Deceased.
I felt the pack's attention sharpen through the bond as I kept searching. They could feel my growing unease, could sense through the connection between us that I was finding something significant.
Soo-min Park had died when Keira was twelve years old. Cause of death listed as "complications" — vague enough to hide almost anything, specific enough to suggest something unusual.
I kept digging. Found an old article buried in archives that most people never bothered to search. A news story from years ago, small and easily overlooked, about an omega woman who had done something almost unheard of.
"I found something," I said quietly, and the background noise of the pack went silent. "Her mother." I read them the article.
"'Omega Woman Dies From Broken Bond Complications.'" My voice was steady, but something cold was spreading through my chest, something that felt like understanding and dread combined. "'Soo-min Park, age 34, passed away this week from complications related to a broken soulmate bond. Mrs. Park famously severed her bond with her alpha soulmate twelve years prior in order to pursue a relationship with Alpha businessman Dae-jung Park. Despite surviving the initial severance — a procedure with a seventy percent mortality rate — Mrs. Park never fully recovered. She is survived by her husband and twelve-year-old daughter.'"
Silence.
Heavy, awful silence that stretched across five phone connections and settled into all of our chests like lead.
"She broke a bond," Min-jun whispered. "And died from it."
"Her daughter watched her fade for twelve years," Jae-won said, his voice grim with understanding. "Watched her mother slowly die because of a soulmate bond."
"And now that daughter has five bonds of her own," Hwan finished. Understanding crashed over me like a wave breaking against rocks.
"She's not running from us," I realized aloud. "She's running from bonds. From what she thinks they'll do to her."
"She thinks we're going to destroy her." Tae-min's voice was small, hurt in a way that made me want to reach through the phone and comfort him. "Like her mom was destroyed."
"Her mom broke her bond," Min-jun argued, always the logical one, always trying to find the path that made sense. "That's the opposite of completing one. Breaking is what kills people. Completing is supposed to heal, to strengthen?—"
"She watched her mother die because of a soulmate." Jae-won's voice cut through the argument, quiet but firm with pack alpha authority. "Logic doesn't apply to that kind of trauma. She was twelve years old when it happened. Twelve years old and watching her mother fade away because of something she couldn't understand and couldn't stop. Of course she's terrified of bonds. Of course she runs."
More silence. I looked down at Keira's notebook, still sitting on my desk where Hwan had left it. Picked it up. Ran my fingers over the worn cover, feeling the indentations where her pen had pressed too hard through the pages.
"So what do we do?" Hwan asked finally.
Jae-won took a breath. I could feel him through the pack bond — his alpha wrestling with the same desperate urge to hunt and find and fix that all of ours were. But he was pack alpha. He had to think beyond instinct.
"We wait," he said. "We watch. We don't push."
"But she's getting sicker—" Tae-min protested.
"I know. But if we chase her, we'll only make it worse. She's already terrified. Hunting her down like prey will only confirm every fear she has about alphas and bonds."
"Two bonds in less than a day," Min-jun said quietly. "The other three will trigger soon. They have to — that's how pack bonds work. The closer she gets to completing the set, the stronger the pull becomes."
"Which means she'll encounter us again," Jae-won said. "Whether she wants to or not. The bonds will draw her to us."
"And when they do?" Hwan asked.
"We don't push. We don't crowd. We show her that we're not what she's afraid of." Jae-Won spoke, voice filled with steel.
"We need to show her we're different," Min-jun added. "That completing bonds isn't the same as breaking them. That we're not going to consume her or control her or destroy her."
"How do we do that if she won't let us near her?" Hwan asked.
No one had an answer.
I opened Keira's notebook.
Her handwriting was small and neat in some places, cramped and rushed in others, like she'd been writing too fast to keep up with her thoughts. Lyrics filled page after page — some polished and careful, some raw and bleeding with emotion, all of them achingly beautiful in ways that made my chest tight.
