Page 43 of What We Don't Say: Part One

I ease the door wider.

The closet is deeper than it looks from the hall, a narrow rectangle lined with shelves of towels, spare pillows, winter blankets, and the emergency bedding Sloane bought after reading one article about Omega nests and losing his mind. On the floor, tucked beneath the lowest shelf, Theo has built a small, frantic pile out of the things he must have gathered when none of us were looking.

My cream cardigan from the mudroom bench. The charcoal sweater I wore during the second visit. The soft gray hoodie I keep pretending is still mine even though half the house steals it. A scarf from the basket near the back door. One of Sloane’sshirts is near the edge, and an Idris sweater is folded under a pillow, but the center is mine.

Theo is curled in the middle of it with his face pressed into my sleeve.

“Oh, Star,” I whisper.

He goes still.

I don't call for anyone. My phone is in my pocket, and I can text them in a minute. Right now, the closet barely has enough room for breath. If three Alphas appear in the doorway, even careful ones, Theo will have to be seen before he has finished surviving being found.

I lower myself to the floor outside the closet first, giving him time to look at me. “I’m going to come in, okay? You can tell me no.”

His fingers flex in my sleeve.

I wait.

After three breaths, he nods.

The closet is cramped and too warm, the air thick with fabric and panic and the clean cotton of stored linens. I crawl in slowly, knees pressing into the edge of a folded quilt, and settle beside him with my back against the wall. My shoulder brushes the shelf. My leg falls asleep almost immediately.

Theo watches me from behind the gray hoodie sleeve.

“I like this one,” I say, touching the edge of the hoodie instead of him. “Good choice. Sloane says it’s ugly, but Sloane owns shirts with flamingos on them, so his authority is limited.”

Theo’s mouth trembles.

I keep my hand where he can see it, palm turned up on the pile between us. “The big room was a lot.”

His eyes close.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I thought so.”

He makes a sound too small to be a word and shifts closer by inches, dragging the hoodie with him. His hand reaches formine, stops, then reaches again. I don't close the distance for him. I wait until his fingers land on my wrist.

When he pulls my hand to his cheek, my breath catches.

His skin is warm. Too warm from stress, not fever. He presses his face into my palm with a broken little sound, and the thing inside me that has been trying to behave all day goes quiet.

I stroke my thumb once along his cheekbone. “You’re here. We’re not moving you right now.”

Theo’s eyes open. They search mine like he's waiting for the second half of the sentence, the part where I explain what he has to earn for that to stay true.

I give him the only thing I have.

“You picked a spot,” I say. “That’s good. We’ll tell everyone this is where you feel safe right now.”

His grip tightens.

“Not yet,” I add, because his breath jumps. “I’ll tell them when you’re ready or when you’re sleeping. Nobody is going to rush in here.”

He swallows hard, throat moving around a word that doesn't come.

I shift carefully so my hip fits between a pillow and the wall. “Do you want me to stay for a little bit?”

He nods so fast his hair falls into his eyes.