Page 99 of Impossible

“Where’s your birth pack now?” she asks.

“They’re not a pack anymore.”

We all wince in the bond. It’s instinctive, like watching somebody’s knee bend backward and holding your own. Bonds are sensitive things. What we’ve been through the past two months only makes it worse. What I put us through.

“I didn’t know that bonds could be broken.” Indigo’s voice is quiet.

“It’s rare,” Leon explains. His typically gruff voice is velvet soft, like he wishes he could protect her from the tragedy I almost subjected us to. “But it does happen, if a pack reaches a point of strife that the bond is irreparable. Other packs are forcefully disbanded, as punishment for a crime.”

“Oh,” she breathes. “That’s… tragic.”

“My Pack Alpha was… a lot,” I explain. “He and the others are on better terms now, but my sisters and I haven’t seen them all together since our mom’s funeral.”

“You have sisters?” Indigo perks up.

“Two,” I say. “You’ll need to meet Meghan, she’s an omega as well. Do you have any siblings?”

I already know the answer, but every part of me wants to hear more of her voice. To hear her story fromher, not from snippets of Leon’s and Risk’s memories or white paper in manila folders at the Coalition offices.

“A little sister,” she answers, her face growing conflicted. “Lise. She’s twelve now, I guess. I haven’t seen her since she was four.”

The anger is a hot stone in my belly. I do my best to quash it, knowing it will only fuel the same feeling in the others.

Risk is practically preening, of course. “Welcome to the trauma tribe.” He holds up a hand and Indigo giggles as she high-fives him. An easy escape from having to explain more. Risk read it perfectly. Of course.

“Your family suck too?” Indigo asks him.

“Ithink my childhood wasgreat. Hollis disagrees.” Risk falls on his own sword with ease, his HD-replay mind drifting back in time, taking us all with him in the bond.

Once upon a time he tried to hide this from me. He didn’t understand the anger it inspired. Not at him. At them. He’s so used to my anger being directed at him. Shame tangles with the image filling my mind.

The double-wide trailer, hazy with cigarette smoke and dust. Clothing and empty cans everywhere. Shirtless, tattoo-covered alphas lolling about. Risk on the floor, ten years old, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, a caricature of the adults around him. He burps as a mousy, hungry-looking omega follows a hairy alpha to a room. They don’t close the door, and Risk watches her ride the alpha, breasts bouncing with every thrust. He was ten fucking years old.

I grit my teeth. “Risk had packmates, not parents. Big difference.”

“Me and the boys, all the way,” Risk smirks. Not a negative emotion in sight.

“Did you not have a mom?” Indigo asks.

“Nope.” Risk slurps a noodle. “No need.”

Indigo’s brow furrows in confusion. Leon explains. “Omegas on rotation get to set the terms for their heats. Most sign a contract that says if any kids result, the pack assumes responsibility for them. Risk was one of those kids. Five alphas and him.”

Indigo’s face falls. “That’s awful.”

“Nah.” Risk shakes his head, leaning in to mock-whisper in Indigo’s ear. “They’re just jealous. I had way more fun than all of them. Me and the boys.”

The bond is fraught. Joshua’s concern for Risk and worry that Indigo will be scared off, Leon’s protective instincts, not wanting her to know yet another ugly truth of her identity, Risk’s white-noise complicated feelings, not quite capable of grief, but definitely not pleasure either, and then my own admonishment and guilt and concern, for both Risk and Indigo.

“Fun is good.” Indigo weaves her way through the emotions easily, reading our expressions. “Seems like you lucked out with your boys now though.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Risk’s white-noise turns syrupy sweet again, a firehose blasting us with his love. It’s like a dog that won’t stop trying to lick your face.

Under the table, he settles a hand on Indigo’s thigh. I want to scold him, but the touch is so gentle, so unlike him, I can’t bring myself to. Indigo sags into it. I wonder if she recognizes that peace for what it is. She’s fighting it though, trying to hold herself upright, even as every instinct in her screams to lean closer.

Something inside me gives a complicated squeeze.

29

---