She was acknowledging them.
Because somehow, in the short weeks since our world had gone to hell, Tanner, Chris, and Rico had become part of our pack.
And I didn’t know how.
THE TEXTS were getting more sporadic. Sometimes they came in the middle of the night. Sometimes a whole week would go by. I carried my phone everywhere, waiting.
Once, I sent a message first.
things are changing. i don’t know what to do
At three in the morning, he replied.
I know.
I pulled up the covers in his bed over my head and waited until sunrise.
ROBBIE STAYED.
We didn’t want him in the Bennett house because there was no trust there. He didn’t want to be too far away. There were a couple of motels in Green Creek, but people would ask questions if he stayed too long. Mark thought he was all right. I asked if he’d known him from before. Mark shook his head. He’d made some calls and verified Robbie was who he said he was, and Gordo’s wards had let him through to begin with. And since I trusted Mark, trusted Gordo, I told Robbie he could stay at the old house.
The old house, because that’s how I thought of it.
I didn’t think I’d ever live there again. At least not for a long time.
Because there were nights I woke up and felt the heavy magic holding me down, cutting me off from the pack.
There were nights when I didn’t know if I was dreaming or if I was awake, and my mother would be standing at the edge of my bed, tears drying on her face, her eyes steeling right in front of me and she would tell me to run, to run away from—
Those were the nights I missed Joe the most.
I had never been one for nightmares.
Not really.
But now?
Now they were all I had.
I remembered how Joe was when he woke screaming for me.
I didn’t scream when I snapped my eyes open, though I wanted to.
I muffled it down, lodging it in my throat as sweat dripped down my neck.
It was easier that way.
So I couldn’t go back to the house. Not while the floor was stained. Not while the look on her face was still fresh in my head. The wet sound she made when she fell.
Robbie didn’t ask, and he didn’t say anything the day after his first night in the house. The only thing I asked of him was that he stayed in my room and left my mom’s room alone. He had no business in there. And I didn’t want him getting his scent on anything. The door was shut and would stay that way until I could open it and breathe her in.
“Sure, Ox,” he said. “I can do that.” Then, “She wanted you to know, too, that she’s sorry for what you lost. Especially for one so young. She… understands loss. In her own way.”
“Who?” I asked, confused.
“The Alpha.”
My eyes widened a little at that. “She knows who I am?”
His lips twitched. “Yes, Ox. Many people know who you are.”
“Oh,” I said, because I didn’t know what to do with that.
So I did nothing at all.
TWO WEEKS went by without an update.
I thought I could understand what it felt to slowly lose one’s mind.
I imagined all possible things. Capture. Torture. Death. I thought I would know if something was wrong. I thought I would feel it if anything happened to them. But the reality was, the longer they were gone, the greater the distance, the less I felt. I didn’t think I’d know if any of them were hurt. If Joe was hurt.
Because I could feel the others that had stayed in Green Creek more than I could feel him.
Stronger than I’d ever felt any of them before.
Elizabeth was blue, she was so damn blue, and I knew she needed to howl her sorrow at the moon, but she kept her song inside and let it fester instead.
Mark was strong and sturdy, as always, but I knew about the photo he kept in his desk drawer. The photo he didn’t think anyone knew about. The one where he and Gordo were Joe’s age, and their arms were around each other’s shoulders, grinning. Gordo was smiling at the camera, looking younger than I’d ever seen him. Mark, though. Mark only had eyes for Gordo.
I never asked if they talked before Gordo and the others left.
I hoped Gordo did the right thing.
But I never had the courage to find out.
Tanner, Chris, and Rico were there too, getting stronger every day. It was a slow process, but they were bonding like the rest of us.
Still. Four months in and I thought maybe we were barely holding ourselves together.
Maybe that’s why those two weeks I didn’t hear from Joe hurt more than it should have.
Maybe that’s why I was angry when he finally texted. From a new number, the old phones obviously tossed out.
The message was short.
We’re okay.
And I lost it.
I dialed the number.
It rang a few times, then fell off into an automated message, saying the voice mail wasn’t set up.
I called again.
And again.
And again.
It was the fifth or the sixth time when the call connected.
He didn’t say anything.
“You fucking asshole,” I snarled into the phone. “You don’t get to do that to me! You hear me? You don’t. Do you even fucking care about us? Do you? If you do, if even a part of you cares about me—about us—then you need to ask yourself if this is worth it. If what you’re doing is worth it. Your family needs you. I fucking need you.”
He didn’t speak.
But he was there, because I could hear the way his breath caught in his throat.
“You asshole,” I muttered, suddenly very, very tired. “You goddamn bastard.”
We stayed on the phone for an hour, just listening to each other breathe.
When I opened my eyes again, it was morning and my phone had died.
IT WAS six months after they left that I realized something had to give.
We couldn’t keep going on as we were.
Joe was texting more regularly, maybe once every few days, but the updates were as vague as always, and the longer it was taking, the less hope I had of when I would see them again.
Robbie, as it turned out, knew less than we did. Or so he said. He seemed as frustrated as the rest of us with the lack of information. Every now and then I’d stumble across him on a hushed phone call, and while I couldn’t hear what was said, the expression on his face was enough. The teams of wolves out searching for Richard, for Robert, for Osmond were coming back empty. No one knew where to look. No one knew if he was in hiding or if he was building up Omegas. Every registered Alpha was put on notice. But Mark told me that for every three or four registered Alphas, there was one that wasn’t known.
Richard could try and track down those unknowns.
If they didn’t know he was coming, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Especially not with Robert Livingstone at his side.
There were rumors that Richard Collins was in Texas. Or Maine. Or Mexico. Someone had seen Robert Livingstone in Germany. Osmond was in Anchorage.
None of it ever panned out.
Michelle Hughes wasn’t pleased that Joe and the others were gone. None of them were, the faceless higher-ups that knew who I was. Robbie seemed to be filled with a mixture of glee and terror as he told us this, that the teams out searching were also instructed that if they came across Joe, to apprehend him and bring him East.