Chapter Fourteen
KEIRA
I made it three blocks before my legs gave out.
The park bench appeared like a mirage — weathered wood and peeling green paint, tucked beneath a tree that was just starting to lose its autumn leaves. I stumbled toward it on legs that felt like they were made of water, my vision swimming, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth. I collapsed onto the bench more than sat, my body folding in on itself like a puppet with cut strings. The four bonds in my chest were aching, all of them pulling in different directions, all of them incomplete, all of them demanding something I hadn't been able to give.
Rest, my omega urged weakly, her voice thin and tired in my mind.Just for a minute. Then we'll keep going.
"Just for a minute," I agreed, my own voice coming out as barely a whisper. "Just need to catch my breath." Even as I said it, I knew I was being optimistic. I could feel the soul sickness weighing on me, making everything harder than it should be. My skin was too warm. My bones ached. Every breath felt like more effort than it was worth.
I'd pushed too hard.
Going out had been a mistake. The walk to the restaurant had been a mistake. Staying to eat instead of going straight home had been a mistake. Now I was paying for all of it, sitting on a park bench in the middle of the city with no strength left to move. I don't know how long I sat there in a daze, until the constant buzzing of my phone broke me out of it.
I heard the phone buzz from my pocket again, causing me to give a sigh. I tried to reach for it, my arm trembling with the effort. The simple act of lifting my hand felt like trying to move a boulder, but I managed to get my fingers around the device, managed to pull it out. The screen swam in front of my eyes, but I could make out the notifications — messages from Min-jun, Tae-min, Hwan, Jin-ho. All of them checking in. All of them worried.
Answer them, my omega pleaded.Tell them where we are. Let them help.
I tried. My fingers shook as I attempted to type, but the letters blurred together and nothing I wrote made sense. I managed to open the group chat they'd added me to — the one where they'd been sending me memes and lyrics and check-ins for days — and stared at the keyboard, willing my hands to cooperate.
Can't, I typed, the single word taking more effort than it should have.Park. Bench. Sorry.
I hit send before I could second-guess myself, then tried to add more — tried to tell them which park, which street, something useful — but my fingers wouldn't cooperate and the phone slipped from my grasp to land on the bench beside me with a soft thud.
Good, my omega sighed, her presence flickering tiredly.They'll find us. They'll come.
I hoped she was right. I hoped the partial message was enough. I hoped they could figure out where I was.
The afternoon sun shifted across the sky, shadows lengthening around me as time crawled by. I drifted in and out of awareness, the world fading to grey at the edges, sounds becoming muffled and distant. People walked past — I could hear their footsteps, their conversations, the occasional bark of a dog or cry of a child — but none of them stopped. None of them noticed the woman too exhausted to move on a park bench.
Why would they? I probably just looked tired. Sick, maybe. Not like someone whose body was struggling under the weight of four incomplete bonds.
We should have been braver, my omega murmured, her voice soft with regret.We should have let them in sooner.
"I know," I breathed, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes to track down my warm cheeks. "I know. I was so scared. I wasted so much time being scared."
The letters. I thought about the letters — about Hwan's confession that his sunshine was a mask, about Jin-ho recognizing my loneliness because he wrote with the same ache, about Tae-min's fear before debut and how experience was the only cure, about Min-jun noticing the small things and remembering that I liked sweet red bean, about Jae-won being terrified of failing and promising never to command me.
They'd given me everything. Opened themselves up, showed me who they really were, trusted me with their vulnerabilities and their fears. I'd asked for more time. More time to hide. More time to be scared. More time to build walls against people who only wanted to love me.
We didn't know, my omega said weakly, trying to comfort me.We thought we had more time.
But we didn't. We never did. Time had been running out since the moment the first bond triggered, and I'd wasted whatlittle I had clinging to a fear that had never been mine in the first place.
My mother's fear. My mother's story. My mother's cage.
Not mine.
Breaking and completing were opposite things. Jeni had said it. Tae-min had said it. Even I had started to believe it. But believing and acting were different things, and I'd been too scared to act.
The sun sank lower. The shadows grew longer. The four bonds in my chest pulsed steadily, aching with incompleteness.
Don't give up, my omega whispered.They're coming. They saw the message. They have to be coming.
"I hope so," I managed, each word an effort. "I really hope so." I don't know how much time passed. Minutes, maybe. Or longer. The world kept fading in and out, reality becoming soft around the edges. At some point, I became aware of footsteps — faster than the casual stroll of passersby, more purposeful. Someone was running.
Then a scent hit me.
