Page 29 of In Knots

“Is he OK now, your grandpa?”

“He died six months ago, but he lived a couple of years longer than they said he would. Stubborn old goat, he was.” I hear him kick at the earth and swallow. “You get scared a lot, baby?”

I close my eyes and think. “I don’t know, sometimes. I usually have someone watching over me, keeping me safe.”

“The world isn’t that dangerous.”

“Easy for an alpha to say.”

He sighs. “That’s true to a certain extent, but if you live your life terrified something bad is going to happen, too afraid to ever do anything, then that isn’t really living.”

“I know,” I whisper. Half the time I feel dead inside. In fact, the only time I’ve ever really felt alive is with these men. “That’s why I called Ryan. And not anyone else.”

Buzz exhales down the phone. “Good.” He pauses, then with caution asks me, “What happened tonight, baby? What are you doing out there on your own?”

“He wanted to take me somewhere I didn’t want to go. I tried to get out, to open the door–”

“Of the moving car? Shit, baby!”

“Yes,” I answer. “So, he left me beside the side of the road.”

“What’s the man’s name?” His voice suddenly sounds sinister.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“I just want to forget about it.”

I hear him run the pads of his calloused fingers across his stubble. “For now,” he says eventually. And without another pause, he tells me another story, this time about a scrape the pack got into as kids.

“So, there are four of you in the pack?” I think of the other two men who helped change my tyre that day.

“Yeah. Me, Ryan, Cam, and Bear.”

“Bear?” I giggle.

“You don’t remember him? He’s about twice the size of the rest of us. His real name is Dan.”

“And what’s your real name?”

“No, I’m not telling you my real name.”

“Now I’m really curious. I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.”

“I already know yours, Alexa.”

“There are more.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

I hear the far-off roar of a bike, and peer off into the distance of the busy road.

“I think he’s here.”

“In that case, the guessing game will have to wait. Is it definitely him?”

I watch as the bike glides closer, slowing as it reaches the row of shops.

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