Page 5 of Impossible

I pick up the bag first, then arrive at the first flag and realize my error when I reach for it with what issupposedto be my left hand. For a moment I could have sworn I felt the electrical impulse in my fingers. The nerves carried it all the way down my arm, but then there’s nothing but puckered, angry red skin in a stump where my hand should be. Bitterness pricks at my throat.

I set the bag on the ground and pick up the flag with my right hand instead. My only hand. The nylon bag is soft and floppy and I can’t get the opening figured out with only one hand, already holding a flag. I put the flag under my chin and pin it against my chest, then try to get the bag open withallof my right hand, trying to avoid using the stump. No dice.

I look up, embarrassed by this. No kids have fucked around like this before—they always put the flags back in the bag, so all I have to do is pick it up and cart it back to the supply closet in the locker room. A one-hand job. Thankfully, nobody is watching.

I reach out with the stump and grimace when the soft cotton of my tucked in shirt-sleeve rubs against the raw skin. I need to take better care of it. I can’t bring myself to look at it.

Eventually my right hand gets the opening managed, hooking it over my stump while I bend to keep the weight of the rest of the flags on the ground and place the flag inside. I carry the whole deal over to the other flag and repeat, quicker this time.

I’m frustrated now—I fucking hate feeling deficient. Slow, incapable, and easily derailed by two twerpslittering.

The locker room is emptying out when I arrive. Drake is hanging back, keeping an eye out while Wilson gets dressed.

“Drake. My office. Now.”

I don’t know why I issue the order, but he nods immediately and says “Yes, Sir!” as I pass him to drop the flags in the closet.

He’s still with Wilson when I come back, and that makes me smile. He won’t waste time waiting in a hallway if it means putting his packmate at risk. His priorities are spot-on.

He follows me out of the locker room and into my office across the hall. As soon as the door to my office shuts behind him, he’s turning, wanting to keep an eye on the door to the locker room. Wanting to keep his packmate safe.

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch the door,” I reassure him. “I won’t keep you long.”

“Thank you, Sir.” He looks slightly chagrined as he turns back to me.

“That the first time they ganged up on Wilson like that?”

Drake’s eyes are cautious—the teachers usually stay out of drama like this. We keep an eagle eye on all the students to keep things from going off the rails, of course, but rarely do we get involved. It’s better for the boys to figure shit out on their own. It’s how strong packs get made. I don’t know why I’m butting in.

“No, Sir,” he replies, voice tight.

I evaluate him. He’s angry, but not at me. At the assholes picking on his packmate. Maybe that’s why I’m interfering. It feels good to actually watch a Pack Alpha care for his pack. I wipe the bitter thought away. “Are you bonded yet?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not fully. Brian and I were starting to wonder if maybe we weren’t meant to bond. When we met Jake, we got it. It only took like two months to start having flashes. All three of us.”

I smile, nodding along as he speaks. Sounds about right. Pack bonds form slowly, little sparks of sensation growing and deepening to become the open flow of sensory input and emotions and consciousness that is a true bond. When there’s resistance or a bond isn’t forming, it usually means things aren’t quite finished yet. Somebody else is going to come along and spin something new up.

It happened to Midas too—we thought we were complete, Hollis and Joshua and I. For months, nothing. And then, bam. Risk. It took two weeks after our first mission stuck with him for the flashes to start. An unheard of timeline, but that’s just Risk for you. Everything at the speed of light. Everything intense. I’m struck by the memory of those first flashes, of feeling feelings that weren’tmine. The foreign loveliness of it, ofknowingthem.

“Jake Drake,” I have to smile. “He happy about the rhyme?”

“Yeah,” Drake smiles. “We joke about it already. He prefers it to Wilson.”

I nod. “I have a handful of guys I spend an extra hour with after classes end on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Let him know he has an open offer to join us. I can teach him a little personal defense. It sounds like he’s in good hands with you and Morrison, but you shouldn’t have to guard him twenty-four seven. He’d probably appreciate feeling a little more independent.”

Drake’s eyes light up. “You mean it? He’d be thrilled. Brian has been teaching him a bit, but he’s embarrassed. He wants to impress us. He hates feeling like a burden—he doesn’t get that neither of us see him like that.”

His indulgent fondness reminds me of Hollis. In the before-times. Another bittersweet squeeze in my chest. “Tell him to meet here after classes end today. And Drake?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“He’s lucky to have you. You’re going to make a good Pack Alpha.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I can tell from his expression that he’s biting his cheek, trying to hold back his smile. The tick is so much like Joshua that I have to turn my face to hide my expression. The emptiness where the bond should be feels sharp inside me. If I move too quickly, something else in my body might catch and tear on it, spilling my innards to a place where my pack should be instead.

My office is silent once he’s gone. I look at the picture on my desk. My only personal effect in the sterile grey space. I reach for it with my left hand without thinking. Pain lances through my fingers. Or, where itfeelslike I still have fingers. I look at the space my hand would occupy and marvel at how empty space can send such confusing signals to my brain. I feel the urge to punch something.

I know I should do my physical therapy. I know I should clean the stump. Massage it with my fingers, to help with the sensitivity and break up the scar tissue, maybe prepare it for the possibility of a prosthetic once the swelling goes down.

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