Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Rett
“Faster,” I growl, my knuckles white on the dashboard as Dane navigates the empty city streets at a speed that would normally have me telling him to slow down.
“Going as fast as I can,” he replies, his voice tense but controlled. “Five more minutes.”
Five minutes feels like an eternity. Every second that passes is another second she’s alone, in pain, possibly dying. The thought sends a fresh wave of agony through my skull, the static shrieking like a wounded animal.
It’s been like this since she left. Three days of unrelenting torture. None of us has slept. None of us has eaten more than the bare minimum. We’ve been existing in a haze of pain and regret, going through the motions of our lives while falling apart inside.
And then, tonight, a new kind of hell began.
I was in the living room, staring at a spreadsheet on my tablet that might as well be written in Greek.
Tristan was on the other end of the couch, endlessly scrolling through his phone, the blue light illuminating the deep, exhausted lines around his eyes.
Diego was in the kitchen, the soft, rhythmic thump of a knife on a cutting board the only sound he’d made for the last hour.
That’s when it hit me.
A silent, psychic scream of pure, unadulterated agony that ripped through the center of my being.
The tablet slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the floor. A sharp, burning pain erupted behind my sternum, so intense it stole the air from my lungs.
Across the room, Tristan choked, dropping his own phone as he clutched his chest. From the kitchen, there was the sharp, metallic clang of a knife hitting the floor, followed by Diego’s raw, wounded cry.
Dane was before us before any of us could even process it, his body drenched in sweat, his eyes wild with pain.
It wasn’t the static. This was different.
“Zoe,” Dane managed to grit out, his voice a low, guttural snarl. “Something is wrong.”
We were moving before he finished the sentence, a single, four-man wave of pure, panicked instinct. We didn’t need to discuss it. We all felt it.
She was in agony. And we had to get to her. Now.
And then her call came through, confirming our worst fears.
“Take the next left,” Diego says from the backseat, his voice tight with worry. “It’ll be faster.”
Dane obeys without question, the SUV taking the corner with a squeal of tires. None of us comments on the reckless driving. We’re all thinking the same thing: get to Zoe, whatever it takes.
“I knew we shouldn’t have let her go,” Tristan mutters. “I fucking knew it.”
“Not now,” I snap, though I’ve been thinking the same thing since the moment those elevator doors closed behind her. We should have fought harder. We should have found the words to make her stay.
But we didn’t. We let her walk away, thinking all she was to us was a cure for the noise in our heads. And now she’s suffering, and it’s our fault.
“There,” Diego says suddenly, pointing to an old brick building on the right. “That’s it.”
Dane pulls up to the curb with a screech of brakes, and we’re all out of the car before it’s fully stopped. The static in my head is almost deafening now, a roaring, crushing wave that makes it hard to think, hard to focus on anything but the pain.
But as we approach her building, something strange happens. The closer we get, the more the noise begins to recede. Not completely. It’s still there, still painful. But it’s like walking out of a hurricane into merely heavy rain. The relief is immediate and profound.
“She’s close,” Diego says, confirming what we all feel. “The bond is responding.”
We take the stairs two at a time, the static receding further with each step. By the time we reach her floor, the pain has dulled to a manageable throb, the worst of the noise replaced by an urgent, driving need to find her, to make sure she’s safe.
We reach her door with that peeling Rosie the Riveter sticker. I don’t bother knocking; I just slam my palm against the wood.
“Zoe!” I yell, my voice a raw bark. “Zoe, it’s us! Open the door!”
No answer. Only a dead, terrifying silence from inside.
“Stand back,” Dane growls, already positioning himself to shoulder the door.
He’s just about to strike when a door across the hall creaks open. We all freeze, turning in unison.
Standing in the doorway is Zoe’s neighbor, Mrs. Grant. She’s wearing a floral nightgown, a pink sleeping cap, and a deeply unimpressed expression. Her tiny Pomeranian, Thanos, is yapping furiously at her feet.
