Chapter 16 #2
We make it to the sidewalk before Luther tries to speak, but I shake my head and keep walking. "Not yet. I'm still angry enough that if you apologize too soon, I'll think you're trying to end the conversation before it gets honest."
Luther doesn't answer immediately. He matches my pace instead, which is probably its own kind of apology.
We pass the neighbor's hedges, trimmed too neatly, frost catching on every tiny leaf.
My toes are already cold. My pulse is faster than it was inside, but not bad yet.
Manageable. I can feel Maceo noticing even though I don't say it.
At the corner, I slow because the cold's starting to burn in my lungs and because I don't actually want to pass out in front of them after making a point out of walking. Luther's hand hovers near my elbow but doesn't touch. That restraint makes my throat ache.
"This is the pattern," I say, staring at the empty street instead of either of them.
"Something hurts, and we all decide not to be the person who makes it worse.
Luca hides fear because he thinks I'll break.
I hide my body because Luther looks at me like I'm a number he can't correct.
Luther hides fear because he thinks being Alpha means being the last stable thing in the room.
Maceo hides everything because silence looks useful.
Grayson smiles and carries half the house until he looks like he's going to fold in the pantry. "
Neither of them interrupts, and I need that more than I want to admit.
"The bond carries it anyway. That's the part none of us seems to learn.
We can hide the details, but we can't hide the shape of the fear.
Luca feels something and doesn't know what it is, so he makes it worse in his head.
I feel Luther go still and decide the company's collapsing, so I work harder.
Grayson feels everyone tense and starts making tea and finding blankets because he doesn't know where else to put his hands.
You think you're protecting us by keeping the worst part unsaid, but all you're doing is making everyone lonely with the same fear. "
Luther looks down at the pavement. His breath comes out white in the dark.
For a moment, I think he'll reach for the version of himself that knows how to answer rooms, boards, rivals, and old-guard Alphas with too much money and not enough shame.
He doesn't. He puts one hand on the back of his neck and stands there looking tired and enormous and scared.
"I don't know how to watch you hurt," he says finally.
The sentence sounds pulled out of him, not polished, not arranged for my benefit.
"I can handle enemies. I can handle contracts.
I can handle men like Victor because men like Victor usually think they're more complicated than they are.
But I don't know how to stand in a room and watch your body fail you while you tell me it's fine.
I lose the shape of what's right. I start trying to control everything around you because I can't control that. "
The anger in me shifts. It doesn't disappear. It shouldn't. But it changes enough that I can look at him.
"I know. That's why I need you to stop doing it in the dark.
" My voice roughens there, and I let it because he needs to hear what this costs too.
"If you're terrified, tell me you're terrified.
Don't turn it into a document review with Maceo at midnight and then kiss my forehead in the morning like nothing's sitting under your tongue. "
Maceo's quiet long enough that I have to turn toward him. He's watching the end of the street, but I know he's not avoiding me. He's finding the exact size of the truth before he gives it to me.
"Silence has always been the cleanest way for me to protect people," he says.
"Not the healthiest way. Not always the kindest. Just the cleanest. In court, you don't give opposing counsel what they can use.
In my family, you didn't speak first if speaking gave someone a target.
In the life I had before this pack, needing less made me safer to keep around.
" His mouth tightens, and then he looks at me fully.
"I know that doesn't work here the way I want it to.
I know silence can look like steadiness when really I'm just keeping everyone from knowing what I'm afraid of. "
The cold gets under my collar. I tuck my hands deeper into my coat pockets and hate that they're shaking anyway.
"When you go quiet, I start guessing," I say. "I can fill in a lot of blanks, and when I'm scared, I don't fill them in kindly."
Maceo's expression shifts, barely. He understands that more than he wants to. "I know."
"I need you to do more than know." I look between both of them, making myself hold their eyes even though the cold's starting to make my jaw ache. "I need new rules, because the old ones aren't working."
Luther steps closer, but still doesn't touch. "Tell us."
I take a breath, and this one pulls at the center of my chest. Maceo notices.
