I eat more than I realize I need to.
For a little while, it feels… easy.
Too easy.
The thought of going back—of the noises, the scent of heat, the waiting—makes my chest tighten again.
I push my plate away reluctantly, dread settling back in.
“I don’t want to go home,” I admit quietly.
Finn’s smile fades, but his voice stays warm. “I know.”
Alex’s gaze sharpens. “You don’t have to yet.”
I look between them, confused and tired and very aware of how safe I feel sitting here.
“That’s not how packs work,” I say softly.
Alex’s expression turns unreadable.
“Maybe,” he says. “But it doesn’t mean you have to suffer.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
All I know is that the thought of stepping back into that house feels unbearable—and the thought of staying here feels dangerously tempting.
And that scares me almost as much as Ragon’s anger ever did.
***
Two days later, my own house doesn't smell like a home.
It smells like a cage.
The scent is the first thing I register every time I wake—thick, hot, suffocating. Heat and rut layered together until there's no clean edge left, no neutral corner to breathe in.
It's everywhere.
It's in the carpet. In the curtains. In the couch cushions. It clings to the hallway like humidity, sweet and sharp and wrong.
The neutralizing spray helps to keep me from catching the details, but it doesn't keep my body from recognizing the danger.
My throat feels tight when I sit up in my chair. My lungs burn. My skin prickles, oversensitive.
I press the pillow harder over my ears.
It doesn't help.
It never helps.
Muffled sounds leak through the walls anyway—shifts of weight, voices dropping low, the occasional note of distress that spikes my heart. I've been sleeping like this, pillow over my ears, blanket wrapped around my shoulders, trying to block out the house's constant reminder that I am not part of what's happening.
Not part of what matters.
Days ago, they vanished into Marie's room. The door shut, and the world shrank down to whatever was happening behind it.
Ragon told me to stay in the house. He promised he'd check on me.
