Chapter 28
BIANCA
The taco shell breaks before it reaches my mouth, dropping beef and lettuce onto Freddie’s leg. I think this is my eighth or ninth taco.
“You’re making me nervous,” Freddie says when I suck down the Dr Pepper so fast I choke. “Do you want me to get another taco ready for you?”
I nod, and he unwraps another, carefully distributing sauce across the top.
There were thirty when we left the drive-through. We’re down to five.
I’m still hungry.
We’ve moved from drowning straight into famine.
The highway has flattened into a long stretch of wet gray pavement. Every dark SUV and van catches my attention. Every flash of blue in the distance makes my stomach tighten.
Food isn’t enough to distract me from what’s missing.
I press my fingers to each of their marks, where the ache seems to be collecting.
“I would know if...if they died, right?”
“Yes, baby. We’d know.” Freddie’s palm moves slowly up my back. “Mason will find them.”
Megan changes the station again. A woman has been singing brightly about dancing all night, which is a stupid thing to sing about when four people are missing.
The next station has a man selling mattresses.
Then a traffic report. Then a song about two lovers getting one brief chance before one of them dies.
“Absolutely the fuck not,” she mutters and changes it again.
I reach between the front seats and tap her phone where it sits in the cup holder. The screen wakes under my finger.
Nothing from Ezra. Nothing from Weller, Tristan, or Owen. Nothing from Mason since his last message telling us he was working on it and to keep going to Winston.
Megan hums along with a song she can’t possibly have heard before. She’s off-key and only manages four notes before starting over.
“Are there any more tacos in the bag?” she asks.
“You said the last one was your last one.”
“Did I?” Megan drums her thumb against the steering wheel. “Are you resource guarding the tacos now? Is there one or not?”
I open the bag. Four tacos. I pick the least shattered one, peel back the paper, and squeeze sauce across the top. My fingers are greasy, and the packet squirts onto my thumb.
I fold the paper around the base and pass it between the seats. Megan takes it without looking away from the road.
“I feel like a bottomless pit. How can I still be hungry?”
“Your body is preparing for heat hibernation.”
“Is that the technical term?”
She takes a bite and chews, her knee bouncing beneath the steering wheel hard enough to shake the keys.
“Ez will be okay,” I reassure her, hoping like fuck I’m right.
The ache beneath my skin yanks at theirs. Please let me feel you.
A sharp cramp tugs low in my stomach.
Fuckity fuck fuck.
I shift more into Freddie’s lap, tacos abandoned.
“I think my heat is coming.”
Megan turns her head just far enough for me to catch one green eye. Really, bitch? Now?
“The suppressant should’ve given us more time.
” She looks at me again, longer this time, until the car drifts toward the rumble strip and Freddie reaches forward to touch her shoulder.
Megan jerks the wheel straight. “Maybe the stress burned through it. Drowning and then the separation probably didn’t help. How bad?”
“Manageable for now.”
“Okay.” She crushes the taco wrapper in her fist and throws it on the passenger seat. “Okay. That’s something.”
What happens if they aren’t back before it starts?
What if something happens to them when I’m out of it?
Freddie’s breath catches, and only then do I notice I’m rubbing against his thigh like a horny cat. He holds my hips without pushing me away.
“Baby. Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts a little.”
His arm tightens around me. I can’t subject Megan to this, so I reach for another taco before my brain can do the math on how to get rid of some of the pain.
I dump two packets of sauce across it and take a bite so large it barely fits in my mouth. The shell cracks, and a sharp piece stabs the roof of my mouth. “Ow!”
“Whoa, slow down,” Freddie murmurs. “You’re going to fucking choke.”
I look directly at him, take another big bite, and chew as obnoxiously as I can.
Alphas are always telling me what to do now. Apparently I like it sometimes, which has only encouraged them.
Freddie watches until I swallow, then wipes sauce from my cheek with his thumb. He offers me the drink, holding the straw against my mouth until I take several long pulls. His hand goes back to my spine and works a slow circle above my waistband.
After the highway spills us onto a divided road, Megan checks her phone at the next light, her thumb moving through messages while Freddie scans the cars around us. The same blue sedan follows us through two turns, but when Megan takes the next on-ramp, it continues straight.
“Anything?” I ask.
“Mason’s still working on it. Winston says his street is clear and wants an update when we’re ten minutes out.”
“Tell him it’ll be about twenty,” Freddie says, still watching the traffic behind us.
I sink deeper against Freddie and let the steady movement of his hand stroking my skin lull me through the remaining miles.
Winston is waiting outside when we arrive.
He has one crutch planted beneath his arm and his other hand braced against the porch rail.
Megan barely gets the car into park before I open the door.
“B, slow?—”
I run right to Winston. He catches me with both arms and a curse, staggering one step into the rail as his crutch clatters onto the porch.
“Jesus Christ, B.”
“I forgot how fragile you are. Sorry.”
He shifts his weight and holds me tighter instead of letting go.
“I missed you.”
“Obviously.”
I roll my eyes and he pulls back enough to look at me, his warm brown eyes moving over my face. His fingers find my jaw and angle me toward the light.
“Look at me. Follow my finger.”
“I’m totally fine.”
His thumb pulls down my lower eyelid. Behind him, Clara comes out the open door with one hand beneath the slight curve of her stomach. Freddie picks up Winston’s crutch and leans it against the railing.
Winston checks my pupils, makes me take two deep breaths, then folds me back into a hug.
“Where’s Dad?”
