INICIAR SESIÓNNatashaThere is a very specific kind of silence that feels like it is watching you, and I recognize it immediately because it does not come from the absence of sound but from the presence of something that has decided not to make any.That is the silence that settles around us the moment Alan stops answering me, it is not empty.It is waiting.“Alan?” I say again, a little sharper this time, because the first time I said his name it disappeared into that silence without touching anything and I do not like that, I do not like the idea that my voice cannot reach him when he is standing right in front of me.He is still, not frozen like someone startled, not tense like someone bracing for something, just still in a way that feels wrong because it looks like he is listening to something that neither Matt nor I can hear.Matt takes a step closer, careful but not hesitant, his eyes moving over Alan’s face like he is trying to catch any small change before it becomes something bigger.“Hey,
AlanThe sound didn’t echo the way it should have, and that was the first thing that settled wrong inside me before anything else had the chance to fully register in my mind.A stairwell like this should have carried sound easily, stretching it out and bouncing it back in uneven pieces that made it hard to tell exactly where it came from, but those three knocks didn’t do that at all, they stayed contained and flat and disturbingly precise, like they hadn’t traveled through the air in the normal way at all but had instead just… appeared exactly where we heard them.Behind us, inside the wall we had already checked.I didn’t turn around right away, not because I was trying to be careful or brave or even logical in any real sense, but because something in me stalled in a quiet, stubborn way that felt deeper than thought, like a part of my body had decided it didn’t want confirmation of what we had just heard.Natasha’s hand tightened around my arm again, and this time there was nothing s
NatashaThere is a kind of fear that doesn't announce itself.Not the loud kind, not the kind that shows up with a racing heart and shaking hands so at least you know what you're dealing with. This one is quieter than that. It moves in slowly and settles somewhere behind your sternum and just sits there, patient, waiting for you to stop moving long enough to feel the full weight of it. I know that fear. I have lived inside it before, in other places, with other people, and I had hoped, stupidly, that I was done with it and then Alan had stopped breathing and I had learned I was not done with it at all.We were moving now, which helped. Movement is good. Movement means there is somewhere to be, something to do with your hands and your legs and the part of your brain that would otherwise sit down on the floor and simply fall apart. Matt was ahead of us, checking corners, muttering something under his breath that I couldn't fully catch, some combination of directions and profanity that
AlanThere is a moment between dying and not dying where everything is perfectly quiet.Not the quiet of sleep, not the quiet of a room with the door shut and the world locked out. Something else entirely. Something so deep and complete that calling it quiet felt wrong, felt like the wrong word for a thing that had no word, because it was not the absence of sound…it was the absence of everything, and it was not terrifying the way I had always imagined it would be.It was a relief.I do not know how long I was there. I am not sure there was one there. Just space that was not space, and something that used to be me drifting in the middle of it without weight, without the constant pressure behind my eyes I had carried so long I had stopped noticing it until it was finally gone. No fear. No voice that wasn't mine whispering things in registers I couldn't tune out. No edges of something vast trying to push through the walls I kept building.Just stillness and then something pulled.Not vio
NatashaI do not know how long I stayed there on that cold, broken floor with Alan’s hand in mine, because time stopped making sense the moment his body went still, and everything around me faded into something distant and unreal, like the world had stepped back and left me alone with the weight of what had just happened, and the silence that followed felt heavier than all the noise that came before it, pressing down on me until breathing itself became something I had to force.I kept staring at his face, like if I looked away even for a second he would disappear completely, like memorizing every part of him was the only thing I had left to hold onto, and it hurt because he looked peaceful, more peaceful than I had ever seen him, and I hated that, I hated that it took him choosing death to finally be free from whatever had been tearing him apart, I hated that I could not do anything to stop him from making that choice even though I understood why he did it.“You were not supposed to l
Third Person POVThe word left Alan’s mouth like the final piece of himself breaking through the storm inside him, and the moment Natasha heard him tell her to run, she felt terror spread through every part of her body because the fear in his voice was not fear for what was happening to him but fear for what was about to happen to her, and that was enough to root her in place because there was no world in which she could turn and leave him there alone while whatever darkness had been fighting to claim him was rising stronger with every second.She tightened her grip on him instead, holding on even as his body trembled violently beneath her hands, even as every muscle in his arms and shoulders locked with a force that felt unnatural, and even as the stranger standing in the doorway watched the scene unfold with the calm patience of someone who had expected this exact moment from the very beginning and had never doubted that Alan would eventually break beneath the weight of what was ins
AlanThe moment the name left my guard’s mouth, every muscle in my body went rigid. For a second, I thought I had heard wrong but the look on his face told me I hadn’t.Rage rose inside me so fast it felt like fire tearing through my veins. My wolf stirred violently under my skin, restless and hung
NatashaI knew why Raymond called Alan. There was something or someone they needed to attend to and I was more than convinced that it was a rogue simply because of everything that was going on in that moment. Alan was vengeful when he wanted to be, at least I had seen that in him in the little time
AlanWalking into Zephyr’s pack, a sense of deja vu hit me all over again because this was the same way I had felt the last time I had been here. I had come here the other day to fight him because I thought he had forcefully taken Natasha from me but now, I could see very well that she had come her
Natasha“Where have you been? The Alpha has been looking everywhere for you.” I looked up from my phone, watching as Sophia hurried towards me, a frantic look on her face. Whatever it was, it had to be disturbing because Sophia was never easily rattled like this. My heartrate spiked because I didn







