6. Theo #2
The words should make me feel stronger. Instead, they make me need to hide.
I’m tired of being looked at by people who want something from my body: heat, proof, calm, fear, answers.
I’m tired of every room asking me to decide which Alpha is safe while my skin still remembers being too hot, then too cold, then empty where Callie should’ve been.
I slide away from them slowly, and both of them let me, though Sloane’s hand follows mine until our fingers separate.
“I need the bathroom,” I say, because it’s easier than explaining that the bedroom is too big now.
Idris stands. “I’ll come with you.”
“Can I go by myself?” I ask it quietly, and his face changes before he nods. I know he doesn’t want to. I know Sloane doesn’t either. But I need one door that closes because I asked it to, and they both understand that without making me say it.
I take the folded throw from the foot of the bed because the hallway feels cold.
Sloane watches me wrap it around my shoulders, his hands curled into fists on his thighs to keep from reaching.
I pause at the door and look back because I can’t bear what his face does when I leave, even for a bathroom ten steps away.
“I’m coming back,” I tell him.
His mouth trembles. “Okay.”
The hallway is quiet as I pass the chair near the bedroom door, and keep walking to the bathroom Idris uses when he doesn’t want to wake anyone at night.
It has a deep tub and a narrow linen closet, and after I lock the door, I sit on the folded bath mat inside the closet because the shelves make a small wall on one side and the door makes a wall on the other.
It smells like clean towels and Idris’ soap.
It smells like no one asking me to prove my own fear.
I pull the blanket around me and breathe until my pulse stops trying to outrun my body.
Callie would sit on the bathroom floor with me if she were here.
She wouldn’t make it strange. She’d bring a glass of water and lean against the cabinet, talking about something small until my body remembered small things existed.
She’d tell me I didn’t have to be brave in every room.
She’d say it like she meant herself too, even though she never believed it as much as she wanted me to.
I press my fist against it and try to purr for myself, but the sound won’t come. It only comes for the Alphas, for rooms getting loud, for people I love tearing themselves apart. For me, there is nothing but breath and the soft cotton of Sloane’s blanket against my mouth.
Something vibrates near my knee. I jerk so hard my shoulder hits the shelf.
For one panicked second, I think it’s my body making the sound, another medical thing going wrong under my skin.
Then the vibration comes again, muffled inside the blanket I dragged around myself.
I fumble through the folds, fingers clumsy, and pull out a phone.
It isn’t mine. The case is black leather, smooth and expensive, with a small silver mark near the corner. It smells faintly of cold mint and polished leather. Garrett’s phone sits in my palm, warm from being trapped in the blanket, screen lit bright enough to hurt my eyes.
My first thought is that I should give it back.
I’m sitting in a linen closet wrapped in Sloane’s blanket, and some trained part of me still thinks the safest thing is returning Garrett’s property before he notices.
My thumb hovers over the side button. I’m going to turn it off, climb out of the linen closet, and leave it on the bathroom counter. Then I’m going to call Idris.
Then Callie’s name appears on the screen.
The phone isn’t locked. It’s open to a message thread, the cursor blinking in an empty text box beneath words that make no sense at first because my mind refuses to put them together.
At the top, it says Calliope Monroe. Under that, a chain of messages scrolls in gray and blue, some from Callie, some from a name that makes my stomach turn over so hard I gag.
Theo Star Mehra.
My name.
My picture, the formal Bellwether one I hate, the one where I’m wearing the pale sweater they gave me because they said soft colors read more approachable to prospective packs. My name is at the top of messages I never wrote.
I need space from Callie during the heat. She keeps confusing me. Please tell her not to come back until I’m stable. I don’t want her in the nest if she makes the Alphas fight.
The closet tilts around me. I make a sound, but it stays trapped behind my teeth. My thumb moves without permission, dragging the thread up, and there is Callie, or something pretending to be Callie, answering with words that look like she was bleeding when she typed them.
I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me there. Please tell Theo I love him. I won’t interfere. I only wanted to help.
My lungs stop working. I didn’t say those things.
I didn’t say any of them. I called for her until my throat tore raw.
I asked Sloane to bring her back. I told Garrett I wanted her.
I wanted Callie in the nest, in the house, in every place my body knew how to want.
Someone put my name on the knife and handed it to her.