Chapter 10 #12
The blond wolf, Aiden’s friend, his pack mate, fought with unmatched ferocity, his movements confident and lethal. He cut through the rogues, a blur of teeth and fur, until the overwhelming threat that had been moments from consuming us was suddenly retreating, beaten, broken.
But Aiden was down, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, my world shrinking to his ragged form and the terrible fear that I couldn’t reach him in time.
“Aiden!” I screamed, the night echoing with my helplessness. He had shifted back, human now but all too fragile, bloodied and barely conscious, the brutal truth of his injuries stark and undeniable.
I moved without thinking, my hands trembling as they found him, desperate to know that he was still here, still with me. The new wolves circled, a barrier between the last of the rogues and us, and the blond one, a man again, came closer, concern etched across his familiar face.
“Aiden, hold on,” the man urged, “he’s hurt bad,” the man said, urgency in his voice as he dropped to a knee beside us.
I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop the spiral of fear and bewilderment. “Cody! How…? You…?” My questions splintered, too big, too much.
He looked at me, his expression fierce but kind. “Not Cody, I’m Kyle. We need to get him to a healer, now.”
The name hit me, a punch of connection and confusion. I didn’t move, rooted by shock and an instinctive need to protect, to guard Aiden from a world I didn’t understand. Kyle, Aiden’s friend, not the other one, saw my hesitation, the tremor of mistrust and refusal.
“It’s okay,” he said, calm but insistent. “He’s going to be fine, Josie.”
The other wolves circled closer, their eyes locked on me and Aiden, and every instinct screamed at me to fight, to flee, to hold on. But I couldn’t let him go, couldn’t let them take him. A rogue stirred, a sudden snarl from the shadows, and one of the new wolves pounced, vicious and precise.
Kyle seized the moment, his hand firm on my shoulder. “Trust me. We got this.”
It was all unraveling, all spiraling out of control, but Aiden was slipping, his life a fragile thread between us. I nodded, a broken gesture, but it was enough. The pack moved in, and the night dissolved into motion. Aiden lifted and carried, Kyle’s voice a steady promise in the chaos.
“He’s going to be okay,” he said, but my heart twisted with doubt, a sharp pang of fear slicing through me.
What if he was wrong? What if I had already lost Aiden before I even had the chance to truly know him?
The thought rattled in my mind like a caged animal, desperate to escape.
I couldn’t shake the image of his bloodied form, the way his breathing came in ragged gasps, each one a reminder of how fragile life could be.
My thoughts spiraled into a dark abyss, haunted by what-ifs and maybes. What if Aiden didn’t make it? What if I didn’t see him again?
“Come, I’ll take you home,” Kyle urged, his voice steady and calm.
But how could I go back now, knowing that Aiden was fighting for his life? The thought of stepping away from this moment felt like betrayal, an abandonment of everything we had just begun to build together.
Yet, I was terrified. Terrified of the unknown, terrified of the darkness that lurked just beyond the edges of this night.
I looked at Aiden’s pale face, the way his lips were tinged with a ghostly hue, and I felt my resolve waver.
My instincts screamed at me to protect him, to stay by his side, but the weight of uncertainty pressed down on me, threatening to crush the hope that flickered within.
The city blurred past, my mind a storm of disbelief and fear as Aiden’s friend drove, his eyes fixed on the road, his words careful and clipped.
“He’ll pull through,” he said, but the promise felt hollow, the memory of Aiden’s blood vivid and haunting.
Kyle.
The name was a knot in my thoughts, unraveling into questions and half-formed truths. I couldn’t speak, the night too big, too much, my heart racing ahead of the answers I couldn’t reach.
“I’ll let you know,” Kyle said, but my stomach twisted, knowing he didn’t understand how deep the uncertainty ran.
The car ride was an endless stretch of tension, the reality of what I had seen gnawing at me, each bump and turn a jolt to my already frayed nerves.
Aiden, shifting.
Wolves, attacking.
Kyle’s voice, low and steady, cut through the turmoil. “He’ll be fine, Josie. You have my word.”
His assurance should have calmed me, should have tethered me to something solid, but I was adrift, each thought slipping away before I could hold it, make sense of it.
Aiden’s face was a constant in the chaos, his eyes holding mine even as they carried him off.
My chest ached with the memory, raw and vivid, fear’s sharp edge digging deeper with every second that passed.
Kyle’s words echoed in my mind, but they couldn’t touch the chill that had settled in, the terror that nothing would be the same if Aiden didn’t make it.
I stared out the window, the city’s lights a smeared afterimage of my unraveling certainty and wondered how it all got so far beyond what I ever imagined.
“Josie.” Kyle’s voice pulled me back. “Aiden’s strong. It takes more than a few rogues to keep him down.”
I nodded, a small, jerky movement that betrayed the turmoil inside. I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust in this world that was so suddenly, brutally new. But the images wouldn’t fade: Aiden bloodied and broken, wolves closing in, everything falling apart.
“We’ll make sure you’re safe,” Kyle continued, his eyes meeting mine with a sincerity that should have reassured me. “Aiden will want to know you’re okay.”
The car stopped, the engine’s rumble fading to a tense, waiting silence.
My building loomed in front of us, every window dark, a stark contrast to the vivid memories playing out behind my eyes.
The promise that Aiden cared, that this meant something, was more than I could bear right now, more than I could hope for with the night’s terror so fresh, so unresolved.
Kyle’s hand was steady as he helped me out, his presence a constant against the chaotic tide inside me. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can,” he said, and there was a kindness in his gaze that echoed Aiden’s, that made it all so much more painful, so much more real.
I nodded again, still mute, still fighting the wild mess of fear and hope that was raging inside. I forced my legs to move, one step, then another, the distance to the door feeling like miles. Kyle waited, watching, a silhouette of concern and certainty that lingered long after the car pulled away.
The apartment enveloped me in a heavy silence. Mateo lay sprawled across his bed, one arm flung over his face, his phone abandoned near his pillow like he’d fallen asleep waiting for it to buzz. He wasn’t curled up small anymore. He took up space now, grew into it without asking permission.
I stood by his bed longer than I meant to.
He shifted, frowning faintly in his sleep, like his dreams were busy with problems he didn’t yet have names for. I brushed a hand over his hair, careful not to wake him.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
Not for him.
For me.
I slid down against the wall outside his room, my back pressed to the doorframe like it was the only thing holding me upright. The night crashed over me all at once: blood, wolves, Aiden’s broken body, the truth tearing open my world.
But Mateo was here. Safe. Breathing.
And he needed me to survive this, whatever this new world was that had cracked open beneath our feet.
I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall silently, surrendering to the storm inside me as it finally found an outlet.
Aiden.
The name was a silent scream, the center of everything I couldn’t quite face. I thought I was scared before. But this was different.
This was terror edged with longing, threaded through with a sense of loss I hadn’t expected, like something precious slipping through my fingers before I’d even realized I was holding it.
My world was unrecognizable, my heart still racing with the night’s adrenaline, with the raw certainty that I might have lost him, lost everything, before it had even begun.
The questions, the truths I’d glimpsed, the secrets I was only starting to understand closed in tighter than the wolves ever could, leaving me alone with the waiting.
Waiting for answers.
For the one answer that mattered most.