Kennedy
Ibarely make it inside. My hands tremble as I carefully peel back the closed curtain, watching Theo as he stares at my door.
It’s enough. Enough that he doesn’t hate me. That he knows a little, and he can share it with Oscar. With Jake, and Max.
His figure shifts and wavers in my line of sight, and I blink, not moving.
This is the last time, and I won’t waste it.
I wait, locking my muscles in an attempt to stop the trembling. My head begins to pound. But he doesn’t leave.
The last time I’ll see him. I wish they were all here, but this will have to do. I meant what I said to him, even if I shouldn’t have said it. Even if it was a little too close.
In another life, I would have been an omega who fell in love with a group of alphas in high school. Who never had to be alone, never had to fight every day for the bare minimum just to drag out my survival until my body gave out. It would have been easy to love them.
In another life, I would have been cherished. Maybe I will be, somewhere else.
But not this one. Not here.
As the truck pulls away, I step back and let the curtain fall. My body aches, too full of emotion and pain to stay upright.
This is it.
My cases are packed. I lay out what I need for the morning, within easy reach. Carefully change my bandages, not looking as they stick painfully to my skin, and swallow down my medication without bothering to pour myself water.
The shaking grows, as I pull myself painfully into bed and curl up. I drag every blanket I can reach over me, until I’m buried inside them.
But I’m still cold.
I’m so, so cold. And so very tired.
I’m ready to go now.
Jake
My heart beats a little slower with every page that I work through. With every new piece of information that we unpick through the middle of the night.
Until it feels like it’s not beating at all.
I read one line again. And again. And again. Trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, because it’s not fucking possible.
My lips barely form around the words, even as I fight to understand them.
“She’s dying.”
Not possible.
Notpossiblenotpossiblenotpossible—
But I should have known. I should have fuckingknown, because I saw it. Before.
None of them look up. They didn’t hear me. Each of them is ashen, lost in a nightmare of our own making.
We should have seen this.
But I did. I saw it on Nia’s computer screen. Went up there with Max and forced my mate to show me her fucking teeth likeit was some form of proof, and I let myself relax because she wasn’t rabid, and snapping, and snarling. She wasn’t amonster.
She was just broken. And I failed her. Again, and again, and again.
