My phone buzzes.
Oakley:Saw the list. Knew you'd make it. Proud of you.
Corvus:First position. As expected. I've already calculated your odds of booking the role at 94.7%.
Me:That's oddly specific.
Corvus:I ran a statistical analysis of De Scarzis's casting patterns over the last decade.
Me:Of course you did.
No message from Dorian. Because he's still in South Carolina, still at his parents' estate, still suffering through whatever fresh hell they've arranged for him.
I felt it yesterday. Around dinner time, a spike of distress through the bonds so sharp I nearly dropped my fork. Oakley noticed immediately, asked if I was okay. I lied and said I was fine.
But I felt it. His discomfort, his misery, the way he was fighting to maintain composure while everything in him screamed to come home.
Come home to pack. To me.
The bond has been restless ever since. Pulling. Aching. Like a rubber band stretched too far.
Me:How's Dorian?
Corvus:Alive. Miserable. But alive.
Oakley:He texted last night. Said his parents are "expressing concerns about his choices." Which is Ashworth-speak for interrogation.
Great. So he's being tortured by his family while I'm standing here celebrating callbacks.
The guilt twists in my stomach.
Me:Should we be worried?
Corvus:About his physical safety? No. About his mental state? Probably. But he insisted on going alone.
Oakley:He'll be back tomorrow. He can handle one more night.
Can he though? The bond doesn't think so. It's been pulling harder all morning, distress bleeding through despite Dorian's obvious attempts to shield it.
I pocket my phone and head back to the pack house, trying to focus on callbacks, on Hedda, on anything except the growing wrongness of Dorian's absence.
Thepackhousefeelsempty without him.
Stupid, because it's been two days. Two days out of months of living together. But the space feels wrong. Off-balance. Like a three-legged chair trying to support weight it wasn't designed for.
Oakley's in the kitchen making what looks like stress-baking quantities of cookies. Corvus is on his laptop at the island, probably monitoring seventeen different things simultaneously.
"Morning," Oakley says, looking up from his mixing bowl. "Coffee's fresh. And before you ask—yes, I'm stress-baking. No, I don't want to talk about it."
"Wasn't going to ask." I pour myself a cup, even though I'm already caffeinated. "What's the stress level at?"
"Moderate to severe." He adds chocolate chips with perhaps more violence than necessary. "Dorian's shielding like crazy, which means whatever's happening is bad enough that he doesn't want us to feel it."
"That's concerning," I mutter.
"Very," Corvus agrees without looking up from his screen. "But there's nothing we can do from here except wait."
"I hate waiting."
