THIRTY-EIGHT
EWAN
The first sign I notice that Dakota isn’t fine is that she stops insulting everyone.
Well, not fully. I mean, she’s not dead.
It’s just enough that the air around her changes.
Usually, Dakota’s mouth is like a landmine loaded with spikes.
Someone steps wrong, and she snaps. Someone says something stupid, and she’ll strip away their dignity with a really scary level of skill.
Someone looks at her for a beat too long, and suddenly they’re being compared to wet cardboard or being called a failed government experiment.
But after meeting that bellend, Davis? She goes eerily quiet. And that’s way worse. I don’t even need to meet the fucker to know I already hate him, especially if Dakota has grown quiet enough that it actually scares me.
By the time I find her, she’s wedged herself into a narrow storage room off the old residential wing with one knee pulled up, one hand curled around the handle of her knife, and my headphones clamped over her ears like she’s trying to keep her skull together with padded plastic.
The room is barely a room, too. More of a cupboard with an impressive amount of ambition.
Shelves line one wall, stacked with old blankets, broken lanterns, batteries that may or may not work, and a box labeled HOLIDAY DECOR in black marker.
I mean, yeah, okay, I guess the apocalypse needs sad little Christmases.
Dakota sits on the floor under the lowest shelf, her hat on, bandana up, hair tucked away, and eyes open and far away.
My music is playing softly in her ears, and I only know because the wire trails from the headphones to the little player in her lap.
Same old song I always keep around because the beat is steady enough and the bass doesn't rattle my brain.
Nothing dramatic or anything. Definitely nothing with shouting.
Just a low, steady pulse, warm and consistent.
Her scent is all wrong, too. Not gone and definitely not buried enough.
Wild honey and rain leak through the blocker that lingers in her bloodstream and bleeds through the panic, thin as a light under a locked door.
Under it is something sharper. Metallic.
Fear. Rage wrangled so tightly that it’s gone completely quiet.
I stop in the doorway, but I don’t step into the room. I don’t crowd her, and I don’t turn myself into another wall.
“There you are,” I say, announcing myself.
Her eyes flick to mine without a flinch or greeting, which is fine. I still consider that progress.
I lift both hands in a show of surrender before telling her, “I want it on the record that I didn’t stalk you. I simply followed the smell of murderous feelings and it led me here.”
Nothing.
Then a single eyebrow twitches. Tiny. Beautiful.
There she is.
I lean against the doorframe and jerk my head toward her. “Also, you stole my headphones.”
Her fingers tighten on the player. “You abandoned them in the hallway.”
My lips twitch and an amused frown paints itself over my face. “I’ll have you know, I left them on a chair.”
She nods once. “I do recall the hallway having a chair.”
It’s a fight not to laugh, but I keep it contained, instead informing her, “Where I’m from, we call that theft, Tiny Terror.”
“Where I’m from, it’s called survival.”
“Pretty sure that’s pirate law. Can I start calling you Captain Jack?” I tease.
She raises her eyebrow higher, more noticeable now. “Depends. You gonna start crying about it?”
“Only a little,” I tell her seriously. “On the inside, at least. I’m actually trying to be very brave about it.”
The corners of her eyes tighten with something very close to amusement. It’s not enough, but it’s close, and I’ll take it.
Tapping two fingers against my own ear, I ask her, “Can you hear me all right?”
She nods once.
“Want me to leave?”
Her eyes drop then. It’s not a no, but it’s not a yes either. The knife in her hand shifts in her grip, though.
So, making my voice softer, I carefully push, “Kota?”
Her eyes come back to mine.
“Do you want me to leave?”
A beat passes, then she shakes her head.
Oh, thank god.
Something in my chest loosens, and so I crouch just outside the doorway, still not entering. “Can I come in and sit?”
She looks at the floor between us like it very well contains a trapdoor, but then she nods again. I step inside slowly, sitting with my back against the opposite wall to her, leaving a good few feet between us.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” I say, making a show of looking around. “Smells like dust and depression. Very posh. Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Her eyes flick to the box labeled HOLIDAY DECOR. “Are you judging my hideout?”
“Oh, fuck yeah,” I tell her honestly. “I used to live in a damp flat in Cardiff that had mushrooms growing in the bathroom and even I’m offended right now.”
“Mushrooms?”
“Mhm. One even had a name,” I tell her.
Her eyes narrow on me.
“What? Don’t give me that look,” I mutter. “Kev was actually a pretty sound guy.”
That does it. Not quite a laugh, but her eyes sharpen with something closer to herself. Her scent reaches me better in the cramped room, and bloody hell, it’s one hell of a task not to react to it.