“For heaven’s sake,” she says, her voice a sharp whisper. “It is three o’clock in the morning. Some of us have to get up for our water aerobics class. Are you trying to wake the dead?”
“Ma’am,” I say, trying to keep my voice level despite the panic clawing at my throat. “We need to get into this apartment. It’s an emergency.”
She looks from my face to the other three alphas crowded in the narrow hallway, then back to Zoe’s silent door. Her expression shifts from annoyance to a dawning, gossipy concern. “Is she alright? I haven’t heard a peep from her all day.”
“We don’t know,” Diego says, his voice tight with worry. “That’s why we need to get in.”
Dane takes another step toward the door.
“Oh, don’t do that,” Mrs. Grant says, waving a dismissive hand.
“You’ll splinter the frame. It’s a rental.
” She shuffles back into her apartment for a moment and returns holding a single key on a bright pink, fluffy keychain.
“She gave me this a year ago to water her plants when she went on vacation. I just... never got around to returning it.”
She shuffles across the hall and inserts the key into Zoe’s lock. “It’s a good thing I’m a packrat, isn’t it?” she says, giving us a sly, knowing look as she turns the key. The deadbolt clicks open. “Now, try not to make a mess. And I expect a full report in the morning.”
She hands the key to me and then shuffles back to her own apartment, closing the door with a soft click, leaving the four of us standing in stunned silence.
“I like her,” Tristan whispers.
The door swings open to reveal a dark, quiet apartment. Books are everywhere, as if Zoe was in the middle of spring cleaning and reorganizing the place and just stopped midway.
“Zoe?” I call out, stepping inside. “Where are you?”
No answer, but the static in my head has quieted to an almost imperceptible hum. She’s here. Close.
“Bedroom,” Dane says, already moving down the short hallway, guided by some instinct we all share. We follow, a silent, worried procession.
The bedroom door is ajar, a faint light spilling out. I push it open and freeze at the threshold.
Zoe is lying on the bed, tangled in sheets that are damp with sweat. Her skin is flushed, her hair a dark, wet halo around her head. Even from here, I can see the claiming marks on her neck are angry, inflamed, almost pulsing with heat.
“Jesus,” Tristan whispers behind me. “Is she—?”
“She’s alive,” Dane says, already moving to the bed. He touches her forehead with a gentleness I’ve rarely seen from him. “But she’s burning up.”
I snap out of my momentary paralysis and follow him to the bed. Up close, Zoe looks even worse. Her breathing is shallow and rapid, her lips cracked from dehydration. The claiming marks are a stark, violent red against her pale skin.
“Zoe,” I say, taking her hand in mine. Her skin is hot, too hot, but the moment we touch, something happens. A visible shudder runs through her body, and her breathing changes, deepens. “Zoe, can you hear me?”
Her eyelids flutter but don’t open. A small, pained sound escapes her.
“We need to cool her down,” Diego says, already heading for the bathroom. I hear water running a moment later.
Tristan sits on the edge of the bed, taking Zoe’s other hand. The moment he touches her, another shudder runs through her.
“What the hell is happening to her?” he asks, his voice tight with fear.
I don’t have an answer. My mind is a blank wasteland, the last remnants of the static wiped clean by the sheer, overwhelming terror of seeing her like this.
She’s so still, so fragile. Nothing like the fierce, witty woman who challenged me in a dive bar, who kissed me in a parking lot, who took on my entire pack with nothing but a stubborn refusal to be intimidated.
“It’s the bond,” Dane says, his voice a low, grim rumble. He’s still kneeling by the bed, his large hand now resting on her ankle. “Something’s wrong with it.”
I know the words he doesn’t say. Rejection. The bond we forced on her in a moment of selfish, primal need.
“No,” I say, the word a harsh, guttural sound. “I won’t accept that.”
Diego returns from the bathroom, his arms full of wet washcloths. He gently places a cool cloth on her forehead, another on the back of her neck.
