Page 124 of Believe it or Knot

“Yes,” I nod.

“If you’ll come with me, we need to get you checked out.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine.” My smile turns soothing. For him. To make him feel better. “Really. Just a little shaken up.”

His lips curve into a smile that tells me he knows better. “I’m sure that’s the case, but we still need to check you over. If you’re fine like you say, it shouldn’t take too long.”

I flick my gaze up to where Sadie and Sylvie are still surrounded by their packs, with a medical professional looking them both over, and I nod. “Yes, of course.”

“This way.” He places a hand at the small of my back and guides me over to the open doors of an ambulance. “Climb up.” I do, taking a seat on the gurney, and resting my forearms on my knees. This position draws attention to my trembling hands, so I lean back, sliding my palms over my shorts and then tucking them under my thighs.

The paramedic sits across from me and runs a few basic tests, shining a light in my eyes, checking my reflexes. He patches up the few scrapes I have, the deeper cut on my thigh from Sadie’s boot knife, and then gives me two painkillers and calls me good.

And the whole time, I feel so goddamn alone.

In a way that I haven’t felt since I lost my parents and Gage was half a world away.

There’s this hollow ache deep in my stomach, just like there was back then, when I lost the most important people in the world to me. It took a long time for that hollow ache to fill back up. Sadie and Sylvie helped so much with that, but they have their own lives now, their own packs. They’re moving away from Lake Kilrose and into Granton.

I’m so happy for them, I really am.

But I’m lonely too.

I will continue to be lonely until the day I die. Because as much as I like to be a glass half full kind of girl, I’m finding it really fucking hard to find the positive in the few drops of liquid at the bottom of my cup.

I’ll never find another pack like the Cordovas.

I’ll never find a lone alpha I want as much as I want Gage.

Might as well call me Buttercup, because I’m pretty sure, ‘I will never love again,’ will be engraved on my tombstone.

“If you start feeling woozy or lightheaded, or any other intense pain, go to the doctor immediately,” the paramedic says, drawing my attention away from my morose thoughts.

I smile at him, pushing to my feet. “Thank you so much. I will.”

I climb out of the back of the ambulance and right into a camera, a microphone and a woman with a sneer on her face. “Sorrel Forbes, the girl who broke the Cordova Pack’s heart. Were you in the building when it exploded?”

I blink at her, words caught in my throat, because what the hell? I don’t know what one has to do with the other, and I honestly just don’t have the capacity to deal with the media right now. Or ever, for that matter.

She pushes the microphone closer to my face. “Are you under investigation for the explosion? Are you trying to get the Cordova pack’s attention with this stunt? Did you fake a kidnapping?”

“I’m sorry… what?” My mouth falls open at the slew of questions that don’t make any sense. In the past I might have just smiled and given a polite answer of ‘no comment,’ But I really have no fucks left to give. So instead I ask, “are you even a journalist? Jesus! I’m obviously not under investigation for what happened here. If I was, I would be in the back of one of the many police cars around us, probably in handcuffs. I would think someone whose job it is to report the facts would be able to at least put two and two together. That equals four, in case you can’t do math.”

Her mouth falls open, and she tries to take the microphone away from my mouth, but my hand whips out and holds it in place. “And for the record, I didn’t break the Cordova pack’s hearts. They broke mine. They didn’t trust me enough. They didn’t trust that I loved them, and instead fell for the first fucking ploy to break us up, to keep me away from them.” I’m vaguely aware at the back of my head that I sound like a raving lunatic. I know I need to shut up and get out of here, but I am so fucking tired of being a doormat. Of letting everyone walk all over me, because I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable.

I glare at the woman and then at that camera. “And no, I didn’t commit a terrorist act to get their fucking attention. Even the almighty Cordova pack is not worth killing people over. Apex Pharmaceuticals kidnapped me and my friends for reasons I don’t really feel like going into right now. I’m sure it’ll all come out when the police release a statement.” glare firmly in place, I release the microphone and move to push past them. The need to get away, to be free of the eyes and the people, pushes my feet forward, makes my exhausted aching muscles move. I need to find a place where I can break down in solitude.

I should have known that I would still be the villain. No matter that I’m the victim here, that this had nothing to do with the Cordova pack at all. The media will always find a way to paint me with the brush of evil.

My eyes latch onto a patch of darkness, outside of the flashing lights and the cameras filming the scene. There’s the vague shape of trees and my feet move to it without conscious thought.

Space. I need space and quiet and to fall apart in peace.

Track 30: Hold on I’m Coming

It takes too long to reach the facility where Apex took Sorrel and her friends. Even though we did the interview at a location not far away, it still takes twenty minutes to get through the police line and the people. All the fucking people that I want to roar at to get out of my fucking way.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done is sit back and let the Falcone and Werth packs get our girls out. I’m trained for that, trained to protect the people I love and instead of going to Sorrel, I went to a fucking interview. I sat in one of those stupid director’s chairs and faced a camera and didn’t say a goddamn word, because I was too focused on where I wasn’t.

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