He hangs up.
I put the truck in drive and floor it. The tires scream on the gravel, then I merge onto the road and drive like a madman with absolutely nothing left to lose, because the woman I love is sitting alone in a clinic thinking we’re killers. While she may not be completely wrong, she needs the full truth now. And she needs to hear it from us.
25
NORTH
The truck door slams behind me, and I don’t bother locking it.
Luca is already half a step ahead. Ace is on my left flank. We move across the lot in a tight triangle, and I can feel my pulse in my fingertips, at the base of my throat, and behind my eyes.
The clinic is pink. A jacaranda tree on the corner.’Olu’Olu Wellness Houseabove a glass door warmed from inside by amber light. Designed for soft things.
I’m not soft right now.
I push through the door, and the receptionist, a small woman with a low knot of dark hair and a name tag that says Kalei,stands up before any of us have crossed the lobby. But it’s a blonde who steps in our path in a vintage tee that has slipped off one shoulder, her hair pulled into two stubby pigtails, her makeup smudged, and her chin set at an angle that tells me she is not going to be moved by any of the three of us.
“Clio?” I ask.
She nods. “You took your time. But you’re here now.”
“Is Adelaide okay?” I ask.
She looks at the three of us in turn. “She’s safe, but her heat is coming fast, and she’s beside herself because of you three.”
My gut twists at her words.
Luca takes a half step toward the corridor, and I put my arm out in front of him. He stops, but only because it’s me.
“Before any of you go in there,” Clio says, “we need to have a very short conversation.” Ace makes a sound that is not quite a laugh.
“She adores you three,” Clio says, quieter. “It is killing her to think she might lose you. You should know that going in. So whatever you came here to say, make sure it’s true because if you lie to her tonight, when she is in the state she is in, I will personally make sure none of you ever see her again. And I don’t care what your past job description was. I will find a way.”
I hold back the smirk, as I like her tenacity and protection over Adelaide. That means the fucking world to me. “It will be true,” I confirm. Ace and Luca follow my lead and say the same.
She studies me for a long second. “Good. Come with me.”
She turns on her heel and walks as she nods at the receptionist. We follow.
Kalei watches us pass with the particularly calm focus of a woman who has decided she will intervene only if she absolutely must.
The corridor is wide and dim, while the doors on either side are painted in muted pastels. The whole place is absurdly beautiful. Not what I’d pictured. I’ve helped retrieve Omegas from places that called themselves clinics and were nothing of the sort. This is the opposite and what every clinic should look like.
“Here.” Clio stops outside a door painted with the wordsThe Reefin gold script. She knocks. Two short raps.
“Adelaide. Babe. It’s me. I have someone here to talk to you. Three someones, actually.”
A long silence behind the door, long enough that I start counting my own breaths.
Then a voice, hoarse and wet and trying so hard to be steady: “Clio.”
“They want to explain. And I think it might be good if you hear them out, and it might help with the pain.”
Another silence.
A smaller reply: “Come in.”
I’m barely holding back from tearing down this damn door when it opens.