“We need to get her temperature down,” he says, his voice a low, soothing murmur, more for her benefit than ours. “And get fluids in her.”
I look around the small bedroom. We can’t treat her here. This place isn’t equipped. It’s not secure. We don’t have the resources.
“We’re moving her,” I say, the decision solidifying in my mind.
“Moving her where?” Tristan asks, his gaze never leaving Zoe’s pale face. “A hospital? The press will be all over it. PackTrackr will have a field day.”
“Not a hospital,” I say, already pulling out my phone, my fingers flying across the screen. “The clinic.”
They all look at me. The Sterling Clinic is not a public facility. It’s a private, state-of-the-art medical wing of Sterling Industries. It’s discreet, secure, and has the best doctors money can buy. But it’s a place we never use.
The Sterling Industries clinic is my father’s territory. The place he built. A place I swore I would never set foot in again.
But I look at Zoe, at her pale, still form, and I know, with a sick, hollow certainty, that there is no price I won’t pay. No humiliation I won’t endure. Not for her.
“I’m calling ahead,” I continue, already pulling out my phone. “Diego, find a water bottle. Tristan, pack her bag.” My gaze lands on Dane. “You’ve got her.”
Dane doesn’t need to be told twice. He slides his arms under her, lifting her from the bed as if she were made of glass. Zoe makes a small, whimpering sound in her sleep, her head lolling against his shoulder.
A fresh wave of possessive, protective rage crashes over me. Seeing her so helpless, so vulnerable... It’s a feeling I’m not used to. A feeling that makes me want to burn the world down for her.
We move as a unit, a silent, coordinated team. Diego finds a bottle of water and a clean glass. Tristan locates her suitcase by the door. I clear a path, making sure nothing is in Dane’s way as he carries her through the small apartment.
As we step out into the hallway, the door to Mrs. Grant’s apartment creaks open. She’s standing there, clutching her floral robe, her eyes wide with a mixture of alarm and insatiable curiosity.
“Is she...?” she begins.
“She’s not feeling well,” Diego says smoothly. “We’re taking her to a doctor. We’ll lock up on our way out.”
“Oh, you poor dears,” she says, her gaze lingering on Zoe’s limp form in Dane’s arms. “You let me know if there’s anything at all I can do.”
“We will,” I say, already moving past her toward the stairs. “Thank you for your help.”
We don’t wait for the elevator. We take the stairs, Dane carrying her as if she weighs nothing, the rest of us forming a protective diamond around them. The descent is a blur of motion and quiet, focused urgency.
We burst out into the pre-dawn quiet of the street. The black Mercedes SUV is exactly where we left it. I get the keys from Dane, hitting the unlock button on the fob. The lights flash once in the darkness.
Dane moves to the rear passenger door, opening it with one hand while cradling Zoe securely with the other. He slides her gently into the middle seat.
Diego and Tristan are right behind him, getting in on either side of her, bracketing her, their hands instinctively going to her. Tristan buckles her seatbelt with a soft click. Diego pulls the blanket he had the foresight to grab from her apartment up to her chin, his brow furrowed with worry.
I get behind the wheel. Dane takes the front passenger seat, and I start the engine, the powerful motor rumbling to life. The city is asleep as I pull away from the curb, oblivious to the panic hidden within our chests.
My eyes flick constantly to the rearview mirror, to her.
Her face is still flushed, her breathing still shallow, but she seems..
. calmer now that she’s surrounded by us.
Cradled in the center of the pack. The thought is both a comfort and a curse.
We are the cause of her pain. And we are the only ones who can ease it.
“She’ll be okay,” Diego whispers from the back, his voice thick with a desperate hope, as if saying it out loud will make it true. “She has to be.”
I don’t answer. I just press my foot down on the accelerator, the engine roaring in response.
She will be okay. I’ll make sure of it.
She is ours.
And we do not fail to protect what is ours.