42. Sloane
Sloane
Callie falls asleep against me before she finishes her coffee.
She’s curled into my side on the living room couch, one leg folded beneath her and her cheek pressed to my chest. Her fingers remain loosely hooked in the fabric of my shirt, and the bond between us carries the heavy warmth of exhaustion without any of the distance that used to sit beneath it.
Theo is stretched along the other end of the couch with his head in Idris' lap. His spike eased hours ago, but his skin is still warm, and he has dragged two blankets over himself despite leaving one bare foot resting against Callie’s thigh.
Idris moves his fingers slowly through Theo’s hair while Dash sits in the armchair with a book open across his knee, close enough that Callie could reach him without getting up.
My phone vibrates beside me. I ignore it long enough to kiss the top of Callie’s head, but the second message comes less than a minute later.
Found the access point. Need you here. Not safe to send over the house network.
Kade would not ask me to come in unless the information mattered. After Garrett’s campus stunt, anything he refuses to transmit needs to be seen before another part of the trail disappears.
I glance toward Idris, but his attention is on Theo, who has begun shifting restlessly beneath the blankets. Dash looks up from his book when I move, his eyes dropping to Callie’s sleeping face before returning to mine.
“Kade found something,” I tell him quietly. “He wants me at the office.”
Dash closes the book around one finger. “Are you waking her?”
Callie makes a small sound when I slide my arm from behind her. Her fingers tighten in my shirt, and I pause until the tension leaves them again.
“She barely slept after yesterday and Theo’s spike,” I say. “I will be back before she wakes.”
Dash’s gaze holds mine for another second. He does not tell me what to do, and I let that make the decision feel safer than it is.
I ease a pillow into the space I leave and pull the blanket over Callie’s hip. Before I stand, I press my mouth to her hair and touch the band paired with her bracelet.
The light will tell her I am thinking about her. I convince myself that it is enough because I only intend to be gone for half an hour.
Kade is waiting in the conference room when I reach the temporary Rourke office. A laptop sits open beside printed access logs, and he turns the screen toward me before I finish removing my coat.
“Garrett did not find out about Zana’s meeting by watching the campus,” he says. “He used an old Crane and Vale client-notification system to pull Callie’s calendar.”
The screen shows the time of the request, the meeting location, and the names attached to the invitation. The login came from an assistant’s account, but the network address beneath it belongs to Garrett’s house.
“He used someone else’s credentials,” I say, leaning closer to read the log.
“Either they gave them to him or he took them.” Kade slides a second page across the table. “The same account accessed three old pack-transition files. Zana already flagged two of them because the Betas disappeared from the records after an Omega joined.”
The names mean nothing to me, but the pattern does. Garrett did not invent what he did to Callie in one desperate moment. He had used the same systems before, testing how much authority people would accept if he placed the right seal above it.
Kade opens another file and shows me the preserved source information. “We can tie the campus access to his home network, and Zana can use the older files to show this was not an isolated act.”
My phone vibrates against the table at the same moment the bond tightens beneath my ribs. The first change is small enough that I nearly dismiss it as Callie waking, but the pressure sharpens while Dash’s name appears on my screen.
I answer with my eyes still on the login record. “What happened?”
“Where are you?” Dash asks.
His voice is too controlled. I straighten and look toward the conference-room door, suddenly aware of how far away from the house I am.
“With Kade. I told you I was coming here.” I gather the printed pages even though I no longer care about taking them myself. “He found the account Garrett used to access Callie’s calendar.”
“Callie woke up,” Dash says. I hear movement behind him, followed by Theo’s quieter voice somewhere nearby. “She knows you touched the band. She does not know where you went.”
The bond opens enough for her fear to reach me.
It isn't loud. Callie is trying to contain it, holding herself still while her body searches for the moment everything changed without her. That effort hurts worse than panic would have because I know she is already wondering whether reacting makes her unfair.
I push back from the table so quickly that the chair strikes the wall. “I am coming home.”
Kade closes the laptop and takes the papers from my hand. “Go. I will send the verified chain through Zana’s protected channel.”
He tells me they have enough to connect Garrett’s home network to the campus confrontation, but I am already reaching for the door.
The evidence matters, and I will spend as long as necessary tracing every person Garrett has hurt, but Callie’s at home believing my silence might mean more than the errand I chose not to explain.
