Page 87 of Into the Fire: After
With a grunt, she pulled her skateboard out and threw it with a shout down the hill. The various cracking and crashing sounds it made echoed in the lonely night. Then she turned to me, burying her face in my chest as the emotion she'd been running from for months finally overtook her. Sobs that tore at my heart to hear. Agonized screams directly into my chest that may as well have been knife cutting through.
I wrapped her in my arms, holding her tightly. I kissed her hair and stroked her back. Her pain poured through the bond, slicing me like glass. I stood tall and let it. Let it overwhelm me andchop me to bits. It was nothing, I knew, compared to what it did to her.
She shook her head. “I begged Brooks to let me go back and get caught,” she said so softly I barely heard it. “I told him I couldn’t stand to do nothing when I knew doing nothing meant more omegas would be hurt.
“But that’s all it was in the end. Nothing.” She swiped at her cheeks. “They’ll keep doing what they’re doing, omegas will always be lesser than, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
I swayed my body, kissed the crown of her head. She let the tidal wave of emotion that she’d been repressing for months crash over her.
When her sobs slowed and her breathing evened, I knitted my fingers with hers. “I haven’t touched AlphX in close to a decade,” I said, voice rough. “But if someone asked me if I’m an addict, the answer would be yes. Because that’s not a fight you win and then you’re done. It happens every day, continuously, forever.” I squeezed her fingers. “I think, when it comes to stuff like this, it’s the same thing. We take steps, we make progress, but we’re neverdone. It has to be maintained, and it can always slide backwards.”
Taryn was quiet. So was the bond. I continued.
“Nothing is ever for nothing, sunshine. But the meaning doesn’t come from outside. It comes from you.” I lifted her chin so I could meet her eye. “The last six months, they’ve changed you. But you get to choose how. You get to choose the impact it has.
“So, tell me, Omega, how will what happened to you change you?”
I let the silence hang this time, giving her a chance to think on my words, to sort out her own. Our bond throbbed like a bruise as she sat up and pushed her hair over her shoulders.
“The story doesn’t feel like mine,” she finally said. “We thought it would be safer to hide the real truth of it, so we watered it down and carried on. When we were working on a case against Wainwright, it was easier to take, but now…” She paused, scratching at a loose thread in her shirt. "It's like I have the effects of everything inside me, but no ownership of the events themselves. It feels like I gave it away for something bigger, but I'm just standing here empty-handed."
The rumble of an approaching car made me bristle. Headlights blinded us, then passed, and the dark grew thick again. Reaching over, I pulled my omega's jacket tighter around her and kissed her forehead.
“So what do we do to make the story yours again?”
Thirty-seven
Brooks
Myparentshadmanyfaults. Judgmental, close-minded, stuck-up. They weren’t crazy about the fact I’d chosen to bond not one, but two men. The few times we’d visited them before they moved internationally, they’d been polite enough to Lin and Caine, but I’d seen the looks they exchanged when they thought we weren’t paying attention.
For all that, though, they’d taught me everything I knew about how to be a good partner. Alice and Markus Henning were, if nothing else, a solid unit. Watching them my entire childhood had shown me how I wanted my future marriage—or, as it turned out, pack—to be.
Caine and Taryn returned home late that night, and all of us sat in a tense, awkward circle in the living room. I reached out for Brea’s hand on my right and Taryn’s on my left. “My dad told me once that when he and my mom ever argued, they’d hold hands.” I met Lin’s pained gaze, then Caine’s, Taryn’s, Brea’s. “He said it’s a lot harder to be angry when you’re touching.”
Lin swallowed, but he reached for Caine’s hand and Taryn’s. Caine linked with Brea.
No one spoke. At least on my end, I didn’t even know where or how to start.
We’d kept secrets. We’d exchanged heated words. We’d acted rashly. We’d endangered ourselves and each other.
Caine was the first to speak. He looked at Taryn. “I read through your journal,” he said in a thick voice. “Weeks ago. That’s how I knew where you were tonight.”
She blinked a few times, her hand in mine tightening a little. “Oh.”
“You’ve been scaring the shit out of me since we got back,” he continued. “It’s not an excuse. I probably should’ve done something different. I’m sorry.”
Taryn shifted in her seat. “I get why you did,” she said at last. “I wasn’t exactly open about…anything.”
“Still, though,” Brea interjected, “that was a boundary crossed.”
Caine nodded, a touch of red staining his cheeks. He looked up through his lashes at Taryn, the picture of contrition. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. She nodded.
With a squeeze to her hand, I pulled it out in front of us. “He’s the one you should be touching now, sweetness,” I said with a smile as I released her fingers.
She rolled her eyes and stood, going to wrap her arms around Caine’s neck. “I’m sorry I scared you,” she whispered just loudly enough we could hear it. “And I’m sorry you got arrested instead of me.”
He crushed her to his chest, his face screwing up with emotion. After a moment, he pulled her away and framed her face with his hands. “I’d endure far worse to keep you safe.”
