I come up beside him and look too.
Vee is in the living room again. Kneeling by the couch with a glass of water. She helps Drake sit up enough to drink, supports his head with one hand while holding the glass with the other.
He mumbles something I can't hear.
She responds just as softly. Gentle.
When he's done drinking she eases him back down and adjusts the blankets with careful hands.
Rhys watches.
His expression is—I study it in the dark—not the tight-jawed containment from earlier. More complicated than that. Anger, yes, but also a kind of wonder, like he didn't know this existed.
Someone taking care of a person who hurt her.
Without condition or performance.
Just because she can.
I think about what Finn said.She's good at people. She just hasn't had people who let her be good at them before.
Rhys watches her tuck the blanket around Drake and I realize he's seeing the same thing I'm seeing. The same woman we've all been watching figure out how to be herself again.
He exhales, slow and quiet.
I look at him.
He looks at me.
We stand there in the hallway together. Two packmates who aren't sleeping, watching an omega take care of someone she has every right to hate.
Then Rhys pushes off the wall and goes back toward his room.
He pauses at his doorway and looks back at me.
His expression is an acknowledgment, like we've agreed on a thing without speaking. Then he goes inside and pulls the door mostly closed.
I stand in the hallway alone for a minute then I go back to my room.
I still don’t sleep.
By morning I can't take it anymore.
I need air. Space. Something other than these walls closing in.
I go outside. The woods are quiet and damp from last night's rain.
I walk to the edge of the clearing and stand there looking at nothing.
My hands are shaking again.
Not from wanting to hit Drake, from fear.
Raw, choking fear that we're going to lose her.
That the registry will rule in Ragon's favor, or that even if they don't, Alex's flag will make it impossible for us to keep her. Or that she'll choose to go back to Drake and his former pack because she's too good and too forgiving and too kind to let them suffer for what they did.
And I'll have to watch her walk away.
