Page 15 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

Sloane’s body stops being warm.

I feel it happen where I’m pressed against him. The life under his skin pulls tight and cold, his chest lifting once without taking air. My own body answers with a weak purr before I can stop it. It starts broken, a small uneven vibration that catches in my throat and makes my ribs hurt. If he breaks, the whole room will fill with the sound of Callie being gone.

“Disconnected,” Sloane says. His voice is too quiet.

“Yes,” Zana says, and she doesn’t soften the word. “That doesn’t prove who disconnected it or why. She may have changed phones. The account may have lapsed. Someone else may have interfered. We don't know yet.”

“He’s cutting the roads behind her,” Sloane says, and the growl under it makes the lamp on the nightstand tremble. “Every time we find one, Garrett cuts it.”

I flinch before I can stop myself. Sloane feels it, and the rage drops from his face like someone struck him. “Fuck. Sorry, sweetheart. Shit, I’m sorry.” He bends over me, his hands careful on my arms. “I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” I say, and my purr keeps going in little broken pieces. “It just gets loud.”

Zana waits through that silence. When she speaks again, she sounds like she’s measuring each word before she lets it near us. “Sloane, listen to me. If you decide Garrett did it before we can prove it, every move you make from that belief becomes something he can use. Idris, I’m sending over the records requests I’m filing. I’ll need copies of anything new he says or gives you today. Theo should not be alone with him.”

“He won’t be,” Idris says.

The bedroom door is closed, but the house beyond it shifts with the sound of footsteps in the hall. My purr cuts off so fast it hurts. Sloane’s head turns toward the door, and Idris moves between the bed and the hall before I can even think his name.

Garrett knocks once, polite and useless, then opens the door without waiting.

He stands in the hallway with a mug in one hand and a folded throw blanket over his arm, dressed for work except for his tie, which hangs loose around his neck. He looks rested, dressed like an Alpha checking on his household before work. The smell of cold mint and polished leather slides into the room, and my fingers tighten in Sloane’s shirt so hard my knuckles ache.

“Zana,” Garrett says, his eyes moving from Idris’ phone to me. “I didn’t realize you were joining family recovery calls now.”

“Garrett,” Zana says through the speaker, calm enough to make the room colder. “I’m advising Idris and Sloane. Any communication you have about Theo’s placement, Calliope’s absence, or any restriction you’re claiming applies to her should be preserved in writing.”

Garrett’s mouth curves like the sentence disappointed him. “This household would recover faster if everyone stopped treating necessary boundaries as a conspiracy.”

Sloane starts to move. I feel it before he does, the violent gathering in his muscles. My purr scrapes back to life, thin and scared, and he freezes with one hand on my back.

“Fuck,” he breathes, turning his mouth into my hair. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Garrett’s eyes flick down to where I’m clutching him. “Theo, you’ve had a hard few days. Their fear is teaching your body to fear me.”

I make myself look at him. The words are there. They’re hard to hold when his attention settles on me, but they’re there, whole and shaking. “I was afraid before they got loud.”

The room goes very still. Garrett’s face doesn’t change enough for someone else to name it, but I see the tiny tightening by his eyes. I see the moment he realizes I’m not too heat-sick to answer.

“Theo,” he says carefully. “You’re exhausted. You’re assigning cause while your body is unstable.”

“I d-don’t want you in here.” The stutter catches because he takes half a step over the threshold. My hand fists harder in Sloane’s shirt, and Idris shifts so Garrett would have to go through him to reach the bed. “Please leave.”

For a second, Garrett looks at Idris, and something silent passes between them that makes the air feel edged. Then Garrett sets the mug on the dresser just inside the room and lays the folded throw over the foot of the bed while he adjusts his cuff. It’s such an ordinary movement that I barely notice it until later. His hand is empty when he looks back at me.

“We’ll speak when you’ve slept,” he says. “A placement can’t function if the Omega is encouraged to rewrite every discomfort as danger.”

Sloane makes a sound that drags up from the base of his chest. His hand lifts from my back, fingers spread like he might shove himself off the bed and cross the room before anyone can stop him. I catch his wrist with both hands, and he looks down at me, eyes wild and wet and so full of violence I can barely find him inside it.

“Stay,” I whisper.

He folds instantly. Not softly. It looks like collapse. He sits back down with his wrist still in my hands, and his voice breaks around my name. “I’m staying.”

Zana’s voice comes through the phone again, colder now. “Garrett, I’d advise you to put any placement concerns in writing.”

Garrett picks up his briefcase from the hall. “I always do.”

He leaves the door open behind him. His footsteps move down the hall, pause near the stairs, then continue. A few minutes later, the front door opens and closes. The house doesn't feel safer after he’s gone. It feels like he left pieces of himself in every room, little hooks waiting for skin.