33. Idris
Idris
The front door clicks shut behind me with a soft, expensive sound that belongs to Garrett’s house more than it belongs to any of us.
I come back from the side entrance with no delivery box, no cooling inserts, and a quiet in the house that makes the back of my neck tighten before I reach the dining room.
I hear Sloane before I see him. His voice is low in the dining room, scraped raw around the edges, and the scent rolling out with it is smoked cedar and brown sugar gone sharp with fear.
“Callie, baby, I need you to tell me if he said anything else,” he says, and the careful softness in his tone only makes the restraint underneath it more obvious.
I step into the dining room and take in the whole scene before anyone can explain it badly.
Calliope sits at the long table with her laptop open, a student essay under her pen, and her left hand buried in Theo’s hair beneath the tablecloth.
Her pen is angled over a margin as if she might still make a note about comma splices while an Omega trembles against her knee.
Her hand gives her away. It moves steadily through Theo’s curls, but her fingers shake every time they pass the back of his neck.
Sloane stands in the doorway to the sunroom with one hand wrapped around the frame hard enough to bleach his knuckles.
His other hand is on the back of Calliope’s chair, close to her shoulder without quite touching, and the restraint in that small gap tells me how close he’s come to losing control.
He looks like he wants to tear open the walls, the floor, his own skin, anything that might give him a thing to fight instead of a boy hidden under a dining table.
Theo is tucked under the heavy oak table with one of Calliope’s gray sweaters around his shoulders.
I see the side of his face through the fall of the tablecloth, cheek pressed to Calliope’s knee, eyes open but fixed on the shadowed space between her chair and the table leg.
One hand grips the hem of her pants. The other is curled into his own sleeve, tight enough to make the fabric strain.
Sloane looks at me the moment I enter, relief and fury crossing his face so fast they nearly become the same thing.
“He won’t come back to the sunroom,” he says, and his voice drops lower when Theo’s hand tightens on Calliope.
“He came in here and crawled under the table. Garrett talked to him in the hall, and now he keeps saying he’s scared he’s asking too much. ”
Calliope finally looks up. Her face is composed the way a cracked cup can still hold tea if nobody touches it too quickly. “I didn’t pull him out,” she says, her voice low around the confession. “I didn’t know if I should.”
“You shouldn’t have pulled him out,” I say, and some of the panic leaves her mouth before the rest of her believes me. I cross the room slowly, keeping my steps audible, and set one hand on the back of her chair beside Sloane’s. “You gave him somewhere to stop.”
Sloane’s throat works. He wants to answer.
He wants to say the sunroom was somewhere to stop, that his arms were somewhere to stop, that every blanket we arranged this morning was meant to be enough.
I know him well enough to see all of it move through him, and I also know Theo will feel every inch if Sloane lets it loose here.
“Sloane,” I say, turning my head without taking my hand from Calliope’s chair. “The pharmacy texted about the side-door delivery. I checked the side entrance and there’s no box. Check the camera and make sure they didn’t leave it by the gate or below the frame.”
His eyes narrow because some part of him hears the redirection for what it is.
The rest of him needs a task badly enough to take it.
His hand slides from Calliope’s chair to her shoulder, and he bends to press his mouth into her hair before he moves.
“I’ll be right back,” he tells her, but his eyes drop toward the tablecloth when he says it.
“Theo, sweetheart, I’m checking the door. I’m still in the house.”
Theo’s fingers flex in Calliope’s pants. “Okay,” he says from the shadows, and the word comes out thin but clear. Sloane looks wrecked by the fact that he answered, then makes himself leave before the urge to stay wins.
I wait until Sloane’s steps move down the hall before I crouch beside Calliope’s chair.
Her hand is still in Theo’s hair, the motion slower now, as if she’s afraid any change in rhythm will take the floor out from under him.
I touch the outside of her knee first, light enough for her to decide whether she wants more, and when she doesn’t pull away, I let my thumb rest there where Theo can see it.
“Calliope,” I murmur, keeping my voice low. “Look at me for a second.”
She turns her head, and the panic in her eyes is quieter than Sloane’s but no less dangerous. “He was doing better,” she says. “He was talking to me in full sentences. He knew what he needed, Idris. Then he said Garrett talked to him, and it was like the words started hurting him.”
