Page 84 of Impossible

He sees Hollis. He smiles. “Hi.”

Hollis ducks his head, nearly flinching. I know what he saw right there—Risk’s smile is exactly the same as it was a decade ago, when he was the youngest alpha the Complex had ever seen. Brash and illiterate and energetic and devout. So much has changed. So little has changed.

I still have Hollis’s hand in mine. I give it a squeeze. “It’s going to be ok.”

He nods. The bond opens.

24

Multitudinous

Risk

Mybrainworksdifferentlyfrom the others.

Maybe the childhood shit, or the ADHD, or the drugs, or whatever. I don’t know. But.

When we got the pack bond, my brain got a translator.

Three of them.

Three people who got me.

Six weeks. Deaf, blind, dead.

Before, I didn’t need meth or burning myself with cigarettes to feel ok. To feel at all.

Joshua’s kiss. Leon’s arms around me. Hollis next to me in bed. All of us, together. On missions. With betas. At the Coalition. Together. Better than heroin.

Without the bond, even when we’re together, we’re not. The bond is our Rosetta Stone. Without it, Hollis doesn’t speak my language.

He thought we weren’t ready for it. Didn’t he want to understand?

No matter.

It’s white-hot in my chest. The air zings as we fill each other with ourselves.

It’s breathing after being in a vacuum. The air sears my lungs, burns all the way down and boils on the way back up.

Joshua gasps next to me.

Leon stumbles near. His hand on my thigh grips hard, hard enough to leave bruises. More than he’s already given me. I’m grateful for every last one. His knuckles are bloody.

I laugh.

Ifeelthem. Crushing sorrow. Defeat. Yearning. Exhaustion. Wave after wave after wave of shame.

It’s like seeing in color after nothing but black and white.

Hollis thought there was such a thing as bad colors.

I zero in on him. Not with my eyes. His pinpoint of light inside me. Dim. A guttering flame. He’s overwhelmed. He feels weak, too small to hold it all. Incapable.

I open my eyes. He’s on his knees in the doorway. Overcome.

It seems suddenly very important that he sees me.

I crawl out of bed, Leon’s hand forced free as I turn away.

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