Page 91 of Brox Boar

What we are isn’t clean or simple, and I stopped pretending it is. I stopped trying to name it. I just live inside it.

Chicago changed them. I don’t think they walked away untouched, even though they act like it. It was the family that was found in a way that was too painful to accept.

Brox carries it worse.

He doesn’t say much about Rex, his half brother, but I feel it in him. The way his eyes go dark when Rex is being mentioned, then close off entirely. He doesn’t know how to hold something so messy without trying to crush it or lock it away. The idea of sharing blood with someone other than Rio rattles something old in him. I see it when he thinks no one’s watching. The anger. The grief. The confusion sitting under his ribs, gnawing.

Rio handles it differently.

He sorts emotion into boxes and stacks them somewhere out of reach. He knows how to manage himself. He knows how to decide what matters and what gets buried. He listens. He calculates. If Rex troubles him, he never lets it show. He adapts, adjusts, moves forward. Sometimes his control scares me.

Chicago reshaped them.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, my bare feet touching the cool marble floor. The room smells faintly of clean linen and their scent. I stretch, my arms overhead, and my muscles wake in stages. My body remembers things my mind tries to rearrange.

This week, I went back to work at the hospital. I told them I’d be coming for a shift or two per week.

Spoke to HR, and they agreed without a fuss. I told them I need time to study, to catch up, and it’s true. Exams loom closer every day. The idea of passing them feels unreal sometimes. If I do, actually, when I do, I’d be a Doctor. The word sits strange in my mouth. Heavy in a different way.

This week, I also worked at the Boarpit. But that work… it isn’t really work. It’s service.

I dress slowly, pulling on soft clothes, nothing tight. A loose top, black legging, I twist my hair into a knot I don’t bother to perfect. I look at myself in the mirror without judgment. I stopped fighting the truth a while ago.

I’m their pet. And they look after me. They look after all of us. I don’t get that anywhere else.

At the hospital, I’m useful. Necessary. I fill gaps. I do what needs doing. Rio and Brox need someone there, someone who understands the systems and the risk. I’m that someone. When I pass my exams–and I will–things will be different.

I imagine it sometimes, standing in a room with my name on the door, my very own surgery. With the amount of money moving through the Boarpit, the money I help them make, and the other pets, it’s possible. More than possible. If only they see it my way.

The thought steadies me as I leave the bedroom and move down the hall toward the kitchen. I’m hungry and I know Shiaou has made me breakfast. It’s noon. The penthouse opens up around me, light stretching across open space. Every step echoes softly.

A few days ago, Rio asked me to go to the basement. At Dr. Morales’s office.

He said it gently, carefully, watching my face as we were lying in bed, after having multiple orgasms. He thought it might help me push through what she did to me. I’m not sure if he was right, but I took up the challenge.

And the next day, I went downstairs. The basement smelled faintly of disinfectant when I arrived. My chest tightened the moment I stepped inside. My body reacted before my thoughts did. For a moment, I couldn’t move.

Then the pets came. Maya, Noor, Alina. Dina and Jess, too. Becca wasn’t there, I was told she was resting after a brutal night. Something involving a whole team of hockey players.

They all stood with me and around me as I entered.

Dr. Morales’s office was scrubbed clean. Too clean. Stripped of personality, of her menace. The room where I was kept no longer existed, too. It’s repurposed into storage, deliberately altered so my mind doesn’t trap me there again. Boxes lined the walls. Shelving replaced the restraints. Someone thought about this. Took their time.

Brox and Rio hide it well, but they have softness somewhere under their bones and muscle. They just don’t let many people see it.

I didn’t want to stay down there long, so I focused on the work.

I found the gel first. The one protecting from STDs. The formula wasn’t hidden. When I dug deeper, I realized she left a trail. She was organized. She listed the ingredients. Documented the process. She had notes even on the licensing pathways. It was all there, waiting to be found. Protection. Control. Profit. Legal profit.

I took everything to Brox. They are going to talk to an IP lawyer. He said if we can protect it, the gel could become something bigger.

But he also told me to focus on studying. To pass my exams. He said they need a doctor among their pets. But he never asked me if I want to be that person. I don’t think I do.

I want to look after the pets, yes. I care about them deeply. But I want to play too. I want to earn my bread, so to speak. I’m hungry, ambitious, and torn between devotion and desire.

The thought makes me laugh under my breath as I reach the kitchen, drawn by the smell before I even see the spread. Shiaou has already been here. He always is. The counter is lined with plates and bowls laid out, stacked pancakes still steaming, a pan of crisp bacon resting on paper, scrambled eggs soft and buttery, hash browns golden at the edges. There’s a bowl of sliced strawberries, another with blueberries, a jug of maple syrup catching the light. Coffee waits in the pot, strong and dark.

I sit at the counter, the bar stool scraping as I climb up. I pour coffee, stack three pancakes on my plate, and drown them in syrup. It runs everywhere. I’m halfway through my second bite when footsteps sound behind me, and I turn around. It’s Brox.