All Chapters of Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Helena's pov The phone buzzed again in my hand before I could even breathe.I didn’t answer. I set it face-down on the tray table next to Maren’s photo. Jarett’s eyes tracked it. “Don’t,” he said in a voice so raw, it sounded like he’d been screaming. “I’m not,” I said. “I’m sitting here.”The ICU room was too bright and too white. The machines counting his heart like it might change its mind and stop. The black vein under his jaw hadn’t spread in the last hour.There was a scarf still tied around his hand. The fabric was soaked through in one spot, brown where his blood had dried. It wasn’t enough to hold him together, nothing was, except maybe me sitting here.The door opened and Dell came in first without any cuffs. The cop from the bridge stayed in the hallway, arms crossed.“You can’t be in here,” I said, standing up. “I can,” Dell said. “We're practically family.” He said it like a joke. Jarett’s grip tightened on mine. “Get out.”Dell looked at him, then at me. His sui

Helena's POVThat morning, we were back at the hospital, beside Jarett. The lights flickered and the machines started to beep. It was not the normal beep, this one was fast, frantic and wrong, it was sounding like a warning.Dell moved before I could breathe. He didn’t look at Jarett. He didn’t look at me. He looked at the window behind me and put himself in front of it. “Don’t look,” he said, voice low. “Helena. Don’t look at her.”But I already did.Outside the ward, in the courtyard three floors down, Maren was standing there barefoot in the rain.Her hair was plastered to her face, her jeans were soaked but she wasn’t shivering, she was smiling. And her eyes were locked on me through the glass.The black under Jarett’s jaw surged. It crawled up like smoke, past his throat, up to his cheekbone. “No,” I said. “No, no—”“Helena.” Jarett’s hand found mine, his touch was too cold against mine. “I’m here. Look at me.”I did. His gold eyes were still clear, he still looked like him.

Helena's POVThey discharged us at 2am. No paperwork, no questions, just Dell flashing a badge that wasn’t his and a doctor who wouldn’t meet my eyes. The man kept wiping his hands on his scrubs like he could wash something off. Room 412 was a crime scene now, there was salt water pooled on the floor and glass glittered in the corners. The guard who’d been stationed inside was sitting in the hall with a blanket around his shoulders, staring at nothing. He didn’t remember what happened. He kept saying the lights went out and that was it. The new place wasn’t a hospital. It was a safehouse on the edge of town. There were brick walls, no windows and one heavy steel door with three locks. The air inside smelled like dust and old concrete. Dell called it "temporary." It felt like a tomb. Jarett was on the cot, awake but not here. His eyes tracked the ceiling. The black under his jaw hadn’t moved up in the last hour, but it hadn’t faded either. It sat under his skin like ink in wat

Helena's POVThe world cut out into nothingness. There was no sound, no air and no pain, it was just the feeling of Jarett’s hand in mine, and the runes burning like they were trying to carve through bone.Then a wet and cold sensation, I was breathing water. I jerked awake and gagged. It was river water and copper. The same smell from the safehouse. I was on my back on stone, choking, and Jarett was on top of me, his arms locked around me, shielding me from something I couldn’t see.“Helena.” His voice was raw. “Breathe. You’re breathing.”I was. I was coughing and spitting and breathing. I opened my eyes.We weren’t in the safehouse anymore, we were in a huge cavern with black stone walls slick with condensation. The ceiling was lost in darkness. The only light came from the runes, mine and his. They weren’t black anymore. They were white, glowing and carved into our skin like they’d always been there. From my wrist to my shoulder. From his jaw up to his temple, branching across

Jarett's POVThe phone was still buzzing in my hand from Vanessa's call. Helena hadn’t moved from the fridge. Her back was to me, her shoulders were too straight, like if she relaxed for one second she’d fall apart. The clipboard in her hands had tomorrow’s drills written in her neat, angry script. Except nothing was normal. The thread between our wrists still pulled hard and insistently like a dog tugging at a leash. “Go,” Helena said. Her voice was flat. The kind of flat that meant she’d already cried and had nothing left. “If you don’t, you’ll wonder.” “I don’t wonder about her.” The lie came out too fast. She finally turned. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. “Then go to prove it,” she said. “Go and come back.” I hated that she said that. I hated that she was giving me permission to walk out. I hated that the mark on my cheek pulsed once, twice, like it agreed with her. I crossed the kitchen in two steps and kissed her forehead. It was all I could do without touching