Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Fen
She is laughing.
Down the hallway. Three doors.
I stop pacing.
The room is quiet except for her voice. The bed. The dresser. The chair in the corner. Wood walls. Wood floor. Wood door.
The door is not locked.I know this because I have checked.
Twice.
The handle is cold under my hand.
The hallway is there. The kitchen is there. She is there.
The bond pulls.
Not hard. Not like before. Not the desperate clawing pull from the facility.
Just there. Waiting.
I tighten my grip on the handle.
Down the hallway, her laughter cuts off. Silence.
The bond shifts. She felt it. She knows where I am. She does not come. She does not call my name.
She waits.
The choice stays mine.
My forehead rests against the door.
One turn.
One inch.
Footsteps. Hallway side.
Pack.
I know the weight of them.
Alpha stops outside the door. Not opening it.
Just there.
"Fen."
The wanting rises hard enough to blur the room. I close my eyes.
"Brother."
The word hurts. I have not been brother in a long time.
"You're not in the cell Fen."
Wood. Window. Bed. Door.
Not cell.
The chair is in the corner. The wanting does not care. The wanting wants her.
I take my hand off the handle.
Slow.
The wanting follows me across the room.
The choice stays mine.
I look at the chair.
Blue paint. Wood.
Not her.
The chair is light in my hands.
I remember the corridor.
Brother carrying me.
Alpha standing.
Quiet sitting outside my door.
Pack. Safe. Alive.
The wanting twists. The chair comes down.
Wood cracks.
Again.
The leg snaps.
Again.
The seat breaks apart.
Again.
The back explodes into splinters.
The sound fills the room. I keep going until there is nothing left to hit.
Silence.
The chair is everywhere.
Splinters.
Breathing.
My knees hit the floor.
Silence.
Outside the door, Alpha speaks again.
"That's right, brother."
The words reach me through wood.
Not praise.
Recognition.
He knows what the chair was.
He knows what it wasn't.
"You hold it."
I close my eyes.
The wanting is still here.
The chair is gone.
The wanting is quieter.
For today, that is enough.
I pace.
Three steps.
Turn.
Three steps.