I sat there on the concrete floor of the O2 for forty-five minutes. My leg went numb. My back seized up against the brickwork. I didn't twitch a muscle.
Alfie sat down in the doorway, keeping guard against the outside world, and Euan sat cross-legged ten feet away. Cal drifted in, silent as a ghost, and placed a thermos of tea near my foot before retreating to the perimeter. His Beta scent not triggering her to wake thankfully.
We held the line.
When she finally stirred, the venue was quiet. The load-out crew had been banished to the trucks outside. It was just us, caught in a bubble of silence and dust.
She stiffened first. The realization of where she was,whoshe was touching.
I braced myself for her to bolt. I prepared myself for the rejection, the panic, the scramble for the exit.
But she didn't run.
She slowly peeled herself off my side. She sat up, rubbing a hand over her face, her hair a disaster of purple-black tangles. She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small, but she didn't move away.
She blinked, orienting herself.
Alfie was still by the door, looking like a loyal dog waiting for a command.
Euan was watching her with that intense, surgical focus, checking for damage.
Cal was leaning against a flight case, looking mild and unbothered.
And Rowan stood just inside the room, her tablet held against her chest like a shield. She looked fierce and proud and terrifying.
Zia looked at all of us. Her gaze lingered on my open hands, still resting on my knees.
She cleared her throat. It sounded rough. "Furniture," she rasped. Her voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel. "You were furniture."
"Still am," I said. My hands stayed planted on my knees, palms up. Open. Empty. "Wall hasn't moved, either."
She dragged a hand through her hair, snagging the purple-black tangles. She looked at the space between us where her heat had soaked into my flannel shirt. The scent of her, that neon citrus and ozone, was quieter now, dampened by the cool air Euan had rigged, but it still hummed in my blood. It set my teeth on edge with the need to do something, anything, other than sit on this freezing concrete.
Zia pushed herself up. She wobbled, and my biceps twitched. Just a flicker. A biological reflex to catch the falling thing.
I killed the impulse stone dead. I didn't move.
She steadied herself against the wall, eyes scanning the room, landing on the pack one by one.
Alfie, vibrating in the doorway, looked like he was about to chew through the frame. Euan was staring at his shoes like they contained the secrets of the universe, probably calculating airflow vectors. Cal was simply present, a Beta anchor in a sea of Alpha static.
"You didn't..." Zia started, then trailed off. She looked at her own hands, then back at me. "I passed out. In a loading dock. With three Alphas blocking the exit."
"Door's open, love," Alfie said from the threshold. His voice was soft, stripped of the stage gloss. "Nobody's blocking anything. You've got the line."
He shifted, demonstrably pressing his back against the jamb to widen the gap.
Zia stared at him. Then she looked at the water bottle I’d placed earlier. She picked it up, cracked the seal, and drank half of it in one go.
"Why?" she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "You smelled it. The spike. I know the blockers failed. I felt the heat hit."
"We smelled it," I confirmed. There was no point lying. The air still tasted like lightning strikes and grapefruit zest. It was heavy in my lungs, a taste I knew I was never going to scrub out.
"And you sat on the floor."
"I told you," I said, finally shifting my weight. My leg was dead asleep, pins and needles shooting up my calf. "Furniture or wall. You picked furniture."
"That's not..." She shook her head, confusion warping her expression. "That's not how the industry works. That's not how designation works."
