Page 46 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

Kade holds his gaze for a second, then nods once. No arguing. No treating him like a child. “Then sit where someone can hold you.”

Idris moves before I can. He eases Theo away from my side and into the space against his chest, one arm folding around our Omega’s middle, the other hand cupping the side of his neck near the fresh bite. Theo lets him, but his hand stays locked around two of my fingers. I should move closer. I should be the one holding him. I can't get my body to obey.

Kade plugs in the drive.

The screen flickers to the front approach of our house. The porch is there, the rail, the planter Callie filled with winter greenery because she said the house looked too severe without something living near the door. The timestamp is the right evening. The image tears across the middle, static chewing through half the frame.

Then Callie is there.

She's closer than she was on the campus footage, close enough for my body to recognize her before the damaged video sharpens. She's on the front approach, not fully on the porch, one arm trapped in an officer’s grip. Another officer is in front of her, blocking the path. Her scarf has slipped loose. Her bag is on the ground. Her mouth is open.

The audio bursts in with a crackle.

“Sloane!”

The world stops.

Her voice rips through the speakers, ragged and terrified, and I'm no longer in Blackline. I'm inside that house. I'm behind walls. I'm with Theo in a heat-crash panic while Callie screams my name outside and I don't hear her. I don't come. I don't tear through the front door. I don't put my body between hers and the hands dragging her away.

The footage lurches. Static claws through the audio. Callie’s voice comes again, thinner, breaking around the words. “I live here. Please, I need to talk to—”

The sound cuts out.

The image convulses into blocks of gray and black. For several seconds, there is nothing but visual noise. Then the picture clears enough to show movement at the edge of the driveway. An officer gets into Callie’s car. The brake lights come on. Her car backs out slowly, then disappears down the drive behind the patrol vehicle.

Kade stops the video.

No one speaks.

Theo’s hand slips out of mine. I feel the loss of his fingers before I understand why. Idris has both arms around him now, Theo folded hard into his chest, shaking so violently his teeth click once before Idris tucks Theo’s face into his throat and starts purring. The purr is low and rough, dragged out of him by force, not comfort. Theo makes no sound at all. His eyes are open against Idris' neck, blank with a horror too large for his body.

I try to stand.

My knees hit the floor beside the conference table.

The impact should hurt. It does not. Nothing does, for a second. Then everything does. My shoulder. My chest. My hands. The place in the bond where Callie’s existence shudders faintly, miles away or worlds away, still there and still unreachable. I fold forward with one hand braced on the carpetand the other pressed over my mouth because if I let the sound out, I will never get it back under my skin.

She came home.

She screamed for me.

Someone drove her car away.

Idris says my name, but he doesn't come to me. He can’t. Theo is silent in his arms, and this time Idris holds our Omega because if he lets go, Theo may disappear somewhere inside himself Garrett will never stop paying for. I know that. I'm grateful for it but I hate every second of needing to be grateful.

Kade crouches near the end of the table, not close enough to touch me. “Sloane.”

I shake my head as Zana’s chair creaks. She's standing now, one hand flat on the table, eyes bright with controlled fury. “That footage changes the filing posture.”

A laugh breaks out of me from somewhere ugly and ruined. “Filing posture.”

“Sloane.” Her voice cracks like a slap, and it is the only thing that could have made me look up. “Yes. Filing posture. Because that is how I get the order stayed. That is how I get room to demand records instead of asking for favors from people hiding behind policy. The campus timing, Garrett’s presence with the officer, the house footage, the use of your name, Theo’s statement, and the compromised phones together give me a route. It isn't enough to make tonight stop hurting. It may be enough to pry his hands off the legal mechanism.”

Idris' purr keeps going. Theo shakes against him, silent and terrible. I press my forehead to the edge of the conference table and force air into my lungs.

“Then do it,” I say.

“I am,” Zana says. “If the restriction is stayed or rescinded today, I can request current contact information through the university’s counsel-facing channel. That doesn’t mean they’llhand it over quickly, and it doesn’t mean anyone calls her without a plan. But it gives us a lawful door Garrett doesn’t control.”