Chapter Twelve #2
They stay wrapped around each other, watching me.
Not blinking much. I've seen that in deposition rooms — witnesses who've already decided that whatever happens next, they're not going to be separated.
The afternoon light catches them through the car window, and I see them.
Really see them. Their clothing is far too thin for this.
Their arms are marked from where the lines were.
Their wrists. I can't look at their wrists.
Something tightens hard in my chest and I shove it aside immediately. There's a version of this where I stand here processing it and a version where I get them inside before they collapse.
I want to wrap them in blankets. Feed them until they stop shaking. I want to fix this. Fix them, but they watch me like I'm the thing they need protecting from.
Sera appears beside me. Her scent mingles with mine in the small space near the car door, and I fight the urge to growl. She's just standing there. Someone familiar to them, maybe. Someone who isn't me.
I wait. Count heartbeats. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
“Whenever you're ready,” I say, the voice I use with spooked witnesses on the stand. “We're not going anywhere. It’s safe inside.”
Espie's eyes flick to the house, then back to me, then to Aubrey. Her fingers curl in his hair. He makes a small sound, not quite a word, and presses closer to her.
From the front door, quiet enough that it might not have been meant for me: “They don't know that yet.” Lex. His voice is even. Careful.
I know. God, I know.
Ezra's scent goes deliberately flat. He's muting himself, tamping down the fresh-linen alpha notes that might read as threat.
Lex moves to the front door and holds it open, letting them see the interior before they have to commit to entering it.
Lex, who understands that every choice needs to look like a choice.
Sera steps past me, and crouches beside the open car door. “Sweetheart.” Her voice goes somewhere I didn't expect it to go. Soft in a way that makes me feel like I've walked in on something private. “I’ll help you. Take my hand.”
She holds it out. Palm up. Waiting.
Espie stares at it. Her breathing goes shallow, her scent spiking. Sera doesn't move. Doesn't push. Just holds her hand there, open, unhurried, like she's done this before and knows that the only thing that works is waiting.
Seconds stretch. I count my heartbeats again. Twenty. Thirty. My jaw aches. I've locked my hands together behind my back. If I don't give them something to do they'll reach for her and that will end everything.
Espie looks at Sera's hand, then at Aubrey, then back at Sera's hand. Her lips move, whispering something too soft to hear. Aubrey's head turns. He looks at Sera too, really looks, his hazel-green eyes tracking her face with an awareness that still shocks me every time.
Espie's hand settles into Sera's. Small and trembling, but there.
“Good girl,” Sera breathes. “That's it. I've got you.”
She holds out her other hand toward Aubrey. Slow. Patient. The same open palm.
Aubrey looks at the offered hand. His gaze flicks to me, standing behind Sera, and he flinches. I step back. Give him space. Make myself as small as six-four and a head full of alpha pheromones allows.
Espie whispers something to him. Her lips brush his ear, her fingers squeezing his where they're still tangled together. Aubrey's throat bobs.
He puts his hand in Sera's.
Aubrey, reaching for someone. Aubrey, choosing contact. Aubrey, trusting an alpha enough to let her touch him, even if that alpha isn't me. Sera holds both their hands, kneeling on the driveway like she's praying. Her jaw trembles. I look at the fence.
Ezra appears at my shoulder. “She got through to them.” So quiet it barely makes it to me.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out like gravel. “She did.”
“Okay,” she says, her voice rough. “Let's get you inside.”
Espie uncurls from Aubrey slowly, and swings her legs out of the car. Her bare feet hit the driveway. Something in my sternum goes tight and mean. No shoes. I want to carry her. Want to scoop her up and bring her inside where it's warm.
She stands. Sways. Sera steadies her, and Espie grips her hand hard enough to shift Sera's knuckles.
“I've got you, Espie,” Aubrey whispers.
Lex makes a choked sound beside the front door.
Ezra covers his mouth with his hand. Four words.
Aubrey said four words. After months of nothing.
It's not me he said them to. He slides out of the car, one hand still in Sera's, the other finding Espie's.
His fingers close around hers like he's done it before, like some part of him already knows the shape of her hand.
That's okay. That has to be okay. He's back, and that's the only thing that matters right now.
They take a step. Then another. Espie's legs shake with each movement, her weight shifting to Aubrey every time her knee threatens to buckle. Aubrey's not much better, listing slightly to one side, but he keeps her upright and she keeps him moving.
The porch stairs are three steps. Espie stares at them like they're a mountain.
“You can do it,” Sera says softly, still holding Espie's hand. “Take your time.”
Espie doesn't look at her. Doesn't acknowledge any of us.
She lifts her foot, places it on the first step, and pulls Aubrey up behind her.
Second step. Third. The porch creaks under their combined weight, and they both freeze, scanning for danger that isn't there.
Lex stands motionless in the doorway, holding the door open.
Espie looks at the threshold. At the darkness beyond. At the house that smells like strangers and nothing familiar. She steps inside anyway.
Something shifts in my chest, low and animal and dumber than I'd like to admit, the moment her foot crosses into my space.
Mine. The word surfaces and I push it back down hard.
She's not mine, not yet, not in any way she's chosen.
She's an omega walking into a stranger's house with nowhere else to go.
I'm aware of the difference. I'm also aware that being aware of it isn't the same as feeling it.
Aubrey follows, their hands still locked together, and I trail behind them barely breathing.
“This way,” I say, guiding them toward the stairs. “We've got a room set up.”
A room. The nest room. The perfect sanctuary we'd designed for Aubrey months ago.
