THIRTY-FIVE
DAKOTA
The medics stitch Maine up while I’m sitting on the floor.
No one tells me to move. Smart. Maybe the room has finally developed pattern recognition or something.
The red-haired medic works with the same expression of a woman who had the balls to threaten death today and meant it at least twice.
Ellis, I think someone called her. She kneels next to Maine with gauze, clamps, thread, and the kind of calm that probably makes grown men confess things just to fill the silence.
Maine lets her work.
Mostly.
His hands stay locked tightly around mine, but not tight enough to hurt. It’s just tight enough that I know he’s real, and that’s somehow worse.
Ghosts have manners, you know? They haunt from a distance. They don’t bleed all over your fingers or flinch when someone cleans torn skin near their ribs. They don’t squeeze your hand like they’re making sure you haven’t disappeared while they blinked.
Maine is actually fucking awful at being dead.
Honestly, very selfish of him.
His hat sits between us on the tile, damp and bent, the brim now stained with old dirt and fresh blood.
My bandana hangs loose around my neck now, rendered completely useless as a secret.
My hair is out, my face is bare to all, and my scent has been cracked right open enough that every Alpha in the room has gone unnaturally stiff.
Let ’em.
Let Hale write his little report about it in his little commander brain. I’m done being smaller for other people’s comfort. Well, for the next seventeen seconds, at least. Then I’ll probably remember that walls exist and then panic in very creative and fun ways.
Ellis pulls another stitch through Maine’s side and the big pansy hisses through his teeth. My fingers tighten, and so do his.
“I need him still,” Ellis instructs without looking up.
“Sure. I’ll just pass that along to his personality. I’ll let you know its response,” I tell her.
Maine makes a sound. Not a laugh. Not quite. It cuts off fast, swallowed harshly by pain, and I stare at his face because looking away feels a little too dangerous right now. Like if I stop watching, the universe will realize it made a cosmic error and correct itself.
He’s older.
I can’t stop noticing it.
Every single time I find something familiar, something else comes in and ruins it.
Same scar through his left eyebrow, but there’s a new scar that crosses his jaw.
Same gray eyes, but new shadows under them.
Same pale hair, but now cut unevenly and longer and dirtier.
Not Maine’s hair, except it is. I mean, it’s attached to his head, after all.
He’s my brother and not my brother at the same time.
Alive, but still six years gone.
Both things sit heavily on my chest, wielding a spike-filled baseball bat.
“I need to close the deeper tear,” Ellis explains. “Then he needs fluids, antibiotics, and rest.”
Maine’s mouth twitches. “I’m fine.”
I stare at him.
Ellis stares at him.
The dust particles floating through the air stare at him.
Mercer, from somewhere near the door, sighs as if the entire male population has personally disappointed him.
Maine looks at me, then at Ellis. Then corrects himself like an idiot. “I’m fine-adjacent.”
I actually hate that I almost smile. I hate him for still knowing where the hiding spot for those things might live in me.
Ellis finishes the stitch without a response and reaches for fresh gauze. Then she says, “Everyone not medically useful can get out.”
Hale stiffens. “This is a security matter.”
Ellis doesn’t even bother to look at him. “Then secure yourself outside.”
Ewan makes yet another tiny sound near the door, but I don’t turn. If I look at him, I might actually laugh. Or cry. Or fucking explode. Honestly, all three feel possible at this point in time. A horrible little buffet of conflicting emotions and bottled grief with nowhere else to go.
Valeria mutters something to Hale. Fletcher doesn’t utter a word, but I feel him standing between us and the room like a wall that has learned the ancient art of restraint.
Xeon is quieter than the medical equipment in the room with us.
Kaito is close to the door too, close enough that his burning wood and worn flannel scent threads faintly under the blood, antiseptic, and the fresh-cut grass that keeps trying to ruin me.
Maine’s eyes flick that way. Not suspicious, just careful. Like protective instincts trying to stand up on broken legs.
“Don’t,” I say.
His gaze comes back to me, but I don’t even know what I mean.
Don’t ask.
Don’t Alpha-posture while currently horizontal and leaking like an idiot.
Don’t act like you still know how my life looks.
Don’t look at them like they’re the danger when you’re the one that left a hole so big I built an entire person inside it.
Maine swallows, his throat working around whatever hell answer he decides not to give.
Good.
Bad?
I don’t know, I just hate the silence. But I also live there.
Ellis tapes gauze over his ribs before finally leaning back. “There. You rip those, and I’ll staple them again, but I’ll be very rude about it.”
