Page 185 of My Unhinged Alphas
And in the awful pause between one shouted order and the next, I finally admit it to myself.
I care about them.
Not in the abstract. Not in the convenient, temporary way I’ve been pretending. Not as a side effect of fear or adrenaline or sex or dependency. I care in the stupid, dangerous, irreversible way that makes everything worse because it means there is something here to lose.
I care about all of them.
The realization is so clear it almost feels cruel.
Of course this is when I know it. Here, standing outside while fire crawls across the roofline and men in helmets run in and out of the smoke and I have no control over anything except whether I keep breathing.
I wrap my arms around myself because I can’t seem to stop shaking.
What if one of them doesn’t come out?
What if none of them do?
A firefighter passes me carrying a section of hose over one shoulder, another following with a pry bar. Somebody farther down the line shouts for more pressure. Water slams into theouter wall. Steam erupts again and for a moment the doorway vanishes behind a white cloud so thick I can’t see anything.
I take a step forward before I realize I’ve moved.
The woman firefighter catches my arm. “Stay back. Or you’ll get seriously injured.”
I don’t care, I think. Let me get hurt. All of this is happening because of me.
I pray. I don’t mean to. The words just start happening in my head because there’s nowhere else for them to go.
Please.
Please.
Please.
I haven’t prayed in years, not properly, not with any belief behind it, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I stand there in the motel lot with smoke in my lungs and soot on my skin and I pray.
The firefighters keep working. Water hammers the side of the building. Steam rolls up in hot white bursts. Someone is shouting near the engines, someone else near the broken room, and I keep staring at the same place until my eyes burn.
Then movement. At first I think it’s another firefighter coming out through the smoke.
Then the shape changes. One man. Then more than one. A staggered outline forcing itself through the white and orange like something my brain refuses to trust fast enough.
Knox.
For one insane second, he looks like a mirage, not real at all, just a figure made of smoke and heat. Then I see the shape of Vale dragged half against him, Havoc on the other side, all three of them blackened with soot and ash, moving with the ugly, stubborn momentum of men who have decided not to die yet.
My heart slams so hard it hurts.
“Knox!”
I don’t remember starting to run, only that I do and then someone grabs for me and misses because I’m already there, close enough to see Vale’s face gray under the bruises, Havoc coughing hard enough to fold at the waist, Knox still on his feet somehow, one arm under Vale, the other shoving Havoc ahead of him.
The firefighters take over in a rush, helping Vale and Havoc who are coughing.
Knox takes one more step toward me like he was aiming for me specifically, like he needed to see me standing there before his body was allowed to fail.
His eyes find mine through the soot.
Then his knees buckle.
