Page 55 of Knot Unwanted: Part One

The bleach burns my nose as I move to the floors. The familiar routine of cleaning helps calm my racing thoughts, but doesn’t silence them completely. What if I confront Stone alone? Give him a chance to explain before involving Jax and Ren?

But secrets are what got us here in the first place.

Gathering my supplies, I head upstairs. Her scent is fainter here, nothing like the concentrated distress that had filled that cabin, but it’s there—a ghostly trail that makes my instincts twist with protective urges I don’t quite understand. She’s not pack. I shouldn’t be having any reaction to her apart from maybe something platonic.

It makes me roll the muscles in my shoulders, a frown on my brow. I decide to clean the hallway even though her scent is faint, just to be thorough, just until I can figure out what to do next. As I near my old bedroom door, a soft whimper stops me mid-motion.

I’m so lost in thought that I almost miss the second sound. Pausing mid-wipe, I strain to listen. Nothing. Just the house settling, probably. Still, something makes me uneasy.

I lift my hand to knock but pause in the motion. Probably better to let her rest. This must be even more stressful and confusing to her than it is to me. So I drop my hand and move away, finishing up the cleaning before heading downstairs.

Setting down my cleaning supplies in the utility room, I move quietly through the house, double-checking the locks. It feelswrong, like I’m caging her in, but better safe than sorry. If everything she’s said is true, then she’d have no reason to trust Stone, or even me. And despite that I managed to rein in my anger and my pain at this whole situation, I’m not sure how good of an act it was. She probably saw right through me—the manic cooking, the forced calm, the way I couldn't quite look her in the eye. Fuck, I feel like I’m fucking tearing apart inside. She might just be pretending everything’s alright just so she can bolt at the first moment.

A spike of worry goes through me and I push it down.

One thing at a time, Finn. One thing at a time.

I head upstairs, heart beating in my throat as I stop at the door to the nest. I look down the corridor to my old bedroom. The door’s still closed. No sound comes from within. She’s probably sleeping. Again, I tell myself I should let her rest.

I need to shower, anyway. That trip through the woods and my resulting panic attack made me all sweaty.

The nest room’s shower is running before I let myself think too deeply about any of this. The hot water helps wash away some of my tension, but my mind keeps circling back to the same questions. Why did Stone keep her secret? What was he planning to do? And why does she feel so…right?

I’m just stepping out, wrapping a towel around my waist, when I hear it. A soft whimper—no, awhine—so quiet I almost think I imagined it. My gaze snaps to the standing mirror in the nest bedroom, eyes focusing on myself. It was definitely a whine, but it certainly didn’t come from me.

I left the door open in case, just for Hailey, I guess. I realize that’s where the sound is filtering through, because I hear it again.

My feet move before my brain catches up. I’m through the door, water dripping from my legs, only some caught by the towel wrapped around my waist. I’m at my old bedroom door a second later. I knock softly, but get no response.

“Hailey?” I call quietly. “I’m coming in, okay?”

Still no response, but the distress radiating through the doormakes the omega in me want to keen in sympathy. Slowly, I push the door open.

My eyes fly to the bed before I stop short. It’s still perfectly made, undisturbed, exactly as I’d left it. For a split second, panic grips me before I catch movement in my peripheral vision. There, in the far corner of the room, a small figure is huddled into a tight ball.

Hailey sits with her knees pulled tight to her chest. Her face is buried in her arms, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Oh, honey,” I breathe, and her head snaps up. Her eyes are wide, tear-filled, but it’s the pure terror in them that makes my heart crack.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear me. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

Her words slam into my chest, stealing my breath. What did they do to her at that place, to make her apologize for crying?

“No,” I say firmly, though I keep my voice gentle. “You don’t have to be quiet. You don’t have to apologize. You’re allowed to feel whatever you’re feeling.”

She stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. Slowly, I move over to her and sink to the floor, keeping my distance but making sure she can see me clearly.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

She shakes her head, then stops, then nods, her movements jerky and uncertain. “It’s…” her voice comes out barely above a whisper, “it’s too big. Too open.” She presses herself further into the corner, as if trying to disappear into it. “I can’t…I can’t watch everything at once.”

Her eyes dart around the room, and for the first time, I really look at my old bedroom through her eyes. The wide windows that I always loved for their morning light now seem exposed and vulnerable. The open space between the bed and the door that I never thought twice about feels like a vast, dangerous expanse. Every shadow could hide a threat. Every corner thatisn’t pressed against a wall is an opening someone could slip through.

My heart constricts as I realize how this normal bedroom—my safe space—must feel to someone who’s learned to fear open spaces, to someone who’s been taught that safety means making herself as small as possible.

And she’s exhausted. I can see it in her eyes. As if she’d spent the entire night awake, watching shadows. I remember, too, that she’d been sleeping before I woke her up in that cabin this morning.

“It’s okay,” I tell her softly. “You’re going to be okay.” I hear the words and some part of my brain marvels at the fact that I am comforting another omega. Never in the world would I have imagined this. But her scent isn’t disturbing me.

---