Page 96 of Reckless: Collision

Ryker’s scent hits me before his voice does—cedar wrapped up in concern. He always finds me when the demons get too loud, when the silence in my room becomes a symphony of broken thoughts. It’s been days since the sledding, since I watched Cayenne’s laughter paint colors across the snow. I woke up this morning with something primal scratching beneath my skin, begging to break free.

“Jinx.” The warning in his tone promises property damage. Last time, the hinges didn’t survive.

I wrench the door open before he can say my name again. Let him come in. Let him see the chaos I’m barely containing. I cross my arms over my bare chest, a futile barrier between his judgment and my instability.

He stands there in full tactical black—cargo pants, turtleneck, shit-kicking boots, and a beanie pulled low over his shaved head. His face carries that look of disapproval that makes my molars grind together.

“You’re hiding,” he says, leaning against the door frame like he owns it. Like he owns everything. Including me.

“I’m processing.” The words taste like lies on my tongue. My eyes catch on the yarn that’s spilled across my pristine floor—green, like Cayenne’s eyes. I was making her a scarf to match her hat. Another attempt at control through creation instead of destruction.

“You have a job.” I flex my fingers, taking in more details—the mud on his boots, the tension in his shoulders. “You had a job.”

“A little bit of both.” His steel-gray eyes turn murky, like storm clouds gathering. “We need to talk about it, but we can’t have that conversation if I don’t know where your head is at.”

“I’m not going to go rogue.” Again. The word hangs unspoken between us, heavy with shared memories of blood and violence.

Hopefully.

My mind spirals through scenarios, each one darker than the last. As long as no one hurts Theo. Or Cayenne. Or Finn. Ryker can bleed a little. The thought slips through before I can catch it, and fuck—I’m really not okay.

I drag my hands over my scalp, forgetting about the baseball cap until it hits the carpet with a soft thud. The pristine carpet. Everything in here is pristine, military-clean, because my headis fucked enough without adding chaos to my surroundings. Some days, the order of this room is the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity.

The bag of yarn topples as I throw myself into my chair, spilling more green across the floor. Green like her eyes. Green like spring. Green like life. I focus on the color because it’s safer than the red that sometimes floods my vision.

Ryker follows, settling into the opposing chair that’s barely big enough to contain his frame. In another life, I might have found it funny. But humor feels distant now, like something I once knew but can’t quite remember.

“Is it helping?” He nods toward the yarn, his voice softer than most would believe possible.

I reach down, letting the soft cotton slide between my fingers. The repetitive motion of crochet usually helps—loop, pull, create instead of destroy. “No,” I answer honestly, because lies between us are more dangerous than truth.

“Maybe we should?—”

“No.” The word rips out of me, sharp and final. “No more therapy.”

“Jinx.”

“I said no.” The yarn falls from my suddenly numb fingers. My heart rate spikes, memories of white walls and restraints flooding back. “They’ll send me to psych. Want another eval. Lock me up again.” I meet his eyes, letting him see the raw fear I usually hide. “I can’t go through that again.”

He holds my gaze, and I feel him testing our pack bonds, measuring my stability against the potential risk. The silence stretches between us, filled with all the things we never say about my broken pieces and his attempts to hold them together.

“Alright,” he runs a hand down his face, exhaustion bleeding through his usual control. “But you need to talk to one of us.And I might regret saying this, but Cayenne is grouped in thatusstatement now.”

I hide my smile in the shadows, giving him just a nod. The mention of her name sends electricity through my veins—both calming and dangerous, like everything about her.

“Tell me about the job.” I press forward, desperate for something to focus on besides the chaos in my head. Something concrete. Something real.

“Talk first.”

“Fuck, man, just give me something.” The words scrape out of my throat. How can he not understand? I need this. Need something to plan, to anticipate. Something to keep the darkness at bay. “I need this.”

Ryker stands suddenly, as though his next words require movement. “She complements us, you know.” He paces, his boots silent on the carpet. “The snowball fight. The sledding.”

“She picked out all our blind spots.” I say what he can’t quite bring himself to admit.

“In seconds.” There’s something like awe mixed with fear in his voice.

But I knew. From the moment I caught her lemon scent in that bathroom, I fucking knew. It was like an invisible thread wrapping around my guts, tying us together in ways I couldn’t explain if I tried. I would have given her the world that day. All she wanted was to fuck.

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