"I've also been monitoring her communications." Another screen, deflecting his concern with data. "Stephanie Shaw has attempted contact forty-seven times in the past twelve days. Escalating desperation in the messages. She's also transferred $500 to Vespera's account with the note 'please forgive me.'"
"Guilt money," Oakley observes.
"Ineffective guilt money. The transfers haven't been accepted." The data I've collected—some legal, most not—scrolls past. "Herfather has been in contact with the program director daily. He's... concerned about her health."
As he should be. The research I've compiled on rejection sickness makes for grim reading. Sixty percent fatality rate within the first year for a single bond rejection. For three bonds? The statistics don't exist because it's so rare. We're in uncharted territory, all four of us dying by degrees, pretending we're not.
"Dorian wants to move as soon as she's settled there," Oakley says. "Maybe day two or three of the program."
"That would be tactically unsound." The schedule I've hacked from the Columbus system pulls up. "Week one is intensive workshops, long days but early evenings. Week two begins performance preparation—that's when she'll have late night rehearsals, walking back alone at midnight or later. Optimal acquisition window."
Acquisition. Such a clean word for what we're planning.
"Can we last that long?" Oakley murmurs.
Proper assessment demands attention. He's hiding it better than Dorian but not as well as me. Weight loss, shadows under his eyes, the way he unconsciously rubs his chest where the pack bond sits.
"We'll last as long as necessary," I say, returning to my screens. "I've identified the optimal location for the intervention."
The map of the Winslow Lake House appears, family property two hours from Columbus. Isolated, fully stocked, modernized security system I can control remotely. "Forty acres of private land, nearest neighbor three miles away. Complete privacy for the... adjustment period."
"Adjustment period." Oakley laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Is that what we're calling kidnapping and imprisonment now?"
"We're calling it survival." The careful control slips, voice sharper than intended. "Unless you have an alternative solution to our collective biological crisis?"
He doesn't, of course. We've all researched the same dead ends. Rejection can't be reversed. The bonds, once formed, are permanent until death. The only treatment is proximity to the bonded partner, and she's made it clear that voluntary proximity isn't an option.
Which leaves involuntary proximity.
"I've requisitioned supplies," I continue, pulling up another list. "IV fluids, nutritional supplements, sedatives if necessary. Everything needed to maintain her health during the transition."
"Transition." Oakley shakes his head. "You make it sound so clinical."
"The alternative is acknowledging the emotional component, which serves no strategic purpose." Even as I say it, my hand moves unconsciously to my chest, where the bond aches like a wound that won't heal. "Emotion is what created this situation. Logic will resolve it."
My laptop pings with a new alert. The monitoring software installed on her devices through a vulnerability in her email client shows activity. She's online, searching for something.
"What's she doing?" Oakley leans closer, his cedar scent spiking with interest.
The search history populates my screen, and something in my chest tightens despite the clinical detachment I'm trying to maintain."Rejection sickness survivability." "Omega rejection syndrome treatment." "How to break a mate bond permanently." "Experimental therapies omega biology." "Pack bond severance medical trials."
"She's researching the same things we are," I observe, though the clinical tone masks how my chest constricts. "Looking for a solution that doesn't exist."
The next search makes me pause:"Summer intensive medical leave policies."
"She's looking for ways to hide how sick she is," Oakley observes. "To keep performing despite the rejection."
"Of course she is." There's something almost like admiration in my voice, breaking through the careful control. "She won't let biology stop her from her goals."
But the searches continue. Clinical trials that never completed. Success stories that don't exist because there are no success stories. You can't break biology this fundamental without breaking yourself.
And she's trying anyway. Stubborn, brilliant, self-destructive woman.
"We need to move sooner," Oakley says. "If she's pushing herself this hard while sick—"
"She won't quit." The certainty surprises me with its vehemence. "Vespera Levine is many things, but she's not someone who gives up. She'll perform until she collapses, but she won't stop voluntarily."
"How can you be sure?"