“I believe you,” I say, shifting my hand from her knee to the edge of the chair.
I lower myself until I can see beneath the table without forcing Theo to look up.
“Theo, it’s Idris. I’m beside Calliope, and Sloane’s checking the side door.
Do you want help getting up, or do you want to stay where you are a little longer? ”
Theo’s gaze moves to my hand, then to Calliope’s fingers where they rest near his temple. He swallows, and I watch him pull the answer together with care rather than panic. “I want help getting up,” he says. “I want Callie close while I do it.”
Calliope’s breath catches above us. I nod once, letting him see the answer land cleanly. “She can stay close,” I tell him, and I wait until his shoulders loosen before I reach for him.
I slide one arm beneath Theo’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees, moving slowly enough that he can stop me.
Calliope keeps her hand on him until the last second, then rises with us, one hand finding the back of his sweater while I lift him from the shadowed space under the table.
Theo is too warm against me, sweat-damp at the hairline, his pulse racing where his throat presses against my neck.
He turns his face into me and breathes in hard, searching for the steadiness my body can give him.
“There you are,” I say against his hair. “I’ve got you.”
“I know,” he says, muffled against my throat. His hand reaches blindly until Calliope catches it, and the moment their fingers lock, his breathing evens by a fraction. “I know you do.”
That should be the only answer I need. It should be enough to carry him to the sunroom, lay him in the nest, and let the three of us settle him before his next spike gathers teeth. But the shape of his fear is too specific, and Calliope’s trembling hand tells me this isn’t only his heat.
I keep my mouth near his ear and make my voice gentle enough that it can’t bruise him. “Theo, did Garrett tell you not to ask Calliope for something?”
The response is immediate. Theo locks so hard his hand goes rigid in Calliope’s.
His breathing cuts off against my throat.
The weight of him changes in my arms, less limp than absent, his body becoming a held thing with nowhere to put the pressure.
Calliope feels it through their joined hands and through the sweater still caught beneath her fingers, and her face drains before she understands why.
“Theo,” she whispers, and her voice nearly breaks. “Star, breathe.”
I stop the question before it can become a second injury. “You don’t have to answer,” I say, my hand firm across his back. “You already did what I asked. Breathe with me now.”
His chest stutters once, then again. I draw a slow breath against his temple and hold him through the next one, letting him borrow the rhythm without making him earn it.
Calliope steps closer, her hand still locked with his, and I see the instant she chooses to hold the explanation back even though fear is begging her to ask for it.
“Good,” I murmur when Theo drags air in. “Again.”
He breathes again, shakier this time. His eyes stay unfocused, but his fingers begin to soften around Calliope’s. I don’t ask another question. I don’t need to. The pattern has already touched all three of us.
Sloane comes back before I can move Theo toward the sunroom.
He stops at the dining-room threshold with his phone in his hand and murder held carefully behind his teeth.
“Camera’s useless,” he says. “The angle caught the driveway and half the side path. If someone left the box, it’s below the frame.
If someone came through the gallery, it wouldn’t show from there. ”
“That’s fine,” I say, because the delivery was only ever a reason to move him. His eyes snap to mine, and I hold his stare long enough to make him understand we’ll discuss that elsewhere.
Sloane stares at Theo in my arms, then at Calliope holding his hand. “That doesn’t look fine.”
“It’s handled for the moment.” I adjust Theo higher against my chest, and he turns his face deeper into my throat. “We’re taking him to the sunroom with Calliope. Then you and I are going to the study.”
Sloane’s eyes flash. “No.”
“Sloane,” Calliope says softly, and the sound of her voice pulls his attention the way it always does. She doesn’t ask him to calm down. She only looks at him with her hand still wrapped around Theo’s. “Please.”
The plea lands where my instruction couldn’t. Sloane’s jaw works, but he nods once, a short and violent movement that he forces into obedience. He steps close enough to touch Theo’s ankle, and his fingers are careful when they curl there.
Theo looks at him, still pale, still too hot. “I’m not trying to leave you.”
The words cut through the room. Sloane’s face twists before he can stop it, and Calliope’s fingers tighten around Theo’s hand.