The pain is enormous. I've been bracing for twenty minutes and it still takes my breath.
Malcolm's legs buckle. Rhys goes with him. I go down too, the three of us hitting the floor at the same moment, and somewhere above us Finn makes a sound I've never heard fromhim before. His bond isn’t physical, but watching this cuts him anyway.
Vee lunges for Rhys, his name falling from her lips. Finn is at Malcolm's side, Malcolm's hand locked around his arm.
I get up.
My chest is hollow where the bonds were. The silence inside me is the loudest thing I've ever heard.
"I'm sorry," I say. My voice breaks on it. "This is how it has to be."
I pick up my keys.
Rhys's hand catches my arm. The warmth of his grip. Ten years of pack. The man I took the fall for and would take it for again without hesitation. I remove his hand.
"You'll be okay by tonight," I say. "All of you. I promise."
Malcolm is on his feet. Unsteady. Eyes bright and furious and wrecked all at once. He steps toward me.
I step back.
"Malcolm," I say. Just his name.
He stops.
I walk to the door.
I don't look back.
The car door closes behind me. The engine turns over. I back out of the driveway and the cabin gets smaller in the mirror. I let it get smaller and I don't stop.
They need the space to rebuild. Malcolm will hold them together. He always has. He just needed me out of the way.
The road opens ahead of me.
My chest is hollow and wrong and silent.
I drive.
Because somewhere behind me, in a kitchen that smells like pack, the people I love most in the world are going to be okay.
That has to be enough.
I tell myself it is and I almost believe it.
Chapter 37
Vee
Nobody moves for a long time after his car disappears.
We're still in the kitchen. Rhys is on the floor where he went down, sitting with his back against the cabinets and his knees up and his hands loose in his lap, staring at nothing. Malcolm is standing in the middle of the room looking at the door Alex walked out of like he's deciding whether to go through it after him. Finn is beside Malcolm with one hand on his arm, not restraining, just present.
I'm holding myself together with both hands.
This is my fault.
The thought arrived the moment Alex saidthis is how it has to beand it hasn't left. It's just sitting in my chest getting heavier. If I hadn't come here. If I hadn't chosen them. If I hadn't made them want me back so completely that Alex decided the only way to protect what we had was to remove himself from it—
