Page 17 of Impossible

I swallow. “Yes. Or worse.” Another explosion of red in my mind makes me shudder. Hollis, dead. A grief I can’t even comprehend, just a gaping maw of darkness.

Indie pales.

“So please, little bird,” I rasp, “don’t try to escape.”

Something in my throat thickens and I fight the black tunnel forming in my vision. I can’t flash back, not worse, not now. But I feel it coming, the sharp copper smell of blood taking over my nose, my hand pulsing with phantom pain.

“Leon?” Indie’s voice is distant and frightened. I slump back, sitting heavy on the desk, hearing it crash into the wall under my weight. I’m paralyzed, mind retreating, unable to stop my fall.

The memories eat me alive.

5

Inconceivable

Indigo

Leonslumpsagainstthedesk across from me, his eyes flashing between pure terror and a somehow even more unnerving emptiness. He’s frozen, his only movement his right hand rubbing rough circles around the stump of his left arm.

I’m cold all over, my own panic fading. Everything is a jumble inside of me, and I feel strangely numb watching the giant man disappear into himself. I vaguely realize we are doing the same thing in different ways.

My mind is reeling. It’s all too much, and now Leon is gone too. Should I get help?

Every facet of my life floats through my mind—the play, gone. Cam and Rose, gone. My room, freezing and drafty but safe and mine. Mornings in the kitchen washing dishes, chapped hands and the smell of detergent.

My phone is gone, lost in the stampede. I couldn’t call 911 if I wanted to, yet here I am in this tiny room with this strange man who smells so strongly of cloves and cedar it makes my brain go fuzzy. He’s shuddering now, in the midst of some sort of episode.

“Sorry,” he grunts. “Just need a sec.” His voice is ragged.

Omega.

The feeling in my belly earlier, when I first smelled Leon, is starting to make sense. I hadn’t understood it, hadn’t been able to parse it. It was the secondary sex characteristics he was talking about, it had to be. Pulling me towards him. Just chemicals. I don’t actuallylikehim. Right? How am I supposed to trust myself now, when there’s so much I don’t know?

He makes a high-pitched whimpering sound, and my stomach drops. The same spot his scent stirred in me is magnetized, pulling me towards him. He shouldn’twhimper.It’s wrong, so wrong it sets my teeth on edge.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m going to him. I’m thinking of all the times I’ve been alone, so alone, shaking and hurting and desperately wishing for somebody to hold me. I know it isn’t wise, not if he’s in the midst of an episode of some sort.

“Can I touch you?” I hear my voice as though from far away.

He nods jerkily.

I reach out awkwardly, placing both hands on his chest. I can feel his heart pounding, a runaway beat in his musclebound chest. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m rubbing up and over his shoulders and wrapping my arms around his neck. He’s tall, so I have to stretch, even with him sitting. I lay my head on his shoulder. His heartbeat thrums, fast and frantic. He jerks once, but I don’t let go. Something inside me tells me to stay.

His breathing is uneven.

“Shh,” I murmur. I don’t know what I’m doing—I’m behind my eyes, observing my own actions like they’re somebody else’s. This is stupid of me, stupid to touch a man in the midst of a flashback of some sort. If this is PTSD from losing his hand, I could make things so much worse by touching him in his most vulnerable state.

Leon’s arms come up, resting around my middle back. My heart skips a beat, my thoughts skittering out. His touch yanks me back into reality, the comfort of mentally detaching gone as the soft cotton of his shirt presses to my cheek. He is a furnace, heat radiating from the ring of his body around mine. His breathing steadies and something in the set of his body tells me he’s returned to consciousness.

I try to pull away. He doesn’t seem to notice. Even though his grip on me isn’t that tight, I’m unable to pry myself free. I’m just weak.

“Leon?” I ask, trying to pull away again. This time he lets me, and I sink back against the bed, looking at him.

He’s breathing deeply, eyes closed.

“I’m very sorry,” he murmurs. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple, and he bats it away with his stump, wincing at the contact.

“It’s fine.” I hesitate. It isn’t, really, but what am I supposed to do? I’m losing my shit too right now, I can’t really fault him. Everything is silent, and I feel a distinct urge to crawl under the bed and hide.

---