The nest room is on the third floor.
“Why the hell did we put it on the third floor?” Lex whispers beside me, his voice tight. “Should have been the first floor.”
He's right. We never imagined our Omega would be too weak to climb a flight of stairs.
“We'll move it,” I murmur back. “After. We'll figure it out.”
Espie looks at the staircase the way she looked at the porch steps. Like it's Everest. Like it might kill her.
“I can carry you,” I offer, voice soft. “Either of you. Both of you.”
Espie's eyes snap to mine. The fear in them hardens into defiance. Her jaw sets and she shakes her head once. She's going to climb under her own power.
I step back. “Okay. Whatever you want to do.”
The first stair costs her. Her thigh trembles, her grip on the banister turning her knuckles bloodless. Aubrey steps with her, his hand on her lower back, steadying her when she sways. His legs shake too. His breath comes in shallow pants I hear from where I stand at the bottom.
Three stairs. Four. Espie stops, head bowed, chest heaving.
“You're doing so well. Keep going,” Sera says from behind me. “Don't look up. Just take the next step. That’s all you have to do.”
Espie lifts her foot, places it on the next stair, and pulls herself up. Aubrey follows. Their clothes shift with each movement, too big, too loose, showing too much of the bones underneath.
I want to scoop them both up. Carry them somewhere warm, somewhere with food and nobody who'll hurt them. My hands curl into fists at my sides. I stay still.
Another step. Espie's legs buckle and Aubrey catches her, wrapping an arm around her waist, taking her weight against his side. They stand there for a long moment, breathing together. Then they keep climbing.
Twenty pain-filled minutes to climb two flights of stairs. I climb after them, Lex and Ezra and Sera trailing behind. By the time they reach the top both of them are shaking hard and I’m out of my damned mind. I don’t know how they’re still on their feet.
At least they can rest here. The nest room is at the end of the hall. I rush past them to the door.
Sera makes a choked sound. “No! Stop!”
It’s too late. I’ve already cracked the door open.
Espie's scent turns sharp, gardenia curdling to something sour and acidic.
Fear. Not the manageable kind. Beside her, Aubrey makes a sound.
Small. Wounded. The first vocal sound I've heard from him in weeks, and it's pain.
He tightens his grip on Espie's hand so hard his knuckles go white.
“Shit. Shit! I’m sorry! I… thought this would be different.” I slam the door shut. Fuck, I’m such an idiot. I’ll berate myself later, try to salvage the situation. “Not here. That's fine. There’s a bedroom. Come with me.”
I take them down the hall to the spare room. The one nobody uses. Plain queen bed, beige walls. It's a guest room. Generic. Forgettable.
The omegas shake as they enter, but they enter. I stay by the door. So does Ezra. So does Lex. Sera slips in behind us and presses her back to the wall, arms crossed, every line of her body taut with the same restraint I'm fighting.
The room smells like nothing. Dust. Faint staleness. No pack-scent. No Alpha-scent. Nothing designed to comfort. Espie's shoulders drop half an inch. Aubrey's death-grip on her hand loosens slightly. The sharp edges of their fear-scent dull, gardenia going soft again, cedar losing its bite.
The nothing is working where the something failed.
Then Espie looks up. Her violet eyes track my position in the doorway, measuring distance. Her gaze lands on me and stays, the kind of look that takes inventory. She's terrified of me.
Aubrey looks up too. His hazel-green eyes find mine. Lost and terrified and everything I don’t want to see reflected in eyes that have seen the worst. He looks at me like I'm the thing that's going to hurt him.
I put space between us, make myself smaller. Slow movements. I keep backing up until I'm in the hallway. Ezra and Lex follow. Sera slips out last. Her eyes are wet and she drops her gaze to floor and neither of us says anything about it.
“Come here, Espie,” Aubrey whispers. Barely audible.
He pulls the duvet off, and drags it to the corner behind the bed, out of direct sightline from the door. The corner furthest from us. He's moving. He's deciding. He looks at a space and thinks that's where I want to be and makes it happen.
There was nobody home behind his eyes. He was there but he wasn't, a body going through the motions of existing, and all of us learned to work around the absence like you learn to work around a missing step. Now he's rearranging furniture. Now he's building something. Now he's here.
I press the heel of my hand against the doorframe and hold on. Six months. Every morning I told myself today might be the day and every evening I told myself tomorrow. Now it's today and he's in there and I'm out here and I have absolutely no idea what the next step is.
He arranges the duvet on the floor. Espie joins him, and together they adjust the duvet until something about it finally feels right. They settle into the corner and curl around each other.
Everything I know says this is wrong. They need warmth, comfort. They need alpha scent and soft materials and the feeling of being protected.
These omegas are hiding in a corner with a single duvet. As far from the door as they can get. As far from us. So much for the research.
“We should give them space.” Ezra's voice is destroyed.
“I know.” I don't move.
“Kev.” Lex's hand lands on my shoulder. “Come on.”
“He's back. They’re here.” Ezra's voice cracks on the last word. “That's what matters. We’ll check on them in thirty minutes.”
“Yeah.” I don't know if I believe it yet. “Yeah, okay.”
I make myself turn. Make myself walk away. Hardest thing I've ever done, and I've done some hard things. At the threshold, I stop and look back.
Aubrey strokes Espie's hair. Slow. Gentle. Like she matters. She shifts closer to him, making a small sound that's half whimper and half purr, and he hardens his arm around her.
The sound hits me low in the gut and stays there.
They fit.
They just fit.
And I'm standing on the wrong side of the door.