The Alpha Forgets

1 I walked into my apartment after sixteen hours in the emergency room, the kind of shift that seeps into your bones and refuses to let go. I never thought I’d make it out, patients kept pouring in, one after another, blood, panic, flatlines. It never stopped. I sorted through the mail with numb fingers and found a letter from my brother, Adam. I set it on the kitchen counter, unopened. It looked official, too official, and I was too exhausted to deal with whatever it meant tonight. The bed was calling to me. I stripped off my clothes as I walked, each step heavier than the last, and collapsed beneath the blankets. I barely had time to sink into the pillow before my phone rang. I ignored it. It rang again, then went to voicemail. I glanced at the screen. Adam. I hadn’t spoken to him in two years. Now he kept calling. “Tomorrow,” I muttered, already drifting. “I’ll deal with it tomorrow.” Sleep didn’t come gently. It never did. I tossed and turned as the dream dragged me under sha

3 The next morning came too fast. I barely slept, just enough to keep my eyes from burning and my hands from shaking. The kind of sleep that leaves you feeling like you never truly came up for air. I showered, dressed, and packed like I was preparing for a deployment instead of a “visit home.” Laptop. Scrubs. Stethoscope out of habit, even though I didn’t know if I’d need it. A duffel with jeans, boots, a heavy hoodie. A small toiletry bag. My wallet. My keys. And the letter. I folded it once and slid it into the side pocket like it might combust if I kept looking at it. At the door, I paused with my hand on the knob and stared at my apartment one last time. The neutral walls, the clean counters, the life I built where no one knew what my blood was. No pack rules. No howls in the woods. No golden eyes. Just fluorescent hospital lights and human pain. I exhaled and stepped out anyway. The drive started ordinary. Highways. Coffee shops. Early morning traffic. I blended in like I

5 Adam didn’t push her any further that night. After the war room, after the maps and the weight of everything she had just stepped back into, he simply nodded toward the hallway. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you where you’re staying.” Not your room. Not home. Just… where you’re staying. Lotty appreciated that more than she expected. The packhouse felt different at night. Quieter, but not peaceful. There was a constant undercurrent now, a low hum of movement and awareness. Boots on floors. Doors opening and closing. The distant sound of voices that never fully settled. War didn’t sleep. Neither did the pack. Adam led her up the main staircase, then higher to the third floor. That alone made her pause. She hadn’t been up here much growing up. This level had always been reserved for higher-ranking members, guests of importance, or family. Her chest tightened. “You didn’t have to put me up here,” she said quietly. Adam didn’t slow. “You’re not just anyone visiting.” She didn’t r

7 By the time Lotty finally stepped away from the trauma bay, her legs felt like they didn’t belong to her anymore. It had been one of those shifts that blurred into a single, endless stretch of blood, voices, and movement. One patient barely stabilized before the next one came through the doors. Wounds that shouldn’t exist. Injuries that told stories no one wanted to say out loud. And through all of it, she worked. Not observing. Not hovering. Working. By mid-afternoon, even Dr. Hensley had stopped trying to sideline her. “Clamp,” he snapped during one case. Lotty handed it to him before the nurse even moved. “Pressure here.” Already done. “Get me…” “On your left,” she said, placing it directly into his hand. He paused once, just once, glancing at her with something that wasn’t resentment anymore. Recognition. Respect. It wasn’t spoken.It didn’t need to be. By the end of the shift, the tension in the ER had shifted just enough. Not gone, but different. The staff still watched

9 Adam hadn’t trusted silence since the day it learned how to lie. A week without attacks should have felt like relief. It should have loosened the knot in his chest, eased the pressure behind his eyes, let him sleep more than two hours at a time without jolting awake convinced the borders were burning. Instead, it made everything worse. Silence meant someone was moving pieces. Silence meant Decker was thinking. Adam stood at the war table on the first floor, hands braced on either side of a spread of maps. The paper was scarred from fingers and pens and knives marks and circles and arrows tracking where blood had spilled, where patrols had vanished, where civilians had come home with eyes too wide and voices too quiet. Matthew leaned over the northern sector, jaw tight. “No movement.” “No visible movement,” Adam corrected, tapping the edge of the river line. “That’s the difference.” Matthew nodded, but his eyes stayed hard. “My people in Dark Mountain aren’t talking. Not like