Chapter 17
brYLEE
The phone rings. And rings.
It hasn’t rung for this long since I was twelve years old and had a crush on Robby Colwing—the cutest alpha in class with hair that hung down over his eyes like a Bearded Collie—and I called him to tell him I liked him.
Those rings had felt interminable. So long that I’d chickened out and hung up the phone the second he’d answered.
But now the ringing feels endless for an entirely different reason.
“Pick up, Caran,” I say under my breath, Luka’s phone pressed to my ear as I pace back and forth beneath the television in Ridge’s room.
Images flash across the screen for a new brand of fabric softener, but Kylian grabs the remote and mutes the sound so I can make my calls.
I send him a grateful look, and he shoots a wink back at me.
But the anxiety doesn’t disperse. Instead, it flares, my heartbeat pounding so hard I can feel it in my ears.
Where is Teddie?
I dig the nails of my free hand into my thumb one after the other, picturing the last time I saw him. Then worse times.
What if he’s having a bad day? A day when the smudges beneath his eyes seem to creep into his expression and turn him listless. What if his breathing is doing poorly? His heart?
Colter said that soldiers were sent right to their apartment to protect them after I was taken. But could the shock of that alone have done damage? I imagine soldiers bursting into Caran and Teddie’s apartment, and my brother slumping back on their oversized couch, clutching at his chest.
The need to know how he’s doing thrums through me almost as powerfully as the need to be with my mates.
Caran’s voicemail message starts up, and I shove my hand against my forehead, a stress migraine threatening. Maybe I should text him…
But I leave the voice message just in case, traveling the length of the room twice as I do.
“Hey, it’s Brylee. You can call me at this number. It belongs to Luka. I just wanted to let you know I’m okay and check in on you and Teddie.”
Ending the call, I shoot Caran a text with the same information. I wait a minute, staring at the screen, but the force of my will doesn’t manifest a little bubble popping up to tell me he’s texting back.
Dammit.
I take a deep breath and make the next dreaded call.
Thankfully, my father answers immediately.
“Dad? It’s Brylee. I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay,” I say in a rush.
“Brylee! Oh! Thank goodness. Where are you? What happened?” The concern in his voice is authentic, and it rips like a Band-Aid, leaving a sting.
Until I realize…he asked me what happened.
I’m certain he’s been briefed. Maybe he’s just wondering how I got away. Or waiting to hear my side of the story.
My eyes water. “I’m okay. Alpha Team X got me out of there.”
I turn my back on the chorus of protests behind me and face the wall. Technically, they did pick me up. They deserve the credit. Besides, I highly doubt my parents would ever believe that I took out a warehouse full of alpha soldiers on my own.
Even I hardly believe it.
Dad heaves a sigh of relief. “Good. Good.”
“Hey, do you know where Teddie is?” I ask, voice hitching.
“Safe house, I think.” Dad clears his throat. “Your mother and I just got back from ours, and I didn’t have phone coverage there.”
Blowing out a heavy breath, suddenly a thousand pounds lighter, I nod too many times. That makes perfect sense.
“Okay. Good. When you hear from him, ask him to call me, all right?”
“Will do, sweetheart,” he replies, voice softer than normal. “Glad you’re okay.”
“Same.”
“You want to talk to your mom— Oh, oh, wait. She just got called into a meeting.”
Of course she did. My eyes roll even though a hot tear escapes and trickles down my cheek. The darkest part of me wonders if she even noticed that I was gone.
“No problem. I have to go anyway.”
“Love you.”
I say the words back to him even though my throat feels lined with a thousand thorny vines.
After I hang up, I remain staring at the wall. I blow out a long, slow breath, but the tumult doesn’t end. The chasm inside feels like it grows bigger.
She couldn’t even pick up the phone?
Black specks tease the edges of my vision. Dizzy, my insides churning, I turn back around.
Kylian and Luka move toward me at the same time, concern coloring their expressions. Their arms open as they move forward.
But I can’t breathe.
Can’t. Breathe.
The air is sucked from the room. Their pitying expressions strip it from my lungs, and a raw ache pulses through me, filling me from head to toe. Their torsos become walls, boxing me in, surrounding me, about to close in further. Compressing. Pressure pounds, and my nerves scream.
It’s too much.
Luka’s steps falter. His eyebrows rise.
The darkest thoughts start fluttering through my head and circling like birds of prey.
My hands fly up in a shield, hiding my face from them.
Quick as the wind, I scurry toward Ridge’s bathroom, covering my face as I mutter, “Just…need…a shower.”
The final words spill out unintentionally, but I race inside and slam the door shut behind me. Any excuse will do.
My chest heaves nearly as badly as it did when I faced Pedro.
I lean back against the doorframe, phone clutched in one hand as I slowly sink down to the tiled floor. The tears hit like hail. Harsh, brutal, relentless. They thrash against my soul.
Why couldn’t I just go to them? I literally just confessed my entire persona to Ridge. What’s wrong with me?
All I needed to do was let Kylian and Luka hold me.
And I couldn’t.
Trembling takes over, and I crawl to the toilet, barely able to yank open the lid before I retch into it, heaving again and again, panic squeezing tight.
Ripping off a square of toilet paper, I wipe my mouth and ignore its stiff scratch.
I should be able to go to my mates.
I promised I would.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t let them pretend to hug away the ugly reality my parents rarely say aloud but that I feel every waking second of the day.
I’m the spare.
I’m nothing.
Hardly an afterthought.
A burden.
That’s why my old alphas dumped me with the Noths. To be rid of me.
Even though a tiny sliver of me recognizes that’s not true, the demons have control right now. My mind is nothing but pitchforks and fire, all of it aimed inward.
Because I’m still broken.
I shrink into myself, knees coming up and arms curling around them. Becoming as small as I feel.
They probably heard that.
Fuck, they can probably hear me puke. And cry.
Racking sobs scrape up my ribs. Abrade my throat. And they just get louder the more self-conscious I become.
My mates are listening to me weep through the door because I can’t even let them comfort me like a normal omega would. I’m so fucked up that two seconds after I said I’d try, I’ve already messed up and run away.
They don’t deserve this shattered mess.
I don’t deserve them.
After a while, the numb, floating feeling takes hold, and I blink through clumped eyelashes, staring vaguely at the wall without seeing it.
A knock on the bathroom door startles me. Before I can dredge up an answer, the door swings open to reveal Colter, filling the entire frame. His head nearly hits the doorjamb.
I start to shake my head, clearing my throat so I can tell him that I need another minute, but the giant, silent alpha simply closes the door behind himself, steps over my feet, and reaches for the knob that starts the shower, which is literally just the back half of the bathroom, only delineated by a rod and curtain.
He turns the spray on full blast, all the way to hot, letting the warm hiss fill the space instead of words.
Then he grabs a washrag from a small shelf and holds it out to me.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t touch. Doesn’t judge. Doesn’t force.
He’s just…here.
Just waiting.
Like a newborn calf, I rise on shaky legs.