23. Gray #3
"I'm in my room. Why do you care?"
Daniel stops dead, his body rigid. He looks from Leo's face to the empty room behind him, and his voice, when it comes, is a shard of ice. "You fucked her." He can smell her on him as well as I can.
The words hang in the frigid air, ugly and blunt. Leo's easy expression vanishes, replaced by a flash of hot, defensive anger in his amber eyes. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't back down. He just straightens up, his jaw tightening.
"I made out with her," he says, low and even. It's different from Daniel's accusatory snarl. Leo takes a step forward, his gaze locked with Daniel's. "And I like her, Daniel. I actually like her. So I don't appreciate the fucking tone."
The tension between them is a physical thing, a crackling energy that threatens to ignite.
I can feel the headache starting to build behind my eyes, a familiar precursor to dealing with my pack when they're like this.
I step forward, placing a hand firmly on Daniel's chest, a physical barrier between him and Leo.
"All right, both of you. Take a breath," I say, calm and steady—the voice I use with panicked patients in the ER. "This isn't helping. Not her, and not us. Leo, we need to come in. We need to talk."
Leo holds Daniel's glare for a second longer, then gives a curt nod and steps aside, allowing us into the warmth of his room.
The door swings shut behind us, cutting off the cold and sealing us in.
The air inside smells of stale coffee, disinfectant, and the faint, sweet scent of Mara that seems to have permeated the very walls.
We move toward a table in the corner, collapsing into the wooden chairs.
Leo grabs a pair of sweatpants and slides them on before leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest, his posture still defensive.
Daniel slumps into his seat, his head in his hands, the anger momentarily eclipsed by a wave of utter exhaustion.
"What's going on?" Leo asks, his voice laced with genuine concern. "Is Tess okay?"
"Tess is fine," I say, rubbing my temples. "She's stable. Her parents are staying with her. This isn't about Tess." I take a deep breath, gathering my thoughts. "This is about Mara. And her pack."
Leo's expression darkens. He pulls out a chair and sits down opposite us, leaning forward, his full attention on me. Daniel lifts his head from his hands, his eyes cold and focused. The lawyer is back.
"Daniel found something," I begin, choosing my words carefully. "Something big. It's about Evercrest."
Leo frowns. "The Academy? Mara and Tess went there. It's supposed to be one of the best."
"It's a marketplace, Leo," Daniel says, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "A fucking high-end, polished marketplace for Omegas."
He explains everything to our friend.
Leo stares at him, his disbelief warring with the dawning horror on his face. "A marketplace? You mean, like… they buy them?"
"Not in so many words," I interject, trying to soften the blow, but it's useless. "But kind of."
"Fuck," Leo breathes, the word a whisper of shock. He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes wide.
"I fucking know," Daniel says grimly. "The system is designed to make them feel grateful for the opportunity. And Jonathan's pack… they didn't just choose her. They paid for her."
The thought is so vile, so utterly dehumanizing, it makes my stomach clench. I look at Leo, and I can see the same revulsion mirrored on his face. This is more than a bad breakup.
"We need to get her out of it," Leo says, his voice firm, a spark of his usual fire returning. "We tell them to go to hell. What can they do?"
"It's not that simple," I say, echoing my earlier conversation with Daniel. "They have a lot of power, a lot of money. They could drag her through court, try to ruin her reputation. But… Daniel thinks he has a way."
All eyes turn to Daniel. He looks from Leo to me, his expression grimly determined.
"I'm becoming more and more convinced they were abusing her, Leo.
Her running, her fear… it all points to it.
If she can file a formal complaint, if we can get even a shred of evidence of emotional or physical abuse, she can file to have the contract dissolved on grounds of misconduct. "
The three of us sit in silence for a long moment, his words settling over us. The room feels less like a sanctuary and more like a war room. We're no longer just three friends on vacation. We're a pack, and we have a mission.
"So what do we do?" Leo asks, his voice low and serious. "How do we prove it? She won't talk about it."
"I don't know yet," Daniel admits, his voice heavy with the burden of it. "But we have to try. We can't let her go back to that. We can't let them win."
I look at my two best friends, at the fierce determination on their faces. Daniel's cold, calculated fury and Leo's hot-headed protectiveness. And I know, with a certainty that settles deep in my bones, that we will do whatever it takes.
We're her pack now. Whether she knows it or not.