Maine blinks.
I look at her before deciding, “I like you.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” she says before standing and stripping off her bloody latex gloves. “Ten minutes. Then I need to check on him again. If he gets dizzy, pale, feverish, or stupid, give me a call.”
“He’s already stupid,” I comment.
I’m sure her lips twitch, but the movement disappears fast enough that I could be mistaken.
“Then monitor for changes.”
Maine lets out another almost-laugh, and this one hurts so much I almost drop his hand. Because I remember that sound. Not exactly, and not perfectly, but enough.
Ellis herds everyone back with the force of a woman who is fresh out of patience for anything with a structure of command.
Hale tries to resist until Valeria snaps his name sharply.
Mercer lingers for only a moment, his eyes moving from Maine to me.
There’s guilt plastered over his face, but I don’t want it. Not from him. Not from anyone.
“We’ll be right outside,” he says.
I don’t answer, leaving the door to close after him.
Well, not fully. Fletcher doesn’t let it shut completely. He leaves it cracked open, the angle perfect for space without the abandonment. Of course he does, the annoying man.
Maine notices that too, and quietly asks, “They yours?”
I look at him and his mouth tightens.
“Sorry,” he says. “That was bad wording.”
“Catastrophic wording,” I agree.
“Yeah.”
Silence grows between us, but not an empty one. Oh no. It’s packed. It’s practically overflowing with all the words we haven’t spoken yet. Hell, it’s a hoarder room of every single word we can’t even lift yet.
Maine looks at my hand in his. He looks at my chipped black nails, and his thumb brushes the side of my index finger once, barely even there.
“I used to do them better,” he says, and my throat tries to choke off my air supply.
“Your technique was average at best.”
“Ouch. I was an artist and you know it.”
I pause. “You painted half of my skin.”
“You moved.”
“I was twelve,” I remind him.
“You were a menace,” he counters.
I breathe in and it rattles. He hears it and his face breaks a little. Mine probably does the same, but I refuse to check.
Instead, I bluntly mutter, “You left.”
There it is. Nothing dramatic, not some elaborate build-up, and no careful doorway to step through. Just the shitty floor finally giving way after rotting for six years.
Maine’s hand goes still around mine. “I did.”
“You said two days.”
His eyes close.
“Three max,” I add, because I’m apparently the kind of person who keeps mental receipts even in an apocalypse.
“I know,” he says.
“No,” I counter, and his eyes open. The word comes out sharper than I meant it to, but not as sharp as he deserves. “No, you don’t know. You don’t even get to know it just because you remember saying it.”
Pain flashes through his face. It’s physical at first, and then it becomes something worse.
“I went for blockers,” he reminds me.
“I know.”
“And food. Mom’s meds.”
“I know.”
“I made it six blocks before the south road collapsed. Zeds came through the market. I got trapped in the pharmacy storage room for two days,” he explains.
My heart does something stupid but I don’t let my face follow.
“When I got out, the streets between us were completely gone. Fire took half the block. There were military trucks, then raiders, and then a sweep team from a compound that wasn’t this one,” he adds. “I tried to get back.”
The taste of metal fills my mouth, and I almost choke on the words as I ask, “How long?”
He already knows what I’m asking. Of course he does, because his eyes fall to our hands before he answers. “Nine days before I finally reached the townhouse again.”
The air in the room thins and the walls feel like they fall away.
Nine days.
Mom died the very next morning.
Nine days means he came back after.
Nine days means he saw.
Something in my face must change, because Maine’s grip turns desperate for one second before he forces himself to loosen it.
“Kota,” he whispers.
“What did you find?” I ask flatly.
He looks like he’d rather split open his stitches himself than answer that question.
Good.
“What did you find, Maine?” I press.
His voice grows hoarse as he finally answers, “The door broken. Blood in the hall. The bathroom…”
I stop breathing.
He stops talking.
The bathroom seems to sit between us. White tile. Rope. Snapping teeth. My mother’s face turned wrong in a way grief couldn’t even explain. My knife shaking so hard that I almost dropped it twice.
Maine’s eyes shine again.
“I thought you were dead,” he rasps. “There was so much blood.”
“It wasn’t mine,” I tell him bluntly.
“I know that now.”
“You didn’t know that then.”
“No.”
“You saw the bathroom and left?” I ask, and he flinches.
I want to be glad for it, but I’m not.
“I searched the house,” he tells me. “The neighbors’ house. The back alley. The school shelter. I found your knife mark on the kitchen doorframe.”