Seth sighs, the sound heavy with resignation. “For now, yeah. We have to cooperate, Billy. You know that as well as I do. Fighting them on this will only make things worse.”
I don’t want to cooperate. I want to grab my rifle and run them off my land. I want to tear down their orange tape and their white tents.
But Seth is right. Fighting them is a losing battle, and it would only confirm their suspicions that we’re a threat.
So I clench my jaw and swallow my anger, forcing it down into the deep, dark pit where I keep all my other unspoken frustrations.
“Is Sedona all settled in?” I ask Tex.
He nods. “I gave them cookies. The bunkhouse is quiet and away from all this. They’ll be comfortable there.”
He’s already thinking about her comfort, how to make this nightmare easier for her, and a part of me resents him for it.
“It’s the best option,” I agree flatly. It’s the best option for containment, for control. It keeps her here, on our land, where we can see her, where we can protect her.
The thought is a territorial instinct, a primal Alpha urge that I can’t suppress, no matter how much I want to.
“Which means we’re bunking in the main house,” Seth continues, thinking ahead, as always. “All three of us. It’s been a while.”
A while. An understatement.
The thought of being cooped up in that house with Tex’s restless energy and my own simmering anger is a special kind of hell.
“And what about Jasper?” Tex asks. “We can’t just leave him to fend for himself.”
“He can have my room,” Seth says. “I’ll take the couch.”
It’s all so reasonable, so practical. A plan. A way to navigate this insanity. But it doesn’t address the one question that’s been burning a hole in my gut since she fainted.
“I keep coming back to what you said, Seth,” I say. “Why is she the only one with symptoms? We were all there. We all breathed the same air, ate the same food. Why her?”
Seth shakes his head, his expression a mirror of my own confusion. “I don’t know, Billy. Honestly. Dr. Thorne said the parasite might affect different hosts in different ways. Maybe her Omega biology makes her more susceptible. Maybe it’s just random. Nothing that is happening makes any sense.”
Random. I hate that word. I hate the feeling of being at the mercy of a random, mutating parasite. I hate the feeling of being powerless.
I hate watching her suffer, even from a distance, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
Sheriff Ben Riley walks over, his face looking even more haggard than before. He’s pulled his mask down around his neck, and the exhaustion is plain on his face.
“Boys, we need to talk logistics. The CDC team needs a place to set up a mobile lab. They’ll need access to power and water. And they’ll need a list of everyone who’s been on the property in the last week.”
“We’ll give them whatever they need,” Seth says, stepping forward to handle the details. That’s his role. He’s the negotiator, the planner.
I tune them out, my gaze drifting toward the bunkhouse. It’s a small, simple building, but right now it feels like the center of the universe.
She’s in there. Sedona. The woman who left me. The woman who came back. The woman who is now sick and trapped here with me.
The anger is still there, a hot, burning coal in my gut. But under it, something else is stirring. A fierce, protective instinct that overrides everything else.
She’s here. She’s under our protection. And whatever this parasite is, whatever this quarantine is, it will have to get through me first.
“Billy?” Seth’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
I shake my head. “No. What?”
“I said we need to make a run to the feed store,” he repeats patiently. “And the grocery store. We’re going to be stuck here for a while. We need to stock up. Maybe someone can give Ben the list.”
“Fine,” I grunt. “I’ll go.”
