Page 4 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

Callie, talk to me. I felt you. I felt you get scared before the bond closed. Whatever Garrett told you, whatever happened, call me. I’m coming.

Idris calls when I’m twenty minutes out from the sister campus. His name lights up the screen, and for one brutal second I hate him for not being hers, then hate myself for even having the thought. I hit accept and put him on speaker because my hands are shaking too badly to hold the phone.

“Sloane,” Idris says, and his voice is too controlled. It’s the kind of control that means he’s holding something back with both hands. “Where are you?”

“Halfway to campus.” I take the next turn so hard the back end of the car shifts under me. “She’s not answering. Every call goes to voicemail after one ring. She’s not reading texts, or they’re not getting through, or someone’s got her phone. I don’t know yet.”

“Theo’s asking for her,” Idris says, and something in me tears wider. There’s movement behind his voice, a low murmur I think might be Dr. Mercer, then the soft rustle of blankets. “He’s wrapped up on the sofa in the library. Mercer doesn’t want him back in the sunroom until his vitals hold for another hour. He’s awake, but he’s shaking every time Garrett speaks.”

My vision narrows on the road. “Don’t leave him alone with Garrett.”

“I’m not.” Idris' voice lowers, and I can hear the danger under it now. “Garrett tried to come into the library with tea. Theo asked him not to. Garrett didn’t like that.”

A sound comes out of me before I can stop it. It fills the car, low and animal, and the speedometer climbs because my foot presses harder before my brain catches up. “He did something to her. He went to campus to help her, and now she’s gone. Theo’s heat crashed. The bond shut. Callie isn’t answering. Garrett came home with a ready-made explanation and that fucking message on my phone like he’d been waiting to hand it to me.”

“I know,” Idris says. “Get to campus. Find the last place she was seen. Don’t put your hands on anyone, Sloane.”

“I’m not promising that.”

“You’re going to promise it because if you look like a feral bonded Alpha threatening university staff, they’ll lock every door before you get through the first question. Garrett’s story will get stronger if you give them the shape of it.” Idris pauses, and when he speaks again, something rough enters his voice. “I need you to find her, and you can’t do that from a holding cell.”

I suck in a breath through my teeth and force my hand to loosen on the wheel before I snap something inside the steering column.

“She was scared, Idris.” My voice breaks in the middle of her fear. “I felt it. I felt terror. It hit me and then she cut me out.” A growl pulls from my throat. “I should’ve gone with her this morning.” The sentence rips out of me before I can bury it. “I should’ve driven her. I should’ve told Garrett to stay the fuck away from her. I knew she was quiet. I knew something was wrong, and I let the house pull me back to Theo, to the heat, to the logistics. I let her walk into that campus with Garrett circling her, and now I can’t feel her.”

“Sloane, listen to me.” Idris’ voice sharpens, the command held back but present enough to cut through the panic. “Blame later. Move now.”

I swallow hard enough to hurt. “Keep Theo with you.”

“I will. Call me the second you have anything.”

The call ends, and the silence that follows feels hostile. I call Callie again anyway. One ring. Voicemail. Her voice fills the car, and I slam my palm against the wheel because I can’t get to the real woman behind it. “Baby, please,” I say when the beep sounds this time, because I can’t hang up again without giving her something in case the messages are getting through. “It’s me. I’m on my way to the campus. I felt you, Callie. I felt you before itclosed. Whatever happened, whatever you think happened, hold on. Don’t believe anything until I’m in front of you. Don’t let him make you think I wouldn’t come. I’m coming.”

I leave the phone open until it cuts me off.

The sister campus looks too pretty when I pull in. Red-brick buildings, clean sidewalks, banners moving in the wind like nothing has happened here that should leave a permanent mark. Students cross the quad with backpacks and coffees, laughing under the flat afternoon sky, and I want to scream at every one of them that Callie was here.

Callie walked through this place with her portfolio and her hopeful eyes and her careful bravery, and somewhere between the interview and the house, someone put fear in her so deep she shut down the bond to survive it.

I park badly near the administrative building and don’t care. My hands shake when I shove the door open. I catch my reflection in the glass before I go inside, and it’s bad enough to stop me for half a breath. Bloodshot eyes, jaw clenched, shirt wrinkled, hair torn up from my own hands. I look like the exact Alpha Idris warned me not to be, the kind official people step away from, not toward.

I make myself breathe once. It doesn’t calm me. It only keeps me from breaking the door when I open it.

The woman at the front desk looks up with a professional smile that dies before it reaches her eyes. She’s a Beta, maybe mid-fifties, silver hair twisted into a knot, glasses hanging from a chain. Her gaze drops to my hands, then to the door behind me, then back to my face. I know what she reads from me before I speak: bonded Alpha, barely leashed, too close to losing control.

“I’m looking for Calliope Monroe,” I say, and my voice comes out too rough. I drag it back with effort. “She had an interview here today. Literature and Ethics. I need to speak with her.”

The woman’s fingers hover over her keyboard without touching it. “Can I have your name?”

“Sloane Rivera. I’m her bonded Alpha.”

Everything in her face changes while barely moving. It’s a closing. A professional, practiced closing that makes my pulse hit like a hammer. She doesn’t look surprised. She looks prepared.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rivera,” she says. “I can’t release information about a candidate or faculty applicant without authorization.”

“I don’t need her file. I need to know where she is.” I grip the edge of the counter, then let go immediately when her eyes flick to my hands. “Garrett Crane came here to help her with an issue. He returned to our home without her. Since then, she hasn’t answered a single call from me, my partner, or the Omega she was supposed to come home to.”

“I understand that you’re concerned.”