Chapter Eighteen – Three Thousand Miles Away
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Three Thousand Miles Away
W e barely sleep again.
Jo wakes the second we settle into the nest and squirms nonstop until she gives up and leaves. I follow a few minutes later to check on her, and catch her asleep on the couch.
The next morning, she doesn’t even sit for breakfast. Just gets ready and leaves. The three of us agree to sleep in the sleeping bags again, so the nest is free if she wants it.
When we get to the unit, Sergeant Wilsbone calls us into his office.
“IA’s done their first pass,” he says. “The use-of-force report is still under review. Until Command says otherwise, you’re cleared for duty, but restricted assignments only.
No public-facing calls. Stick to low-visibility patrols. ”
As the morning goes on, we catch pieces of conversations about us here and there. In the break room, I hear Cole say to Higgs, “I mean… the guy was drunk, but still. He ended up in the hospital.”
No surprise there. What surprises me is Higgs’ reply: “I don’t know, dude. If some drunk guy said that about my wife and tried to touch her, I’d break his nose too.”
Right after noon, I understand exactly why Wilsbone told us to keep our heads down. When Jo’s text comes through, I hope, just for a second, that it means she wants to talk, but all she sends is a link. I tap it open and it leads to a local news page.
The headline hits like a punch: “Civilian Hospitalized After Backyard Assault by Three Off-Duty Aegis Officers.”
There’s a photo of Luc unconscious in the ER. His face swollen, blood on his cheek. Probably Kacy gave it to them. She’s quoted too: “Luc may have said the wrong thing, but he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I just thank God he’s alive.”
Both Jay and Shane have their phones out too. Jo sent it to all of us. The scent in the air changes, thick with aggression. I start releasing calming pheromones without even thinking.
When we get home, Jo’s bags are packed.
Raw panic. It’s all I can feel.
I’ve never heard of a scent-mate walking away from her aegis, but the impossible, the unthinkable, is happening. Right now.
She’s on the couch, two bags at her feet, obviously waiting for us.
We’re all frozen in the entryway, paralyzed for a few seconds. Shane’s the first to move. “No. No. No. Jo!” he repeats, voice cracking. “No. No. No.” He drops to his knees in front of her and grabs her hands.
When she lifts her face, she’s crying, and we start to hum for her immediately, but it’s not the grounding kind we’ve given her before. This one is fractured. Frantic.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to Shane.
“What are you doing, Jo?” Jay asks, his voice wrecked. “I didn’t kill anybody. It was a fucking punch. And if this is too much for you, I swear, right here, right now, I’ll never do it again. No matter what. But don’t leave us over this.”
“Please,” I add, my voice rough and low.
She takes a deep breath before she answers, soft as a breath. “I’m not leaving you.”
“So what are you doing?” Shane asks, his eyes wide and wild.
“I’m not leaving you,” she repeats. “I’m not doing this because of what happened with that douchebag. I… I just need time. To deal with what I am.”
“What do you mean?” Jay asks.
She looks down at her lap. Her fingers curl tight around Shane’s, her knuckles white. “All this time… I thought I was okay with being a nyra. But I think I was only okay with it because it never really meant anything. I lived as a human. People treated me like one. But now… that’s changed.”
She raises her face and looks at me and Jay.
“I’m not human anymore. Not to anyone. And I’ve lost so much.
My parents won’t speak to me; my coworkers cut me off.
Half of them think I’m a whore, and the other half think my hormones made me do this.
Like I bonded with three aegis because I was out of control, not because I chose to. ”
She lets out a shaky breath. Shane leans forward slightly, his thumb brushing the back of her hand. She doesn’t react.
“Dr. Lindstrom pulled me aside today,” she continues. “Told me I should take a leave. And I couldn’t even argue, because he’s right. I used to love being at the hospital. Now I can’t stand it. Everyone’s staring. Judgment. Gossip. I just…”
“Jo—” Shane starts.
She pulls her hands free from his. “No. Let me finish.”
Her voice tightens. “The truth is, even after we bonded, I kept pretending to be human. I never embraced being a nyra. I just lived like a lucky human girl who somehow landed true love with three amazing guys. Even when we had sex, I let you hold me. Please me. But I never let go. I never did things for you that I did for the human guys I dated.”
She swipes at her cheek, smearing a tear.
“You go down on me all the time, but I’ve never once given you a blowjob.
