I remember the emptiness.
The certainty that nothing would ever matter again.
The moment before Jett found me—before he grabbed my arm and hauled me back from the edge with a grip so tight it left bruises for weeks.
I remember what it feels like to be so thoroughly destroyed that ceasing to exist seems like the kindest option available.
And I can't?—
Won't—
Judge Sage for recognizing that same emptiness in someone else and deciding to fight for her.
Blaze breaks the silence.
"Why haven't you opened that?"
He nods toward the envelope still clutched in Sage's hand.
Sage frowns, looking down at it like he'd forgotten it was there.
"Been busy since." A hint of his usual smirk surfaces. "But I guess..."
He tears the seal with deliberate care—those four blood droplets breaking apart under his fingers—and pulls out the letter inside.
The paper is cream-colored.
Covered in handwriting I can see even from here—neat, precise, the kind of penmanship that suggests discipline and practice.
"I guess it's normal for us as a pack to see," Sage says, unfolding the pages. "I did enjoy opening those letters."
He's not wrong.
For years, these letters have been a shared experience—something we all witnessed even if we pretended not to care. Sage would open them in the common area, and we'd all find excuses to be nearby. To watch his expression as he read. To see the tension drain from his shoulders with each word.
To me, it always felt like a hindrance.
A distraction from the mission, from the violence, from the reality of what we are.
But I can't deny that every time Sage opened one of those letters, it gave him some sense of purpose I never quite understood.
Until now.
Maybe.
Sage clears his throat and begins reading aloud:
"Dear S.W.,
It's been a while since your last letter. Longer than usual. I try not to worry—I know you have a life beyond writing to crazy girls—but the silence has been... heavy.
Things here are strange. More rules, more restrictions, more ways for them to remind us that packless Omegas are worth less than the dirt they make us walk on. The rumors say it's going to get worse. That they're going to start punishing us for not having packs, like we chose to be alone, like we wouldn't give anything to have someone choose us."
He pauses.
I watch his throat work as he swallows.
"Everything is repetitive now. The classes. The violence. The endless cycle of surviving just to survive another day. It's becoming meaningless, S.W. Like I'm running on a hamster wheel, getting nowhere, watching the same scenery pass by over and over until I can't remember why I started running in the first place."
