Page 81 of Impossible

I watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest for a moment, letting my heart rate slow.

I should clean up. I should pick up the clothes and right the bed and dresser and begin to make order of the chaos. Risk never will. It’s what packs are for.

I begin the process of taking his boots off. My fingers are shaking, compounding the difficulty of the one-handed task.

There’s an empty dime bag in his right boot, white residue inside.

I stuff it in my pocket. I peel his socks free. I pick up his body—a much more difficult task than Indie’s frail bird bones, nearly two hundred pounds of dead-weight muscle—and place him on his bed. I almost drop him at one point, but he doesn’t wake. Joshua is easier. He’s lost weight these past months, and he was always the thinnest of us to begin with. His breath on my neck is cool—even in the bourbon haze, he is the sweet blunt breeze before a summer storm.

I should get in. I should take my shirt and pants off and crawl into bed and press the length of my body to his and give him everything that I failed to this morning. It isn’t hard. All I have to do is lie there.

I turn around and walk out. Down the stairs, out the door, around the giant house and into the woods. I think I’m wandering aimlessly, until I realize I’m going to the treehouse.

I hadn’t thought about it even once since the attack, not until Indie asked. My mind instantly filled with images of us out here. Reading, picnics, napping… other things.

I walk faster, wishing I could outpace the thoughts.

It’s just too goddamn much right now.

Joshua and Risk and Hollis, fucking Hollis.

Indie.

The memory of her beneath me takes my breath away. Fragile and hot with need, delicate fingers holding me there, silently begging for me to kiss her—I speed up again. It’s no use. The mental image shifts. Her angry face today, trying to hide her fear.

I see her in a heat suite. Alone. Crying for me, just like she did in her darkened room. But I’m not there. In this nightmare, Marcus Phoenix is. He appears out of the darkness, kneeling between her legs and peeling her clothes off.

I roar, drowning out the mental picture. I’m running now, my breath steaming in the cool night air. I’m gasping when I finally arrive at the giant oak. The ladder hangs down from the wooden platform above, waiting for me, and that’s when I realize.

I can’t climb it.

The rope and plank contraption sways slightly in the breeze. Like it’s mocking me. I hold my left arm up, eyes fixed on the space that used to be my hand. Every time I look at it, something feels distinctlywrong. Like if I had only turned quicker, the hand would still be there.

I’m so fucking tired.

Of Risk’s harsh chemical smell, a pharmaceutical aid instead of what should be us. Of checking the hump of Joshua’s bedridden body for signs of life in his musty, dead-aired room. Of Hollis, fucking Hollis, righteous and terrified and holding us all hostage while he hides.

Of fearing for Indie.

My god. I’ve known her a week, and already she lives inside me, a second heartbeat prone to palpitations, always on the verge of giving out. I think of the vertebra in her neck, each sticking out like the keys of a piano, waiting to be played. I think of the tiny mole on her cheek, how I always want to brush it with my thumb.

I could blame Hollis for the names on that pack sheet. There’s no way in hell it’s the sheet that genetic testing turned up. It’s a one-two punch, aimed straight at Midas Pack.

But it’s not all Hollis, no matter the enemies he might have made in his time at the Coalition.

Eros Pack.Myintended pack. With Joshua beside me, and two others whose memory makes my lip curl. I know why they’re on there among those other big-name packs: me.

Carrying her across campus. Twice. Sitting in the med hall, the waiting room at the hospital, beside her at the mixer last night, watching her every flicker and breath. Obvious—and why shouldn’t I be? When did something as simple as fated mates become so damn complicated?

She’s going to do a medical heat.

I punch my fist in the dirt and grimace at the pain. It isn’t enough.

I launch myself to my feet and smash my fist into the trunk of the tree. It isn’t satisfying, not like if I could use both hands, find a rhythm for my rage. A lopsided, irregular beat. Just like Indie.

I’m gasping when I stop. My hand is nearly numb for a moment before the pain has a chance to catch. It comes in electric lances, zapping all the way up my arm. The knuckle on my middle finger split. The little fissure oozes blood. White bone is visible.

I try to flex my fingers, but they don’t respond to my brain’s command. I stare at my one remaining hand, willing it to obey. I can’t do stupid shit like this anymore, not with only one hand left. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Panic is a snake coiling around my throat.

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