ANMELDENJOHN'S POVI waited until she was alone.The sketchbook was gone from her hands by then. I could still see it anyway — her fingers resting on his wrist, and how she hadn't pulled back."You're using me to feel normal while you figure out whether he gets another chance."She looked up from the file on her desk. "John—""I'm not angry." I kept my voice even. "I'm done being patient. There's a difference.""I'm not using you.""You are." I shut the door behind me. "I saw you. In the clinic. You put your hand on him like it cost you nothing." The next thing was already loaded — the man who didn't look at you for four years, the man who let your son — I heard it all the way to the end and set it down. None of that was mine to throw. "Three years I've been trying to get you to do that with me. That's all. That's the whole thing."She didn't answer. She set the file down, slow and careful, the motion buying her a second."I'm not asking you to feel something you don't," I said. "I'm asking y
BENJAMIN'S POVWe sat on the edge of the clinic bed with the sketchbook open between us.Alice turned the pages slow. Lucian had drawn all of it — her asleep at her desk, the pen still in her hand, her head tipped against a stack of papers. Me, off at the far edge of the room in almost every one, small and far away, like he’d had to go hunting for me in the corner of his own memory.The three of us at breakfast, all of us at the one table, even though I could count on one hand the mornings I was ever really there.He’d drawn the mornings I missed like they’d happened anyway.Alice’s breath caught on that page. She didn’t say anything.“He always drew you bigger,” she said quietly, a few pages later. A drawing of the two of us, her small in one corner, me taking up most of the page.“Why.”“You were the one he watched the door for.”I looked at the page. My hand found the edge of it and stopped.She turned another. The training yard — stick figures with swords too big for their hands,
ALICE’S POVThe sun came up and I was still in last night's dress.I hadn't changed. Hadn't slept, not really — just lay on top of the covers and ran the same three things until the ceiling went grey. John's hand over mine at the table. Benjamin in the doorway, Barry's weight on him, asking if I was going to choose John. The exact pitch of his voice when he asked.That it had mattered to me, hearing it that bare — that was the part I couldn't put down.I changed, put water on my face, and went in anyway. Barry was stable in recovery, and I needed to see him more than I needed sleep.John was already there. Coffee in hand. Two cups — he held one out the second I came through the door, easy, unhurried. The kiss. Benjamin's question. Nothing in his face about either.He fell in beside me down the corridor like we were two colleagues starting a Tuesday."How's Barry," he asked once we were inside, the door half shut behind him."Stable. The ribs held overnight. He'll need a week before he
BENJAMIN'S POVBarry made it to the compound on his own two legs — more than I'd have bet on when I first found him.A rogue had come down through the east woods and caught him on patrol, and it left a long tear down his forearm and something worse across the ribs, and he held the line long enough for the rest of us to put the thing down before he listed, his legs starting to fold under him, and he started leaning into me harder than he'd ever have let himself lean sober. Forty years old, three kids, a man who apologizes for bleeding on you. He apologized twice on the walk in."Save it," I said. "Stay awake."The night staff wasn't going to be enough — not for the ribs, not the way they looked. I needed Alice.So I went to her quarters first, Barry's arm slung over my shoulders, his weight shifting every time his legs tried to quit on him. Her door was shut, and I had her name half out of my mouth before I remembered she'd gone over to John's earlier in the evening.The door between
ALICE’S POVI opened my door the next morning and Benjamin was standing there, holding breakfast.Croissants. A paper cup of tea that smelled like honey."What are you doing here?""I brought breakfast.""I can see that, Benjamin. I'm not blind. I mean why are you really here.""Ten minutes." He lifted the tray a little.My hand hadn't left the door.Across the compound, John's door opened. He stood there in yesterday's shirt, coffee mug halfway to his mouth, and he didn't drink from it. He looked at Benjamin standing in my doorway with a tray of pastries. Then at me. He went back inside and shut the door harder than he needed to.I let Benjamin in.He set the tray on the table by the window. "Have breakfast with me.""No.""Then walk with me. Throw it away."That almost got a laugh. *Almost.*"As you wish," I said, and reached for my coat.We didn't throw it away.Two patrol guards stood near the east gate, stamping their feet against the cold. I stopped in front of them before Benja
ALICE'S POVI'd just got my shoes off when the knock came.It was late. The compound had been quiet an hour. I sat on the edge of the bed and listened for it to come again before I went.I opened the door when I heard the knock the second time.Drake hung off John's shoulder in the corridor — loose, comfortable, his weight parked the practiced way of a man who'd done it before. John had his hands in his coat pockets and the face of someone being patient on purpose."Inside, both of you."They came in. Drake came off John easy and dropped into the chair by the window, unhurried, in no rush to leave. John shut the door and put his back to the wall."Are you drunk?""No." He rolled one shoulder. "Two glasses over four hours.""You were hanging off John.""For the yard. If Cole walks back steady at nine, she starts wandering." He tipped his head at the dark window. "She had to watch me go. So she watched a drunk man go."John folded his arms. "He's been playing it since the second glass.
Benjamin POVMorning light filled the kitchen, that warm yellow that comes early and doesn't last, and the whole room smelled like pancakes.Lucian sat at the table, swinging his legs under the chair the way he always did — four years old, legs too short to reach the floor, swinging them anyway."D
ALICE’S POVThe monthly pack gathering fell on a Thursday.I'd been avoiding them since I came back. Drake wasn't having it.He showed up at five-thirty with a plate of food and the face of a man who'd already decided how this went."You're going," he said. "Morwen is going. John is going. I am goi
ALICE’S POVThree days since the full moon. We hadn't spoken.I counted it without meaning to.John and I were working down the last of the afternoon caseload — the follow-ups, then the final pages of training documentation, then the stack of files John had already started on before anyone thought
ALICE'S POVThe bond was still there when I walked out — the same press against my chest it had been since the clearing.The compound was quiet. I crossed the frozen ground barefoot and didn't feel it.John was on the step outside my door, still in his training coat, the cold pressing it flat again







