Page 24 of Impossible

Their voices trail behind me.

“They’re going to drop the class if Wilder won’t do anything about Midas and his agenda.”

“Jake is obnoxious anyway, he thinks he’s sospecialwith Shawn and Brian picking him.”

“I know. I’d much rather be an Anderson or James than a fuckingDrake.”

I grab linens from the labeled shelf in the hallway and duck into my room. Midas and his agenda, hmm?The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Seems like I might have another reason to appreciate Leon.

8

Marooned

Joshua

Theembarrassingpartiswhen I have to get up to use the bathroom. Or, the coming back part. When I have to witness what my room looks like to the others when they stand in my doorway, trying to coax me out.

The shades have been drawn since the mission. The floor is strewn with clothes. The bed is soiled to a degree that should disgust me, but the energy it would take to change the sheets is a nonstarter.

Leon has tried to do my laundry, but I won’t let him. My usual fresh rain scent has turned moldy. Alive in the curtains and carpets, damp and permeating.

Hollis hasn’t let me accumulate any trash. He brings me food each day, even though I tell him not to, and takes out the prior day’s dishes. Pack Alpha turned maid.

It’s depressing.

Figures.

I slide back into the sheets.

Every moment I’m in bed has a sense of urgency for what I’m missing outside. The drive to force myself up anddosomething removes any possibility of rest. And every moment Iamup, even just to pee, a tether draws me back. A tenuous connection that might snap if I go too far. I don’t know what will happen if it snaps. I just know it will be bad.

The ball of hot despair turns, grating against my innards with its sharp edges. It’s always there now, driving me towards action that doesn’t exist. The thought of the long hours of consciousness in front of me brings the despair back, razors in the back of my throat.

The flashback hits me after a few minutes of stillness.

It’s always the same thing. Nothing graphic, no visuals or sensations, not really a memory at all. Just the feeling of absolute, complete certainty that we failed. The dread, black and tar-like, coating the inside of my body as I watch our precious charge at the mercy of the alphas.

I try to fend it off. It will take and take and take from me until I am gasping desiccated sobbing breaths, curled around the aching hollow inside me. It will take even then, far beyond when I have anything left to give. The only thing that stops it is sleep.

She’s gone.

She’s gone, a pack is broken, and I am still here, a useless piece of shit lying in bed too pathetic to even face his own demons. I know I couldn’t have saved her. I’m not a moron, I saw how many alphas there were. But I could havetried. Hollis might feel ashamed that he wasn’t able to do more, but he actuallyfought. He was unconscious. I was right there, watching. Subdued. Passive. Useless.

I pull my pillow over my head and thrash it with my hands, trying to batter the loathing out of my skull.

There’s no distraction from it, nothing I can do. Everything around me is washed out. There’s no joy to be found in reading, or playing piano, or cleaning, or cooking, or talking to my packmates or seeing the sky. I try to remember why I ever wanted those things. They’re just words now. Notions. The only real thing is the despair of knowing it’s all gone wrong and there’s nothing I can do.

I’m the failure. The one it all came down to, and I didn’t fire a single shot. I watched her save herself the only way she could. Because I was too weak. First too weak to protect her, then too weak to save her. Weak, pitiful, Joshua.

When I roll over to put the pillow back, I see a scrap of paper on the mattress. It must have been hidden beneath my pillow. I unfurl it and read the words scrawled inside:

Pain—has an Element of Blank—

It cannot recollect

When it begun—or if there were

A time when it was not—

---