Freddie hands him the crutch when he releases me, and Winston fits it under his arm.
“Still in custody. I’ve got two attorneys working on it, but Montgomery’s accusation and Dad’s threat are complicating things.” Winston looks past me toward the car. “We need to get that moved to the backyard before someone sees it. Matt!”
Matt appears in the doorway before Winston finishes shouting his name. Megan tosses him the keys, and after a quick hello, he moves the car around back.
“Mom must be losing her mind.”
“She isn’t taking the separation well—or any of this, really.” Winston glances toward the street, then gestures us inside. “I talked to her earlier. She’s been calling the jail nonstop, but I told her to stay put and keep the door locked.”
“You left her alone?”
“You think I wanted to? I asked her to come here until he’s home, but she refused.” His mouth pulls tight.
“That sounds like her.”
Once we’re all inside, Clara hugs me hard, and soothing lavender surrounds us.
“Sit down for me. I want to listen to your lungs.” Clara steers me to the couch and opens her leather bag.
“I’m fine, Clare Bear.”
She smiles at the old nickname. “You inhaled seawater yesterday. You can be fine while I listen to your lungs and check a few things.”
Freddie arranges a blanket over my shoulders before I even realize how frigid they keep the temperature in their house.
Their home smells like cinnamon and clean laundry, and the dryer thumping in the next room is weirdly normal.
“I have cinnamon rolls in the kitchen if any of you want one,” Clara says conspiratorially. “This baby has given me a hell of a sweet tooth. The guys have gained more weight than I have.”
I laugh. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
Clara listens to my lungs while Winston hovers over her shoulder. She checks each scrape and bruise without turning any of them into a disaster.
“Everything sounds clear. Any coughing? Tightness? Trouble catching your breath?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. If that changes, even a little, you tell somebody.”
“Thank you, but I’m good. Promise.”
Clara lifts her head and stares at me expectantly.
“Fine. I’ll tell you.”
Megan is sitting in an oversized chair by the front window with her phone held against her chest.
“Megan gave me a suppressant,” I tell Clara, “but I don’t think it’s going to work much longer.”
Her attention shifts back to me. “What are you feeling?”
Clara takes my wrist while I give her the short list. Hunger. Cramps. Then her hand returns to her stomach. The movement is so natural I almost miss it.
“How’s the baby?”
Her mouth softens, and her hand settles more firmly over her stomach.
“Good. Everything looks good so far.”
“Are you scared?”
Clara’s mouth opens, then closes. “Yes. Sometimes.”
“Of being pregnant or after?”
“Both, but excited too. Why?”
“Just curious.” I pick at a loose thread in the blanket. “I don’t think anyone would trust me with something that fragile.”
Freddie’s fingers close around mine, and Winston leans over the back of the couch. “That’s horseshit, sis. You’re at the top of my list for possible babysitters.”
“Wait.” I look from him to Clara’s stomach. “You have a list? I’m on it?”
She smiles warmly. “Of course, silly.”
The word babysitter makes the cramp low in my stomach sharpen for an entirely different reason. “I really don’t want to get pregnant during this heat.”
“Are you on anything?” Clara asks.
“No. The plan is condoms.”
“Only condoms?” Clara’s eyes widen, and a nervous laugh slips out before she presses her lips together. “Sorry. I—once your heat pulls them into rut, stopping long enough to open one and put it on correctly every single time is going to be hard. I’m trying not to be crass.”
“You can be crass with me.”
Clara rubs two fingers between her eyebrows. “Rut brain, sweaty hands, a condom torn and unnoticed in the rush... That’s what worries me.”
“We’ll be careful,” Freddie says. “If it isn’t on, we stop.”
“I believe you, Freddie,” Clara says. “But I also don’t want that to be the only thing standing between her and a pregnancy.”
“A prescription puts my name and location into a system. Someone was blocking the suppressants.”
“Let me call Ben.” Clara glances toward Winston. “I need to ask what we can access and whether there’s anything that works fast enough.”
After Clara promises to call Ben, Winston shows us to our room. A twin bed sits against each wall. Megan throws her bag on one, and I mentally do the math on whether Freddie and I will both fit on the other.
Winston looks at me pointedly. “Do not leave this house without telling me.”
“Okay.”
He nods once and limps out with Clara, leaving the door open behind them.
Megan collects our phones and arranges them across the nightstand with the volume turned all the way up. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. If someone calls and needs help, I want to have a clearer head.”
“Good idea. Me too.”
Freddie sits on the edge of the bed and pulls the chair from the small desk in front of him. He sets a brush and hair ties beside him. “Your hair is a mess, baby. Let me brush it and braid it for you before bed.”
I drop into the chair between his knees and let him work his fingers through the knots. I haven’t brushed it since before my rendezvous with Mother Nature, and apparently she’s vindictive. My shirt drags over my breasts when I breathe, and even that is beginning to become unbearable.
I sigh. “My nipples really hurt.”
Megan rolls onto her side and looks at us. “If you two are planning to start bumping uglies soon, I’m gonna go sleep on the couch.”
The retort is sitting on my tongue when Winston knocks against the open doorframe, but something is wrong. His face is slack, and his eyes are wide.
“Montgomery is dead.”
He’s dead? Like... dead dead? My heart lodges in my throat.
“Ben was working when they brought him in,” Winston says. “He was already in cardiac arrest after an anaphylactic reaction. They worked him, but he was pronounced dead. Mom was taken in for questioning.”