Page 167 of My Unhinged Alphas
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s what I have.”
I’m already reaching for my shoes, for my jacket, for anything, because there is no version of this where I stay behind while Vale is lying hurt somewhere because of me.
“I’m coming.”
Both of them look at me.
“No,” Knox says immediately.
I stare at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“It won’t be safe.”
“It’s not safe here either,” I shoot back.
Havoc is tugging on his boots now, moving faster than I’ve seen him move all day. “He’s right.”
I turn on him. “Don’t.”
His expression doesn’t change. “If whoever hit Vale is still there, bringing you is a bad idea.”
“You think I care?”
“Yes,” Knox says. “That’s the problem.”
The room is closing in. I can still feel the heat of what happened a minute ago on my skin, and now I hate it. Hate how quickly the body can go from pleasure to dread, how one thing can still be echoing through your nerves while the next thing is already tearing the ground out from under you.
“I’m not staying here wondering if he’s dying,” I say.
Knox crosses the room in two strides and catches my shoulders before I can push past him. “He is not dying.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. But standing in our way won’t help him.”
I stare at him. “No?”
“It won’t be safe.”
“It’s not safe here either.”
“That’s not the point.” His voice is low and hard in that way of his that makes it almost impossible not to listen even when I want to fight him on principle. “I need to be able to look at him and decide whether he needs a hospital without worrying about taking you somewhere public,” he says. “If I’m making that call, I cannot also be wondering whether you’re exposed.”
That stops me.
Not because I like it. Because it makes horrible, practical sense.
I look past him at Havoc, hoping for something less reasonable and knowing that’s stupid even as I do it.
But Havoc shakes his head once. “Not this time.”
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t act like I’m supposed to just stay put and be good while you go deal with it.”
His mouth tightens. “This isn’t about being good.”
“It feels like it.”
