Page 5 of His Mate

About what the wolves were going to do to me.

About the fact that I’d be forced to bear their pups until I wasn’t of any use to them anymore. I shivered and looked down at the floor, trying to tell myself to live in the moment and not worry about tomorrow, but it was hard.

It was so very hard.

We reached the old movie theater at the back of the mall, the one with the neon sign that still flickered on and off every now and then, casting a dull, pinkish glow over the cracked tile. Mariah pushed open the door, and we stepped inside, the thick carpet muffling our footsteps.

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got tonight,” Mariah said, making her way up to the projector room. She had this ritual—always pretending to be a fancy theater director or something, as if it made all of this feel less sad and broken. “I’m thinking something classic, something we can actually pretend is worth watching.”

“Just pick something,” Lia said, flopping into one of the ragged seats and propping her feet up on the one in front of her. “It’s not like we’re going to get to do this again.”

Mariah shot her a look, then rummaged through the pile of old film canisters. I watched them both, trying to ignore the cutting sting of Lia’s words. My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You know you’re picking something terrible,” I called up to Mariah. “You always do.”

“That’s a lie,” she shot back, but she was smiling, and for a second, it felt normal. “I have amazing taste, thank you very much.” She paused, pulling out a battered reel with faded lettering. “Oh, here we go.The Breakfast Club. What do you say? Some absolutely ancient teen drama to keep our minds off the apocalypse?”

Lia groaned, but I nodded, smiling despite myself. “Perfect,” I said. “Let’s pretend we’re just normal humans living a normal human night.”

“Normal?” Mariah’s laugh was sharp, tinged with something sad. “Kendra, we’ve never been normal.”

I wanted to argue, but what was the point? Instead, I sank into a seat next to Lia, and we waited as Mariah fiddled with the projector, muttering curses under her breath. Finally, the screen flickered to life, pale light cutting through the darkness, and for a moment, we were just three girls watching a movie in a forgotten corner of a dying world.

We laughed at the cheesy dialogue, at the terrible hair and clothes, at the way everything seemed so easy and small compared to what we faced every day. I leaned back, letting the sounds wash over me, trying to forget about the wolves, about what would happen tomorrow. But it was there, lurking at the edge of my thoughts, like a cursed shadow I couldn’t quite shake.

At one point, Lia reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered, but there was doubt in her eyes, and it made my chest ache.

“I know,” I lied, squeezing back. “I know.”

But as I watched the characters on screen, their faces flickering in the dim light, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d ever felt this way—this kind of bone-deep fear that made it hard to breathe, that turned every heartbeat into a countdown. And I wondered if they’d have been brave enough to face it, the way I’d have to tomorrow.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” Mariah said suddenly, her voice breaking the silence. “Just… us… sitting here, watching some stupid movie. No wolves. No rules. Just us.”

I looked at her, at the way the light from the projector caught in her eyes, turning them bright and hopeful. And for a moment, I almost believed it was possible. Almost.

“Maybe we can,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just for tonight.”

And so we watched. We laughed. We pretended the world wasn’t crumbling outside, that tomorrow wasn’t waiting to swallow me whole. But as the credits rolled, and the power flickered out, plunging us back into darkness, I felt it again—that tightening in my chest, the cold certainty that this was it. That this would be the last time we’d ever be like this.

“We should go,” Lia said, her voice small, and I nodded, even though I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to face what was waiting for me when the sun rose over the horizon in the morning.

“Yeah,” I whispered, standing and dusting off my jeans. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

And as we made our way back through the darkened mall, our footsteps echoing through the empty halls, I tried to memorize every second. The sound of their laughter. The feel of their hands in mine. The way, just for a moment, I felt like I wasn’t afraid, but the fear came back after that. It always did.

Just like tomorrow would always inevitably come.

The walk back was quiet, the three of us moving in silence through the empty streets, each step taking us further from the mall and closer to the reality we’d tried to leave behind.

Our sector was on the outskirts of the city, far enough from the heart of it that we rarely saw patrols, but close enough to the seedy underground where you could find just about anything if you knew where to look. I’d always hated it here, hated the way the shadows felt thicker, like they could swallow you whole, but tonight, I found some strange comfort in it. It was familiar.

It was home.

Our apartment was on the third floor of an old tenement building, one of the few still standing after the Collapse. Most of the windows had been shattered years ago, replaced with mismatched sheets of metal and plywood, and the stairs creaked underfoot, threatening to give out every time we went up. But somehow, we’d made it our own. The door was covered in faded stickers that Lia had scavenged from an old toy store, and Mariah had painted the walls with wild, sweeping colors that almost made you forget the place was falling apart. Almost.

“Home, sweet home,” Mariah muttered, kicking off her boots and tossing her jacket onto the battered couch. She floppeddown beside it, throwing her arms over her head and closing her eyes like she could just pretend for a minute that everything was fine.

Lia wandered into the tiny kitchen, rummaging around in the cupboard until she pulled out a dented metal flask, the label long since worn off.

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