Page 73 of Fight or Fly

“Take a look in the bathroom mirror and tell me that,” I retorted.

Jax and Flynn looked like they thought they should be doing something, or saying something, but they had no idea what it was. I hadn’t been wrong about them having an unshakable idea of Alex that didn’t really match up with the current reality. Leo and I swept Alex toward the bathroom, where we cleaned her up as best we could over her half-hearted protestations.

I still wasn’t happy about the fresh bleeding on her back, but removing and rewrapping the bandages would probably make things worse by pulling open the places where the gauze had scabbed to the skin with dried blood. I resolved to drag her back to a doctor in the morning, or perhaps see if one of them would come here for a house call.

We led Alex to the nest when we were finished, where Jax and Flynn were waiting awkwardly. They’d cleaned up as well at some point, their hair damp and most of the day’s grime wiped away.

“Will you tell us what happened?” Jax asked again.

Alex shook her head, but Leo plowed right over her. “Irina’s moved on. She’s with someone else. Alex blames herself for not having known she was still alive and going after her. And she’s grieving her pups.”

“Oh,” Jax said blankly.

“Fuck, Alex,” Flynn said, running a hand over his close-shorn black hair. “That’s some rough shit. You should’ve said.”

“We’re sleeping pack-style tonight,” I decided. “Alex, lie down.”

“I’m not tired,” she muttered.

“You’re exhausted,” I said, kicking off my shoes and leading by example. “Now liedown.”

I didn’t really expect her to give in without a fight. But she slumped to the cushion-strewn floor, as though hearing me say how tired she was made it real for her.

“Get the lights,” Leo said, as she lay down on Alex’s other side, mindful of her sling.

After the tiniest of hesitations, Flynn crossed to the door and flicked off the lights. A couple of small nightlights came on, casting a soft reddish glow over the room. Flynn came and lay down behind Leo, slinging an arm across her. Meanwhile, Jax lowered himself carefully to the floor on his bad leg, settling in behind me.

Silence settled over the room, broken only by the sound of our breathing—but it wasn’t an easy quiet. Eventually, Jax broke it.

“You had no way of knowing she was alive,alef,” he said, echoing what I’d told Alex in the gym.

I felt Alex swallow. “We’re supposed to come after the ones who are lost,” she said, barely more than a whisper. “We’re always supposed to come for them.Always.”

I thought of Beckett, Flynn, and Alex coming after us in the terrorist cave in Romania... of all four of them coming to save us when Leo was arrested. Of Jax rescuing Flynn and Alex from Sloane’s torture cell.

“Doesn’t sound like Irina was lost, though,” Flynn said. “Someonedidcome for her. It just wasn’t you.”

Unexpectedly, a choked sob emerged from next to me. I put my hand on Alex’s shoulder. It was shaking.

“It’s all right to grieve,” Jax said, sounding a bit choked up himself. “I’m sorry we didn’t know you were hurting. I wish you’d told us,alef.”

“There’s been no time to grieve,” Alex said in a strangled tone.

“There’s time now,” I said, squeezing gently.

“They killed my pups,” she said around tears. “They killed mypups.”

And then she was crying in earnest, wracked with ugly sobs as she turned blindly toward me. There was nothing to do except hold her—this hard-as-nails alpha who’d carried all her pain inside for years... for a lifetime. Leo curled around her and stroked her hair, murmuring soothing nonsense as Jax and Flynn reached across us to rest their hands on theiralef’s shoulder and hip.

“This is pack pain,” I said, remembering the way my family would gather to mourn a loss when I was small, in the timebefore. “In a pack, you never have to bear such grief alone.”

“Never,” Jax agreed.

“Never,” Flynn echoed.

“Never,” Leo whispered.

Alex only sobbed harder, her tears soaking into my shoulder.

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