We were useless. The shock had severed our ability to function. The guilt was a physical weight, pinning us to the floorboards, trapping us in our own selfish realizations.
I looked at Tessa, at the girl I had been too shy, too scared, too cowardly to help when it mattered. I saw the way her chest was heaving, the desperate, shallow gasps that weren't pulling in enough oxygen. I smelled the acrid spike of her distress, sharper now, turning from fear to life-threatening panic.
If we didn't calm her down, her heart was going to give out. The stress combined with the terror of the hallucination was going to kill her right in front of us, and this time, there would be no graduation ceremony to interrupt.
I couldn't be the shy boy in the back row anymore. I couldn't be the gentle giant who faded into the background.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, exhaling the tension, centering myself in my diaphragm. I found the floor of my register, the place where my voice resonated deep in the chest cavity, the voice I used for audiobooks, for guidedmeditations, for talking listeners down from the ledge of a hard day. The voice that made me famous because it sounded like safety.
"Hey there," I said.
The sound rolled through the room, warm and heavy. It wasn't a shout. It was a rumble, low and steady, designed to vibrate through the floorboards and anchor the air. It challenged the storm outside and won.
Anders flinched, looking at me as if he’d forgotten I was there, but I ignored him. I ignored Simon’s panicked breathing. I took a slow, deliberate step forward, sinking to my knees on the cold concrete. I made myself small, hunching my broad shoulders, bowing my head slightly to telegraph submission. I wanted to be a mountain she could lean on, not a wall blocking her path.
"Tessa," I said, pitching my voice to be the auditory equivalent of a weighted blanket, slow, rhythmic, soothing. I let the consonants round out, soft and devoid of sharp edges. "You're okay. We aren't looking at the stage, sweetheart. The ceremony is over."
She paused, her hands trembling violently where they covered her face. One grey eye peered out from between her fingers, wild, frightened, and agonizingly familiar.
"Daniel?" she whispered, the name confused, tangled in the wires of her fevered memory. Had she recognized my voice from the audiobooks?
"Yeah. It's Daniel." I kept the tone steady, pouring calm into the space between us like warm honey. I kept my posture non-threatening, telegraphing that I was not an Alpha here to take, but a safe harbor here to receive. "And Simon. And Anders. We aren't here to watch, Tessa. No one is watching. We're just here to help you get off the floor."
I reached for the medical kit, sliding it slowly across the concrete without breaking eye contact, moving with the sluggish predictability of a glacier.
"Get the cooling pads," I murmured to the others, pitching my voice low enough that it wouldn't startle her, but firm enough to snap them out of their stupor. I didn't look away from her. "Do not move fast. Do not crowd her. If you spike her heart rate again, she strokes out."
The scent of blackberry, old parchment, and sea salt washed over me, intoxicating and terrifyingly fragile. It burned my nose, but I inhaled it deeply. I relaxed, letting go of the tight hold I had on my alpha and letting my scent flow, warm spiced chai, sandalwood, and fresh bread. I tried to project safety, trying to build a wall of comfort around her with nothing but pheromones and baritone frequencies.
She was right on the edge of the cliff. I could feel the vibration of her terror in the air. And this time, I wasn't going to let her fall.
SIX
Tessa
The applause was a physical weight, a tangible thing that had density and mass. It wasn't sound anymore; it was atmospheric pressure, crushing the air out of the room, pressing me flat against the floorboards of the stage.
They were laughing. Thousands of people, their mouths gaping black holes, their eyes serrated edges, all laughing at the wet, shameful stain spreading across the front of my gown. The smell of it, slick, biological, and humiliating, was choking me.
"Get off!" I screamed, the sound tearing ragged and raw from my throat. I lashed out, my fist connecting with something hard, a shoulder, a chest, a wall of authority. "I’m trying to leave! Don’t touch me!"
"Secure her arms," a voice barked. It was cold, sharp, and smelling of aged bourbon and crisp winter air. It was the scent of expensive control, of a high-end study while a storm raged outside. "She’s going to hurt herself. Daniel, pin her legs."
"No!" I thrashed, my heels scrabbling uselessly against the slick, polished wood. "I didn't mean to! It just happened! Please, just let me go!"
Shadows loomed over me. Massive, blocking out the blinding white glare of the spotlights. They weren't teachers. They were security. They were the muscle sent to drag the trash off the stage so the ceremony could continue.
One of them, the largest one, settled over my lower body. He was heavy, a mountain of immovable force, smelling of warm spiced chai, sandalwood, and fresh bread. It was a deceptive scent, pretending to be comfort, the olfactory equivalent of a weighted blanket, while he trapped me. His large hands clamped around my ankles, not hurting, but absolute.
"I’ve got her," the mountain rumbled. The voice vibrated through the floor, through my skin, deep into the marrow of my bones. It was a voice made for reading stories, but right now, it was writing the end of mine. "Tessa, stop fighting. We’re trying to help."
"Don't look at me!" I wailed, throwing my arm over my eyes, trying to claw my way into the dark. "Please, God, don't look."
"We aren't looking atyou," the sharp voice, the bourbon voice, snapped, closer now. "We are looking at the readings. Her temperature is one hundred and four. If it hits one hundred and five, proteins start to denature. Peel her. Now."
Peel her.
The command hit me like a slap.
