Page 86 of Into the Fire: After
The moment he opened the door, my heart sang. Taryn had been here recently. Her toffee and cream scent, sour as it was,was fresh and strong. We stepped further inside, until one of my steps crinkled. I looked down.
A torn notebook page.
I bent to pick it up.
Day sixteen
Writing writing because Brea said to write I’m not even gonna use periods whoops lost my apostrophes too capital letters whatre those write write write until an idea comes to my mind my brain my thoughts they roll like a car bus wheels on the bus go round and round—
Oh! Idea! (And punctuation!) Can we all give a big round of applause to the Farendale bus team because, damn, these are some clean buses. Because let’s be real, I’m a princess and using the bus as part of my Engaging with the World Therapy is much easier when it doesn’t smell like a dumpster or when I don’t have to sit in a seat with mysterious stains. Bus 28 is the cleanest by far of the ones I’ve ridden, but—
Her writing ended at the bottom of the page. I looked around the floor and saw more. Brooks was holding the hollowed-out shell of the notebook she’d been writing in since we came home from the Greysmoke Cabin.
I felt as hollow as the empty binding.
Caine stood in the center of the room, staring into the corner where I guessed he’d once held my omega, the both of them falling into ferality after the break-in and assault that had started all of this. His face was stricken, like he was seeing it play out again in real time.
“Fuck,” Lin breathed, taking in the scene. “Goddamn, where would she go?”
I couldn’t keep the tears inside anymore. Lin cradled my head against his shoulder. “We’ll find her,” he whispered to me, rocking us back and forth. Maybe he was soothing himself asmuch as me. “We’re gonna bring her home, and we’re gonna be okay.”
“I feel like Sisyphus,” I blubbered against his chest. “Pushing this just…impossibly huge rock up the hill. But there’s always something, something, something else that keeps us from getting to the top.”
Caine’s scent sharpened, and his footsteps stormed past us.
“What—Caine!” Brooks called after him. I lifted my head, and Lin and I watched as he passed through the door. We followed him at a brisk pace into the lobby and to the outer doors.
“Caine!” Lin called. “What’s happening?”
He didn’t even break pace, only calling over his shoulder. “I’m bringing our omega home!”
Caine
JustbeforeIreachedthe crest of the hill, I pulled the car off to the shoulder. Cut off the engine, climbed the rest of the way to the top. Even if I’d missed the shadow of a huddled omega sitting at the top, I couldn’t have missed her scent. Mottled cream, burned toffee, salt stinging in my eyes.
I didn’t say a word. Just sank to the ground beside her. Looked down the too-tall hill. Synced my breaths with hers. Her pain was a fiery sting in the bond we shared, one I only wanted to soothe.
There was no soothing this, though. There was only sitting with her in it.
“Tell me not to skate this hill,” she finally whispered.
Her board sat under the tent of her raised knees, her hands gripping either side of it. She hadn’t touched the thing since we got back. Maybe that’s why she’d gone into the downstairs apartment. Or maybe she’d just caught sight of it and acted on instinct.
Either way, the demand she requested wasn't what I gave her. I swallowed. “I don’t want you to skate down the hill.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I nodded. “It’s dangerous,” I said carefully. “And your balance is shit.” She actually huffed a mild laugh. My inner alpha preened. “I’ve skated alooootof hills like this one, Omega. A lot of people told me not to. None of that meant shit until I decided I wasn’t going to anymore.”
She sniffed next to me. “You could bark at me, make me not do it.”
“I’d sooner cut out my tongue than bark at you."
“That’s what alphas do,” she said in a monotone. “And omegas listen. And that’s the way it will always be.”
I didn’t reply. The smell of her tears thickened the air.
“We’re not equal. They’ll never let us be.”
