"And after?" Oakley asks. "After we take her, when she's at the lake house, what then?"
"Then we demonstrate that resistance is ineffective." The words come out cold, clinical, but inside something twists. Something that knows this is wrong, that knows she'll hate us for it, that knows we're choosing our survival over her autonomy and calling it inevitable.
But the alternative is dying without her, and I've never been good at accepting defeat.
"The bond will reassert itself with proximity," I continue, voice steady despite the turmoil underneath. "Biology will override psychology. She'll accept because the alternative is mutual destruction."
It's what I tell myself when the fever spikes at night, when my body shakes from withdrawal, when I catch phantom traces of her jasmine scent and nearly lose my mind. That this is temporary. That biology will win. That we'll all survive this if we can just get her back.
"I should check on Dorian," Oakley says, but he doesn't move yet. "Make sure he hasn't destroyed anything else."
"He destroyed the bathroom mirror an hour ago," I inform him. "I heard it through the walls."
"And you didn't check on him?"
"You're better at emotional management. I'm better at strategic planning. Division of labor."
He squeezes my neck once more before letting go. "Take care of yourself too, Corvus. We need you functional."
After he leaves, screens and data and careful calculations return—making this seem logical instead of desperate. The transportation route from Columbus to the lake house. The sedative dosage for a female omega of her weight. The security protocols to keep her contained without causing harm.
Planning a kidnapping with the same methodical precision I use for everything else. But my hands shake as I type, and the fever makes it hard to focus, and every cell in my body screams that I shouldn't have to plan this at all. She's ours. The bond makes her ours. She should be here.
My phone buzzes with an alert from one of my monitoring programs. Her father's credit card just purchased gas inColumbus. He's driving her there himself, making sure she arrives safely. A good father. Protective.
It will make things more complicated when she disappears.
The calculations expand—how long before he reports her missing, what he'll tell police, how we ensure there's no trail leading back to us. The clean vehicle is registered under a shell company. The lake house isn't in any of our names directly. We've been careful.
But careful doesn't mean foolproof. And if she fights us as hard as I expect she will...
The fever spikes again. Desk gripped for stability.
Time. We just need time.
And then, one way or another, this ends.
six
Vespera
Columbuslooksdifferentthroughfever-bright eyes.
Dad pulls up to the dormitory entrance, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. The three-hour drive was mostly silent, both of us pretending I didn't have to stop twice to dry heave at rest stops, pretending the marks on my neck aren't still inflamed despite being two weeks old.
"You sure about this?" he asks for the fifth time.
"I'm sure." My voice sounds stronger than I feel. The registration packet in my lap lists eighteen-hour days, intensive physical work, professional expectations. My body can barely manage eighteen minutes without reminding me what I've lost.
What I've rejected.
"I can stay," Dad offers. "Get a hotel nearby, just in case—"
"I need to do this alone." I squeeze his hand, noting how cold mine feels against his warmth. "I'll call every day."
He helps me with my bags, and I'm grateful when he doesn't comment on how I have to lean against the wall while he carries them up to the third floor. Room 314, northeast corner, with a view of the theater district and a fire escape that my paranoid brain immediately catalogues as an exit route.
My roommate hasn't arrived yet. Two beds, two desks, one window. The bed nearest the door gets claimed—closer to the bathroom for when the nausea hits.
