Page 192 of My Unhinged Alphas
Then I remember the kid from the motel parking lot. The way he came straight to us through the firefighters and the smoke like he’d been sent with perfect timing. The way the men looked at him. Not surprised, exactly. Not the way normal people are surprised by a teenager appearing out of nowhere with a message from somebody called Apostle Andrew.
Uncomfortable. That’s what it was.
All three of them went still in the same way. Like the kid fit into a pattern they understood and didn’t like.
That memory sticks with me while we make our way to the hospital cafeteria after discharge, moving slower than usual because Vale is sore, Knox is pretending he isn’t, and Havoc keeps trying to steal things off people’s trays when he thinks no one is looking.
The cafeteria is bright, bland, and somehow cruel in how normal it is. Plastic trays. Stainless steel counters. Burnt coffee smell. A woman arguing with a vending machine near the juice fridge. The kind of place where people should only be dealing with ordinary bad mornings.
We take a table in the corner.
Knox sits with his coffee like he’s offended by it. Vale has toast, eggs, and the expression of a man who would rather be hit again than eat hospital eggs but knows better than to test Knox’s patience right now. Havoc is eating two muffins and a banana like he intends to survive out of spite.
I’m halfway through tea that tastes faintly of cardboard when Knox says, “We need transport.”
“Still got the car,” Havoc says.
Knox looks at him.
Havoc sighs. “Fine. We had the car.”
Vale rubs at his jaw carefully. “It’s still at the motel.”
No one even pretends that going back there is a good option.
Havoc shrugs. “Then we rent.”
“Nearby,” Vale adds. “Somewhere we can get it fast.”
I stir my tea, then stop and look up. “Can I ask something before you all get mysteriously grim again?”
Havoc smiles. “You can always ask. Results vary.”
I ignore that and look at Vale. “Apostle Andrew.” That gets all three of them. I go on. “Wasn’t that the guy who sent you on the mission where you found me?”
Vale nods once. “Yes.”
That seems straightforward enough to me.
“Then what’s the problem?” I ask. “He’s a good guy, right?”
The silence after that is not comforting.
Havoc is the one who answers first. “Usually,” he says.
“Usually?”
He leans back in the ugly cafeteria chair like it personally insulted him. “Apostles don’t usually contact us outside an active mission. And orders don’t come down like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like a random initiate finding us in a parking lot after a fire,” Knox says. His voice is still rough from smoke, lower than usual.
Vale wipes his mouth with a napkin and says, “Messages are supposed to come through an Elder.”
I frown. “So Andrew outranks them?”
“Yes,” Vale says.
