Page 33 of Running on Empty

“If it’s actions not words you need, then…” Jax stepped forward, the tentativeness of it a strange thing. He'd always seemed supremely confident, so watching him hesitate had me thinking of shit like pod people or something. But he didn’t meet my eyes, looking into Ronan’s. “If being with you helps her settle, then you’ll get no complaints from me, but I want to show her the nest.”

“Fuck…” Ronan hissed.

“The nest?” I asked in a thin voice.

“Now is not the time—” Ash started to say.

“We’re in a fucking bunker,” Jax snapped. He didn’t even look at his brother, not really, his eyes sliding sideways, but stopping before he took him in. “We’re as safe as we can be. It’s time to regroup and work out what the hell we want to do going forward.” He hoisted a sizeable bundle in his arms, as he’d wrapped all my pillows and blankets in one of my sheets and brought my nesting materials with us. “But no matter what Stevie does or needs, she might want this.”

He jerked his head, indicating I should follow him and, damn me, if my feet didn’t do just that.

“Our rooms are through here and here,” Jax said, gesturing to darkened doorways, then moved further down the hall. “Command centre is in there. That’s where you’ll find Ash if you…” He looked over his shoulder at me and dared a smile at that. “You won’t want him. But down here.” We walked into a narrower part of the hallway, a thin metal line inset into the walls and floor, which we stepped over. “This is the area we can lock off if the place is compromised. Steel bars will lock in place, stopping anyone from getting in here.”

“And where is here?”

Jax paused at the door and then produced a swipe card, handing it to me when the door popped open. I expected the place to be dark and musty smelling, but the scents were gentle, pleasant as I stepped in. Rich, sweet and woody sandalwood with just a hint of acidic orange to cut through it. It drew me closer.

“You can change the scent profiles,” he said, bringing up some fancy arse LCD panel and tapping on it. “There’s a bunch of pre-set options or you can mix your own…”

He told me something about it, what to do and how to control it, but I wasn’t able to focus on what he was saying. I stepped further in, the soft floor giving under my shoes, forcing me to toe them off and feel the ultra plush carpet on the soles of my feet. It was padded with some kind of foam, the whole thing feeling plush and…

Safe.

When I’d revealed as an omega, my mother had mocked me mercilessly, finding my attempts at making a nest in my wardrobe and then hauling the contents out to wash them, taking away the comforting scent, to wash them and replace it with harsh detergent perfume. She hadn’t made allowance for what I’d become, a strange light coming into her eyes the moment she’d been forced to deal with my new reality. Because overnight I’d stopped being her annoying kid and instead I’d become something far worse.

Competition.

So I looked around this room with two sets of eyes. The woman now, who refused to take one of the rooms I’d stripped bare when Mum died and turn it into a nest, and the other…? She saw it with the eyes of a fifteen year old girl who went to bed one thing and woke up another, who was lost in all the conflicting feelings and sensations, her mother’s sneers cutting her right to the bone, until Lois stepped in.

“A nest is your right as an omega,” she’d assured me, holding me close in her living room, the boys having scattered on her order.

“Mum doesn’t think so,” I’d forced out between sobs.

“I’ve tried to make that clear to her,” she said, an edge to her voice, but that tone and what I associated with it when it was in my mum’s voice just made me stiffen. She rocked me back and forward then, rubbing her hand across my shoulder blades. “But it's not long now. At eighteen, you can move out, leave her shit behind.”

And I’d clung to that idea as hard as I’d clung to her, so hard I could almost feel her arms around me now.

Perhaps that’s why I walked forward, taking step after hesitant step towards the bed. It was built low to the ground and had been left stripped bare, a blank canvas for me to adorn. My fingers twitched, my head whipping around to look for the bundle of nesting materials. Jax was hesitant to move towards me, seeming to know that this was my space, not his, but he held the big bundle out for me to take.

I almost ripped it out of his hands, not wanting to be that rude, but unable to stop myself. I was over to the bed, dumping the mass down and then struggling to unknot the sheets, the fabric somehow getting tighter, not looser. A small frown had formed on Jax’s face as he watched me try and fail to open the knot.

“Can I help?”

There was so much in that question. Acknowledgement that the big bad alpha thought he had to ask permission in this space, that it was mine and not his. That he just didn’t assume I couldn’t do this, even though all evidence said I couldn’t. That he waited until I nodded to get any closer. I pulled back from him, but not far, because this bed was calling to me on some deep level I didn’t really understand, not until he pulled the knot free and everything spilled out. Then my hands shot out, grabbing pillows and blankets until I couldn’t hold any more, moving around the bed to decide where best to put them.

“Did you want sheets?”

He walked over and opened a cupboard inset into the wall and pulled out several sets, each one freshly washed and containing that scent that you only get with sun dried cotton. He offered me a choice between a soft blue, a washed out sage and a crisp white, but I grabbed the green ones without thinking. The nesting materials were dumped on the floor and I went to work, stretching the fitted sheet over the massive mattress.

Or rather, trying to.

Jax waited until I let out a small growl of frustration before he stepped forward.

“I can help.” He grabbed the corner of the sheet, but didn’t move. “Let me help, omega.”

I couldn’t say yes to him. My throat felt swollen and closed up, so I just nodded but that’s all he needed. We worked together to put the sheet on, our hands smoothing the wrinkles out until finally I stepped back. My pillows didn’t seem enough for the massive space, but I went up to the head of the bed and started putting them into place, knowing their arrangement by heart. I massed the blankets up in a messy heap, knowing I would sink right down into them. And I would too, because the bed was so much softer than mine. It was as plush as a cloud and when I dug myself down into the space, pulling blankets over me, that’s what it felt like as I peered out.

Jax looked… satisfied–was the only word that came to mind–in ways I didn’t think I’d ever seen before, a small smile forming on his lips as he watched me nestle in. He opened his mouth, his breath sucked in, just about to say something when Ronan came swinging in through the door. He came to stand beside Jax, and I noticed his eyes were reassuringly hazel again. “Just what you needed, huh, omega? Can I come in?”

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