I made sure never to touch more than one cock at a time, because if I didn’t, I could keep pretending that I wasn’t really with three men at once.
No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t let myself be what I am. ”
She pauses, looking at each of us. Her lips part, trembling.
“And now that I’ve lost the human life I knew, I don’t know what to do with the nyra life I have left.
I need to figure it out. I need to figure myself out.
I need to fix things with my parents. I was so ashamed, I hid everything from them until I couldn’t anymore, and even then, I barely told them the truth.
I need to come clean, especially with myself. ”
“It’s okay, Jo,” I say, desperate. “We understand. We’d never blame you for needing time to adjust. Just do it here. With us.”
Her tears are spilling freely now, soaking the collar of her shirt. “I can’t,” she whispers. “I have to go. I should’ve done this three years ago when I signed up for the Matching Program, but I didn’t, so I need to do it now. I’m sorry.”
“No. You won’t leave,” I say, my voice harsh and final. I didn’t want to speak to her like this, but I can’t control it. She’s not leaving our house.
She looks into my eyes, and this time, there’s fear on her face. “You promised me. You promised you would never lock me up. That no matter what, you would never take away my freedom. And I believed you.”
The realization pierces through me like a knife. She’s right. I made that promise the day we met her, and I can’t break my word now, no matter how badly I want to.
She stands and grabs the handles of her bags. Her fingers slip for a second on one strap, then tighten again as she walks to the door.
“No!” Shane cries out, lunging forward, but Jay and I grab him, pin him, hold him back before he can stop her.
And then she’s gone. She closes the door behind her, and all three of us are crying, our chests humming loud and wild. Shane’s thrashing, fighting us. But deep down, even he knows that we can’t make her stay.
I don’t think any other aegis could watch their nyra walk out and let her go. But I don’t think any other nyra is like ours. So we have to be different, too.
I don’t know how many hours we stay in the living room, numb. Eventually, it’s dark outside, and we go out to run. We don’t stop until after one in the morning.
When we get home, we don’t sleep, despite the exhaustion. It’s not just that Jo isn’t here; we don’t even know where she is. Or if she’s safe.
I fight the urge to reach out, but when the sun rises, I lose the battle.
I know you want to be alone. You don’t have to tell me where you are. Just let me know you’re okay . I send to her.
I’m not expecting her to answer right away, but she does: I’m in Portland. I’m ok.
Relief and despair hit me at the same time. She’s safe. She managed to find a flight last night. She’s in the city she grew up in. She knows the place, has friends there, and her parents live there. But she’s also three thousand miles away, on the other side of the continent.
I show the texts to my brothers, and by their faces, they’re just as conflicted as I am.
We don’t make breakfast, like we did every morning for her. We just grab whatever we can and shove it down. A chunk of bread. A banana. Water.
It’s too early, but for the first time since we moved here, none of us want to be home, so we head to the unit.
The day crawls. At the end of the shift, Sergeant Wilsbone calls us in and says the Use-of-Force review is set for next Monday.
On the way home, we stop at the first restaurant we see and grab takeout, just like we used to do back in Greenster.
We don’t even check what kind of food it is.
Doesn’t matter. We’ve learned enough to cook a decent dinner by now, but none of us wants to cook.
That was something we always did with her.
We eat. Then we run.
When we come back, we head straight for the shower, then the nest. I sleep a little, but not enough to feel rested.
The next day, we repeat everything.
Just like we had a routine with Jo, now we fall into a new one. Text her. Eat whatever’s left in the kitchen. Head to work hours before our shift starts. Grind through a slow day. Choke down breakroom food. Grind again. Grab takeout on the way home. Eat. Run. Shower. Sleep.
When the weekend comes, it’s worse, because there’s no work to distract us and we’re stuck in the house. Everything still smells like her, but instead of helping me breathe, her scent tightens around my chest, like I’m drowning.
By Saturday we don’t have anything edible left in the house, so we go out for groceries. It’s a relief to be out, but it doesn’t last. Half an hour later, we’re back in the silence again. When it starts getting dark, we go run.
Sunday is the first time she says anything beyond where she is and that she’s okay.
Portland. I’m ok. You?
I want to say that I miss her so much it physically hurts. That the cold in my chest is unbearable. That I understand why she had to go: to fix things with her family, to figure out who she is. But still, she hurt me. And she’s still hurting all of us, shutting us out like this.