Wild honey and rain.
An Omega scent mingled with distress, blockers, and the dull edges of arousal from whatever her body is trying to do under all the stress she’s feeling.
It’s not heat, or at least not properly.
More like a match dragged over stone. Like her body is looking for safety and doesn’t know what to do with the fact that she might have found some.
I keep my hands on my knees as I say, “So, that Davis guy, huh? What a walking sewage leak.”
Dakota blinks.
Then, after a weighted second, she says, “Wow. That’s actually offensive to sewage.”
“You know what, you’re so right,” I agree. “At least sewage has a purpose.”
Her shoulders move with the smallest breath, but it’s still not a laugh. More like a ghost wearing a laugh’s jacket. And maybe its hat. I take that one, too.
I nod at the headphones. “Want a different song?”
“No.”
“Want it louder?”
“No.”
“Want me to be quieter?”
Her pretty hazel eyes darkened by shadows come back to me. “Unfortunately, no.”
I press a hand to my chest dramatically. “Damn. Romance isn’t dead after all.”
This time, the sound she makes is almost a laugh. Then her eyes close too hard, as if the sound surprised her and she hates that it even came out to begin with.
I know that look all too well. To her, enjoyment is a betrayal. Pleasure is proof the world hasn’t actually hurt you enough yet.
I shift only a little. “You’re allowed, you know.”
Her eyes open and she peers over at me.
“To laugh,” I clarify. “To breathe. To want something that’s not survival and rations and a working lock.”
I catch her scent change again. Honey warms and rain turns into a downpour.
Her eyes drop to my mouth, but only for a second before she snatches her gaze away again.
My Alpha notices, though. I’m not even surprised that he does. He’s a bit of a primitive bastard with seriously god-awful timing. I push him down until he’s nothing but a quiet echo in the back of my head, watching and waiting without gnashing teeth or grabbing hands.
Outside the storage room, footsteps pass down the corridor. Voices follow, blurred by distance, and Dakota turns rigid. Her scent spikes, bright and sharp, and her fingers tighten around her knife.
I keep my voice low and steady. “Name five things you can hear.”
Her gaze snaps to me, irritated through the panic. Good. I’d rather have her irritated than absent.
“I’m not doing therapy homework,” she tells me.
“Okay. Good for you,” I volley. “So, name five things you hear, but be rude about it.”
Her eyes narrow as the footsteps fade, then she inhales once. A shaky sound I don’t focus on.
Then she says, “Your music.”
“One.”
“Your breathing.”
“Two.”
“Some asswad outside dragging his feet.”
“Three and, might I add, very accurate. Pick your feet up, am I right?” I sigh.
She doesn’t respond to that, simply continuing with her list. “The light buzzing.”
“Four.”
Her jaw works under the bandana, but I wait patiently. Her grip gradually loosens around her knife by a fraction, and then she finally says, “My own pulse.”
“Five.”
The room settles a little after that. Not safe, but safer. There’s a pretty big difference. Dakota’s fingers move to the player and the volume lowers. She doesn't turn it off completely, only drops the volume, then her eyes meet mine.
“Does it bother you?” she asks.
“What?”
“That I’m not…” she starts, right before her jaw tightens under the bandana. It takes a second for her to continue, but she does even though it looks like it costs her. “That I’m not soft about it.”
I frown. “About what?”
“This,” she says, her free hand gesturing vaguely between us, angry and awkward. “Wanting. Touching. Sex. Whatever. I don’t start spouting off poetry and shit. I don’t even know how to make any of this pretty.”
I stare at her, then I say, with every single ounce of sincerity in my poor Welsh soul, “Oh, thank god.”
She blinks.
“I can’t do pretty right now, Tiny,” I tell her, lips twitching. “We’re literally sitting on a cupboard floor right next to musty old blankets and a Christmas box full of despair. Pretty would be weird right now.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “You calling me weird?”
“Yeah,” I answer quickly.
“That’s brave.”
“That’s just a fancy word for stupid.”
That gets me something even closer to a laugh that time, and the sound suckers me right between the ribs. It’s not soft, and it’s not sweet. It’s devastating, and her eyes widen as if she just betrayed herself.
I don’t smile too quickly, and I certainly don’t pounce on it, but I do say, “There you are.”
The laugh dies, but the warmth lingers in her scent.
Honey.
Rain.
Something else opening under it.
Then she sets the knife on the floor between us. Not near me, and not away, but between. Both a boundary and an offering.
“Can I come closer?” she eventually asks.
Bloody hell.