management mode. This is what I do. This is what I’m here for. “Okay. So we contain it. What’s our timeline? How long until the people who are already on them run out?”
Dr. Avery consults her notes. “We have a small undamaged reserve. Enough to cover existing prescriptions for maybe two weeks. Three if we institute strict rationing immediately.”
“Rationing won’t be enough,” I counter. “It just delays the inevitable. We need a new supply. Now.”
“The state emergency supply is a possibility,” Jake muses, “but with the road damage, getting a shipment here could take weeks. We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Then we look closer,” I say, an idea forming. “What about Port Blossom? They’re what, an hour and a half away? They weren’t touched by the fire. Their supply chain should be intact.”
Henderson shakes his head. “They won’t have a surplus. Their supply is allocated for their own citizens. They won’t just give us theirs.”
“They will if we give them something they want,” I say, leaning forward, my forearms on the table.
The pieces are clicking into place. “What’s the biggest problem every town in this region is facing right now?
Rebuilding. Supplies. The entire lumber shipment scheduled for next week is scheduled to come through our port.
We can reroute it. We can offer Port Blossom a significant portion of our raw materials.
A trade. Their suppressants for our lumber. ”
Jake’s eyes light up. He sees it, the political maneuvering, the leverage. “A quid pro quo. It’s a gamble. They might tell us to go to hell.”
“It’s a gamble we have to take,” I state.
“I’ll make the call. I’ll drive there myself if I have to.
I can be more persuasive in person.” I look at Dr. Avery.
“In the meantime, you start the rationing. Strict. Only for those with a documented, critical medical need. We need to make what we have last as long as possible.”
She nods, expression grim but determined. “I’ll handle it.”
“Jake,” I say, turning to the mayor. “You need to start working on a cover story. If this gets out, we need to be able to control the narrative. Maybe a temporary supply chain issue with the manufacturer. Something believable that buys us time.”
He nods, his jaw set. “I’m on it.”
The plan is fragile, a house of cards built on hope and desperation, but it’s a plan. It’s something. As we wrap up the meeting, the weight of it all settles on my shoulders. The safety of this town, of its most vulnerable residents, is now my problem. I feel the crushing responsibility of it.
I walk out of the hospital, the cool evening air a welcome shock to my system. I pull my phone from my pocket to check the time.
My blood runs cold. I was supposed to be on the road an hour ago. I’m supposed to be driving to get to Clara’s band performance.
Fuck.
I lean against the brick wall of the hospital, the rough texture digging into my back. I can’t leave. Not now. Not with this crisis looming. I can’t just pack up and drive away, leaving Jake and Dr. Avery to handle this alone. It would be irresponsible. It would be a dereliction of my duty.
But the thought of disappointing Clara… it feels like a knife twisting in my gut.
I find Amy’s number in my contacts and press the phone to my ear, my heart pounding with a dread that has nothing to do with Alphas and Omegas.
“Knox?” Her voice is sharp, and I can already hear the disappointment in it. She knows. She always knows.
“Hey, Amy,” I say, my voice rough. “Look, I’m so sorry, but something’s come up. A work thing. It’s… it’s an emergency.”
A heavy sigh crackles through the line. “You’re not coming, are you?”
“No,” I admit, the word feeling like a failure. “I can’t. I’m so sorry, Amy. Please, can you do something for me? Can you… can you record the whole thing for me? Every song. I want to see it. I need to see it.”
“Of course I will,” she says, her tone softening slightly. “But you need to be the one to tell her. She was really looking forward to seeing you there. She needs to hear it from you.”
“I know,” I say, my voice cracking. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll call her. Just… just give me a minute.”
I end the call and slide down the wall to sit on the cold pavement, my head in my hands. I’m the sheriff of a town on the brink of a crisis, and I’m a father who is about to break his daughter’s heart. And in this moment, I’m not sure which role hurts more.
The cold of the pavement seeps through the fabric of my pants, a dull, grounding chill against the firestorm raging in my chest. My phone feels like a lead weight in my hand.
I have to make the call. Every second I delay is another second of cowardice, another second of letting her believe I’m still coming.
I take a deep breath, the air tasting of exhaust fumes and distant salt, and tap her name.
The phone rings twice. Then she picks up. No hello. Just silence. I can hear her breathing on the other end, a soft, controlled sound that tells me everything I need to know. She’s waiting.
“Hey, superstar,” I say, my voice attempting a lightness I am nowhere near feeling. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” she says. The word is clipped, brittle. A single syllable designed to keep me at a distance.
“Look, Clara… I’m so sorry, but something’s come up here. A work thing, and—”
“You’re not coming.” It’s not a question. It’s a verdict. The flat, dead certainty in her voice is a punch to the gut.
“No,” I admit, the word feeling like ash in my mouth. “I can’t. I’m so sorry. I swear to you, if there was any way—”
“It’s always work,” she cuts in, her voice rising, cracking with the first hint of the storm to come. “It was work in New York, and it’s work here. You promised me, Dad. You looked me in the eye and you promised.”
“I know, and I feel like shit about it, I really do. But this is a real emergency, Clara. People are counting on me.”
“Am I not people?” The question is a knife, twisting in an already open wound. “Does what I want ever count? You left. You left Mom, you left New York, and now you’re leaving me. Again.”
“That’s not fair,” I say, my own defensiveness rising, a pathetic shield against the truth of her words. “I’m here because I’m trying to build a life for us, a better one. This is my job, Clara. My responsibility.”