The drive takes eleven minutes. I touch the paired band at every red light, hating that the light can tell her I am alive without answering the question I should never have left her to ask.
Dash opens the door before I reach it.
Callie stands beside the living room couch in one of Dash’s sweaters and the soft pants she slept in. Her coffee remains untouched on the table, and Theo sits close enough to hold her wrist between both hands. Idris is beside them with one palm resting at the small of her back.
Callie looks at me, and the relief that crosses her face is followed so quickly by hurt that my chest tightens around it.
I stop inside the doorway instead of rushing toward her. My keys are still in my hand, and I set them on the table before saying, “I should have woken you.”
“I knew you were coming back.” Her voice is soft and unsteady, and she glances down at the bracelet between Theo’s hands. “Your light came on, but I did not know where you were.”
“I went to Kade’s office. He found the account Garrett used to get the information about Zana’s meeting.” I move closer without reaching for her. “I told Dash and decided that was enough because you were asleep.”
Callie presses her lips together. Theo rubs his thumb across the inside of her wrist while Idris remains silent, keeping his hand against her without speaking for her.
“I woke up, and you were gone again,” she says. “Everyone was here, and I could see the light, but I kept wondering whether something had changed while I was asleep.”
The bond gives me the rest. A locked door, an officer on a porch, and a voice wearing mine while it tells her that loving her has become too inconvenient to continue.
“I chose not to send the message,” I say. “I told myself I’d be back before the silence could hurt you.”
Her eyes fill, though she does not look away. “You promised.”
“I know.” The words scrape through me. “I broke the promise the first time I had to prove I meant it.”
Callie lifts one hand toward me, and I cross the remaining space before she has to reach farther. I gather her against my chest and bury my face in her hair, holding her while her fingers twist into the back of my shirt.
“I don't know why I can't get over it,” she whispers.
“Because for three months you thought I left you.” I press my mouth against her temple, feeling her shake against me. “You thought I had chosen to stay gone, and today I left without telling you where I was.”
“I knew you were not leaving me.”
“Your mind knew.” I cup the back of her head and hold her closer. “Your body woke up without me and had to decide what that meant before I gave you the truth.”
Her breath catches, and I feel the bond loosen just enough for the fear to move instead of staying trapped inside her.
“I don't want everyone reporting to me,” she says. “I don't want you waking me every time you walk out of a room.”
“Telling you I am leaving the house isn't reporting to you.” I lean back far enough to see her face and wipe beneath one eye with my thumb. “It is what I should do because we share a life.”
Callie’s gaze searches mine. I keep my hands on her without tightening them, giving her room to step away if anger needs more space than my arms allow.
“I knew the rule,” I tell her. “I decided sleep mattered more than letting you know where I was, and I made that decision for you. Then I got distracted and left you with a light that could not answer any of your questions.”
“You can't promise you will never leave the house.”
“I am not promising that.” I press my forehead to hers and breathe her in. “I am promising I will not vanish. I will tell you where I am going, and if you are asleep, I will wake you. You will know how to reach me, and I will answer.”
Her hands flatten against my chest. The hurt remains in her eyes, joined now by anger that she is finally letting me see.
“I am angry with you.”
“You should be.” I kiss her hair, then wait until she turns her face toward mine before touching my mouth to her cheek. “You don't have to make it smaller because I came back.”
“I hate that it frightened me.”
“I hate that I frightened you.” My voice breaks against the admission, and I hold her without asking her to comfort me. “I will make mistakes again, baby, but I will not let silence be the thing that hurts you. I will come back, answer you, and tell you the truth.”
Callie leans against me for another long moment. Theo keeps one hand on her hip, and Idris' palm remains warm against her back, so when we move toward the couch, the shape around her changes without breaking.
She sits between Theo and me. Idris stays on Theo’s other side, and Dash lowers himself into the armchair again, though his attention remains on us instead of the book in his lap.
Kade already has everything he needs to preserve the access trail, but I left before telling him how I wanted the follow-up handled. I take out my phone without moving away from Callie.
“I need to tell Kade to send the verified chain directly to Zana and hold the rest until tomorrow,” I say. “I can make that call from here. It will take two minutes.”
Callie looks at the screen, then at me. “Here?”
“Right here.” I keep one arm around her and check my phone. Kade’s confirmation is already waiting: the verified chain has been sent through Zana’s protected channel, exactly as he promised before I left. I show Callie the screen instead of making another call.