Page 33 of Into the Fire: Before

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said immediately, reaching over to grasp my hand. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

“What did you mean then?” I asked, tone sharper than likely necessary.

He gave a slow shake of his head. “Brooks has never met a stranger a day in his life. You could find the most incompatible, uninteresting human being in existence, and he’ll still find something to gush with them about. He just doesn’t know how to be shy or unsure around other people.

“Then there’s Caine, who can barely leave the apartment most days because being around other people makes him want to punch a wall.”

“And you think that’s me too?” I asked.

“Nah,” Lin said, the corner of his mouth twitching up just a hair. “You are careful around others. You’re quiet, but I don’t think you’re shy. I think you’re watching and listening, analyzing every interaction you have minute by minute.” He sipped on his drink, eyes shining and dark as they never released my gaze. “It’s what makes you a great therapist.”

The churning in my stomach transformed into a sensation like a freefall. Notwhat will make you a great therapist.Notwhat makes a great therapist,in general.

It’s what makesyoua great therapist.Specific. Declarative.

He knew. Caine told him.

A moment ago, I’d been doubting myself, defensive. But now, with Lin’s body angled toward me, close enough I could hear his quiet breaths, a silent communication in his gaze, I felt…seen.

I fought the smile that wanted to creep up my face. “Taryn’s usually the effervescent, talkative one, and I like it that way.” I dipped my gaze to the table for a moment, needing the imagined distance a moment. “Where I come from, my voice wasn’t always welcome. So I adapted.” A subtle rumble emanated from Lin’s chest, but I ignored it. “Becoming a therapist, I guess, is my way of turning what was once a survival tactic into something that’s actually mine.”

He nodded, face serious, eyes intense. “Reclaiming it to help others survive where it once helped you.”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.

Lin reached for my hand, slowly so I could pull away if I wanted. His warm fingers engulfed mine, and a dazed sort of relaxation drifted over me. “You are even more incredible than we thought,” he whispered. I opened my mouth to demure, but the squeeze of his fingers around mine stopped me. “You’re going to change lives, Brea. I hope you know that.”

Theguyswereparkedjust a few blocks away, so after dinner (delicious, of course), we meandered down the wide sidewalk of downtown Farendale. Taryn and Brooks ahead, Lin and me behind. My omega in her red dress, hair loose and shining, her cheeks just that little bit pink from her two drinks at dinner, and the beta’s arm possessively around her waist…she was a romcom come to life. The walking, talking, giggling embodiment of beauty and excitement.

Lin’s voice brought me out of my head. “He’s absolutely smitten with your omega.”

He may as well have told me that lava was hot. I didn’t need a bond bite with Brooks to see his mounting infatuation with Taryn. It sang from his every smile, every look and casual touch with her. Was Taryn’s reciprocal infatuation just as clear to Lin as it was in our own bond?

We reached a street corner, and we all paused with a handful of other pedestrians to wait for the walk signal to flash. “Very few people aren’t smitten with her.”

“And with good reason. She is pure sunshine.”

Just as the safe to walk signal changed, Taryn gasped and lunged out of Brooks’ grasp, turning and high-heel-jogging down the sidewalk.

“Careful, Teacup,” I called as I quickly followed. “What’s—ahh, of course.”

Taryn stood before a bus stop ad, the image showing a ballet dancer with long blonde curls in an arabesque, a look of desperate longing on her face.

“Autumn Awakening,” Lin read aloud. “You a fan?”

That was putting it mildly. “It was my gran’s favorite ballet,” Taryn replied with solemnity. “We used to see it in New York every year when I was little.” She swallowed, and I felt the ache building in the bond. “Every so often, Gran would play the score damn near on repeat, and I knew that she was really missing it then.”

The ballet told the story of a late-presenting omega, who was torn from a life of largely her own choosing and thrust into a world of subservience, every choice stripped from her in a moment. Despite this, the omega—Alessia— resists the forces that work to break and control her, eventually finding a pack of alphas who cherish her.

Autumn Awakeningwas one of the first mainstream criticisms of the civil oppression of non-alphas. Taryn still had her grandmother’s playbill from the very first timeshesaw the ballet when she was barely eight years old. It was in a black shadow box frame, waiting to be hung in the apartment. Taryn loved it as much as her grandmother did, but notbecauseof her grandmother. She loved the omega who fought in the only ways she could and, though she did not win the war, scraped by with a victory just for herself.

The men kept silent as we all stared at the poster, a mix of nostalgia and heartache throbbing in the bond. She hadn’t so much as played a single song since Gran died.

Brooks grasped Taryn’s hand. “We should go,” he said so softly I almost missed it with the rest of the city noises around us.

Taryn nodded, eyes misting over. “Yeah, let’s go.”

She turned back toward the corner, ready to cross, and the men exchanged glances. Before we turned to follow her, Brooks pulled out his phone and snapped a photo of the poster.

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