We took his jeep, because of course, my dingy secondhand car wouldn’t have made the trip all the way, not with my suitcase and my half of the apartment crammed into more boxes than a warehouse could hold. Rafe made me leave the car behind, claiming it wasn’t worth it at all to bring with me or to sell. Thieves would’ve turned their nose away regardless: no profit to be made from an off-brand vehicle that looked like it had been rescued from the dump. Plus, it wasn’t any kind of classic. Just a sad hunk that would’ve been better as scrap parts.

I bristled with annoyance as I watched it disappear in the side mirror. “I still paid a few grand for it, you know.”

“Waste of money.” Rafe’s disdain was legendary despite his attempts to lighten into teasing. I felt a mix of embarrassment, and righteous indignance as his handsome profile drew into a sneer. Rafe knew people who worked on cars, and those people would’ve had harsher opinions. But he knew too that I wasn’t all that rich; extractions and consultations didn’t pay much, so I resented his next words. “You know cars depreciate in value from the moment you buy them, right? It was negative at that point. More worth it to just have bought a new one.”

Critical and proud, as much as he was by nature loyal and perceptive. I had been impressed by that, once upon a time. Nothing had seemed like it would’ve touched him. I knew nothing did.

“Still money,” I protested. Like I could’ve afforded anything else at the time. The precise solidity magic threaded into the tires and the frame had taken countless weekend hours to build, restricting me from enjoying the time off. Rafe had protested since the very day, calling it a waste of time when we could have been up to better things. “It was all I could afford.”

Rafe grunted, eyes on the road. “I could’ve bought you a new one.”

“You know I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Like you’re not comfortable with me being here, right?” He gripped the steering wheel tighter, snarling. “It’s a province away, Tai. Don’t you think I want to be here for you?”

I stayed silent. It wouldn’t have been so bad to drive myself, compartmentalizing with each kilometre that passed on the highway. Leaving behind everything isn’t so bad if there wasn’t anything to keep you there. But werewolves believed in interdependency; money belonged to the pack, helping each other was a given, and pack stayed together.

Rafe’s nostrils flared. “I see how it is.”

“Just because I want to do—Never mind.” I knew what him deciding to come with me meant, even if I didn’t understand it viscerally. But I also didn’t really want to think about the message I was sending him by being uncertain in the first place—this civility was already barely holding together.

“You want to say something,” Rafe said. It wasn’t a question. There were chemical balances in the human body that a werewolf could sniff out better than any machine, he’d explained to me one time in those rare nights we had been home at the same time, me laying atop with my chin over my hands at his chest, his hands petting my sides. Soft. Warm. “Tai,” he called out to me, decidedly the opposite. "Say whatever it is you’re thinking.”

Lazy, sleepy memories disappeared instantly. I flushed, jarred. “I paid something for it. So it’s worth something,” I added, a little softer, voice wavering.

“It’s worthless to anyone but you,” Rafe corrected. At the red light, he slipped his cap off his head and yanking it down over my eyes.

I protested verbally but took the time to reel myself together. By the time I lifted it off my head, Rafe was already pulling it down again.

“I know you haven’t slept.” He settled his hand there, a steady weight that made me emotional. His voice grew sterner, harder. “Take a nap. We have a couple of days ahead of us.”

It was an order. I hated when he gave me orders and I hated he couldn’t have just swallowed his pride and apologize to me for overstepping even though he could clearly tell he had. I wasn’t a werewolf, and I didn’t take reassurance in roundabouts.

But I was tired too—the sleeplessness had been brutal, tossing and turning as I dreaded no one showing up to the office, dreading if someone had decided to work that weekend, what that confrontation would’ve been like.

I—

“Tai,” Rafe huffed. His voice was tense. “I can smell your overthinking.”

“You can’t.”

“Suit yourself.” He turned on the radio. Just the brief second of rock began to play before he switched it to the classical channel. “But sleep,” he said quietly. “We can talk more, or not at all when you wake up.”

If this was a phone call, I would’ve steeled my voice. I would’ve pretended everything was fine. I would’ve taken a second to take a second breath, blink and sniffle and then pretend it was me catching a cold.

In-person, Rafe could tell everything, even if he didn’t know exactly what or why.

I curled up, leaning against the door. The jeep was steady, not at all rocky. Brahms was nice; whoever covered him was doing well. My eyelids dragged closed, and I wrapped my jacket around me closer.

“I wish you’d rely on me more,” Dream Rafe told me, dancing along to the Macarena. “It upsets me when you don’t, because I come home and you won’t speak to me.”

“It’s not your fault,” I insisted, as I tried desperately to follow along. My limbs were uncoordinated; my body was flying, floating along. “I’m a mess.”

When I woke up, the car had stopped moving. The engine was still running, Rafe was missing from the driver’s seat. I slid out from under Rafe’s suit jacket and straightened to look out the windshield. The lights were on, and when I squinted, I could see Rafe’s back and two other people whose features I couldn’t pick out.

My hip buzzed. I slipped my hand into the jacket and pulled out Rafe’s phone. Four missed calls, with this one being the fifth.

//When are you coming back, Alpha?// read the message. //We need you here. Shit's going down, and not the timber kind.//