Luther notices. I hold up one hand before either of them can turn the look into movement.
"First, you don't hide fear from me when that fear changes the way you treat the rest of us.
I don't mean every passing worry or every thought you have at three in the morning.
But if you're scared enough to make plans around my body, Luca's fear, Grayson's exhaustion, or the company, then I'm part of the conversation.
Not after you decide what I can survive hearing. "
Luther nods once. His jaw's tight, but he doesn't argue. "Yes."
Maceo's answer comes slower, not because he disagrees, but because he means it. "Yes."
"Second." My throat works around this one because it gives them something too, and I hate giving up the hiding place even while I'm demanding they abandon theirs.
"I tell you when my body's failing. Not when it's convenient.
Not after the meeting. Not once I've cleaned up the information and made it sound less embarrassing.
If my pulse is wrong, if my chest hurts, if I skip medication, if I can't focus my eyes, I say it before my body has to say it for me. "
Luther's eyes close briefly.
Maceo looks away toward the street, and for a second all I can see is how tired he is of being ready to catch bad news. "I need that one," he says.
"I know."
"No, Blake." His voice is still low, but there's a roughness under it now. "I need it. I can stay calm through most things if I know what I'm dealing with. When you hide it, I'm not protecting you. I'm chasing symptoms after they've already hurt you."
That lands with more force than I expect. I nod because I don't trust myself with more than that.
Luther reaches for me then, slow enough that I can refuse. I let him take my hand out of my pocket. His palm's warm around my cold fingers, his thumb passing once over my wedding ring where the metal's gone cold. The contact makes me aware of how much I'm shivering.
"Did you take the night dose?" Maceo asks.
I go still.
Luther's head turns toward me. "Blake."
"It wasn't intentional." The defense comes too quickly, which doesn't help my case. "I fell asleep with Luca and the kids. I woke up because you two were gone, and then I heard you talking. I forgot."
Maceo's mouth tightens. Not with anger exactly. With the kind of control he uses when anger would make him less useful. "How late is it?"
"Late enough that you're going to make that face."
Luther releases a slow breath through his nose. "Blake."
"I know." The words feel smaller now, and that irritates me because I'm still angry and don't want to be wrong in the middle of being right.
"I know, okay? That's part of the point I'm trying to make.
If I'm agreeing to tell you when my body's failing, then you don't get to whisper about the fact that it's failing while I accidentally miss the medication that's supposed to keep it from failing. "
Maceo pulls his phone out of his coat pocket. "We're turning around."
I look at him.
He doesn't soften. "You're cold, you're underdressed, and you missed your medication. The conversation can keep moving toward the house."
Luther's already taking off his coat. I open my mouth, but he only drapes it over my shoulders on top of mine, wrapping it around me with hands that are firm and careful at the same time.
"This isn't me ending the conversation," he says near my ear.
"This is me listening to the part where you said your body matters before your body has to make the point for you. "
That makes it very difficult to argue without making myself look like an idiot. I settle for glaring at both of them and turning back toward the house.
The walk back's slower. Luther keeps his arm around my waist, not enough to carry me but enough that I can lean into him if I need to.
Maceo stays on my other side, phone in hand now, probably checking the timing window for the medication because of course he's got that information somewhere.
I'm cold enough that my anger's become quieter, not gone, but folded close under the coat and the embarrassment of knowing they're right about the medicine.
"The third rule's Grayson," I say after a minute, because I want the words said before the house takes over again.
Both of them go still in that subtle way they do when something lands.
"His cheerful exhaustion counts as pain," I continue. "Even when he smiles. Especially when he smiles and answers before anyone asks. If Grayson's carrying every cup, every kid, every feeling in the room, we stop him before he makes it look sweet enough to ignore."
Luther's hand tightens at my waist. "I saw it earlier. In the hall. In the kitchen. I saw it and still let him keep moving because everything else was louder."
"We all do that," Maceo says, and there's no defense in it. "He makes care look like motion. If he's moving, we assume he's coping."