Page 168 of My Unhinged Alphas
He exhales through his nose, frustrated now, but not with me exactly. “Lena.”
“No.”
I know it and I still want to go. Maybe because Vale went there for me. Maybe because he got hurt for me. Maybe because if I stay here while they disappear out that door, I have to sit alone with that truth.
Havoc steps closer then, already dressed, already armed, and for once there’s no joke waiting on his mouth. “We’ll get him,” he says.
His eyes stay on mine. Then, without a word, he reaches into his jacket, pulls out the spare key card, and presses it into my palm.
I look down at it. The thin rectangle feels absurdly light for how much it suddenly means. They’re not locking me in. They’re letting me make a decision and trusting that I will stay.
I curl my fingers around the key card.
The fight is still there. I still want to go. Still want to see Vale with my own eyes and know how bad it is instead of imagining worse. But the sharp edge of panic shifts shape around the little piece of plastic in my hand.
Knox says, “Don’t open the door for anyone but us. If Vale can walk, I bring him back here. If he can’t, I decide from there.”
“You decide,” I repeat.
“Yes.”
Because he used to be a combat medic, I think. Because this isn’t new to him in the way it is to me. Because he knows how to look at blood and breathing and pupils and decide whether someone can be moved or whether moving them is what kills them.
I say, “And if it’s bad?”
Knox holds my eyes. “Then I deal with bad.”
I don’t know how long I wait.
Long enough for the room to change shape around me.
Footsteps on the walkway. A door opening three rooms down. A car engine starting. Voices that drift and vanish before I can decide whether they belong to anybody I should fear.
I sit for a while.
Then I stand.
Then I pace.
Then I sit again.
The key card Knox left me is still in my hand half the time, like I need the weight of it to keep from doing something stupid. I keep checking my phone even though it’s dead and useless and not even mine, just something Knox shoved into my hands before he left so I wouldn’t feel completely cut off from the world.
I tell myself Vale was conscious when he called.
I tell myself Knox knows what he’s doing.
Then there’s a knock.
Not loud. Just two quick hits against the door.
I’m moving before I think. The lock clicks back, and I pull the door open.
Vale is there. Bruised, pale, upright only because Knox and Havoc have him between them. One of his eyes is swollen almost completely shut, the skin around it already darkening. His mouth is split at one corner. There’s dried blood at his temple. He looks wrecked.
The relief hits me so hard it almost hurts.
Vale sees the door open and says, voice rough, “Rookie move. Opened it without confirming.”
