7. Theo #2
He still waits. He waits until I move first, until I lean forward on my knees and press into him.
Then his arms come around me, careful and strong, his body folding over mine like he can shelter me from the whole house if he gets the angle right.
His mouth presses to my hair, and for a second I think he might sob.
“I didn’t tell her to go,” I say into his shirt. My voice is muffled. I don’t know if the words are clear. I need them to be. “Sloane, I didn’t.”
“I know.” His hand cups the back of my head, trembling hard enough that I feel it against my scalp. “I know, sweetheart. I believe you. I believe you.”
“He made her think I did.”
Sloane makes a sound I can’t name. His arms tighten for half a second, then loosen as soon as my breath catches. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve got you.”
Idris kneels beside us. He doesn’t reach for me until I turn my face enough to see him, and then his hand comes to my shoulder, warm and steady.
His eyes stay on mine. “No one in this room thinks you sent those messages,” Idris says.
“No one in this room thinks Callie left because she wanted to hurt you.”
The relief is too big. It turns into more shaking instead of less.
Sloane shifts, pulling the plate closer with one hand without letting go of me.
There are crackers on it, apple slices cut thin, a little square of cheese, all the bland, careful things Dr. Mercer said my body might accept if no one made a production out of it.
“I can’t,” I whisper, because my fingers are locked around Callie’s sweater again and the idea of letting go feels like dropping the only proof I have.
Sloane looks at my hands, then at my face. “Can I help?”
I nod as he picks up a cracker and breaks off the smallest corner.
His fingers shake when he brings it to my mouth.
He sees me notice, and his jaw tightens, but he doesn’t pull away and hide the shaking from me.
He lets me see that he's terrified too. He lets me take the bite from his hand like trust is the only language either of us has left.
The cracker tastes like dust. I chew anyway.
Sloane watches my throat when I swallow, his eyes bright and wrecked, then lifts the electrolyte water and waits until I lean toward the straw.
He feeds me another tiny piece of cracker, then a sliver of apple, his thumb brushing once against my lower lip when my mouth trembles too hard to close right.
My body settles by inches, the worst of the shaking loosening. The purr becomes less frantic, still uneven, but softer against Sloane’s chest. Idris stays beside us, one hand on my back, the other clenched around his own knee so hard the tendons stand out.
“I want Callie,” I say after the third sip of water. The words come out small.
Sloane closes his eyes. “Me too.”
“She thinks I didn’t.”
Sloane’s face twists, and for a moment all the carefulness almost leaves him. Idris feels it too. His hand shifts from my back to Sloane’s shoulder, grounding him with one hard press.
“We’re going to get to her,” Idris says. “But we’re going to do it in a way Garrett can’t turn against you or against her.”
Sloane lowers the water bottle. “I’m going to the police tonight.”
“You’re calling Zana before you walk in,” Idris says, and there is no argument in it. His voice is still level, but something beneath it has started to fracture. “You aren't giving them a feral bonded Alpha with no attorney, no strategy, and Garrett’s paperwork waiting to eat you alive.”
Sloane’s mouth opens, then shuts. He looks down at me, at the sweater in my hands, at the plate balanced near his knee. Whatever he was about to say burns itself out behind his eyes. “Okay,” he says roughly. “Zana first.”
The room goes quiet after that. Sloane feeds me one more apple slice, and I take it because the motion gives us both somewhere to put our hands.
Idris stands slowly and crosses to the low table, where the spilled tea has crept toward the edge of the rug.
He picks up the unbroken water glass near the tray, his hand tightening around it.
Then the glass breaks, followed by the scatter of pieces against the table and floor. Idris freezes with his hand still curled, water running over his fingers and dripping onto the rug with the tea. A thin line of red opens across his palm.
I jerk against Sloane, eyes burning, purr cutting off. The sound of breaking glass is still in the air. It’s in my teeth. It’s in the place Garrett’s voice just left behind.
Idris looks at me, and all the cold control falls out of his face.
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. He opens his hand slowly, carefully, like he’s showing me there’s no weapon there even though there’s blood on his skin.
“Theo, I’m sorry. That was mine. I shouldn’t have brought that into the room. ”
Sloane’s arm tightens around me, then stops when I shift forward.
My knees hurt from the floor. Callie’s sweater drags half under me because I can’t let go of it completely, but I crawl out of Sloane’s lap and toward Idris anyway.
Idris doesn’t reach for me. He stays still beside the table, water and blood dripping from his hand, his face open with a fear that looks nothing like Garrett’s.