We just pack.
When the last drawer is empty, Cliff looks around the room. "Anything else?"
Elowen is quiet for a second. “One more thing.” She crouches down and pulls the bottom dresser drawer all the way out, setting it on the floor. Then she reaches into the empty space where it sat and presses down along the base.
A false bottom lifts free.
She reaches in and pulls out a notebook.
It's seen better days. The cover is warped and soft at the corners, the spine cracked in two places. Scraps of paper jut out from between the pages at every angle. I can see a few receipts, a torn envelope, and what looks like a napkin with handwriting on it.
Half the pages are dog-eared, and a rubber band holdsthe whole thing together, stretched thin and slightly tacky with age.
She holds it to her chest, hugging it tight. And it’s suddenly clear that this is the only thing in this room that actually matters.
Cliff’s dark eyes narrow at it, before looking up at Elowen's face, but she’s too busy staring at her feet. “Anything else, omega?” he asks softly.
She quickly shakes her head, then whispers, “No. That's it.”
“Okay, then.” Perrin claps his hands together, and the sound is way too loud, making both me and Elowen flinch. He grimaces, and mouths “sorry” before moving toward the box. “I’m gonna put this in the car.”
Raff grabs the duffel off the floor, slinging it over one shoulder, as Cliff moves to Elowen's side. His hand slides down her back, slow and deliberate, and she leans into him, tucking herself under his arm.
I watch him holding her for a second, waiting for the familiar twist of jealousy in my chest.
It doesn't come.
Instead, I feel bad for her.
This small woman who slept on a cot mattress on the floor for god knows how long, ate alone at a table with the wrong size barstool, and kept her most important possession hidden in a false bottom drawer because she didn't trust anything or anyone enough to keep it anywhere else.
I push my hands into my pockets and follow them out.
The living room is as depressing on the way out as it was on the way in, with it’s sad carpet and broken lamp.
"I think the door might be broke,” Perrin says as he stops in the open doorway. “I mean, I closed it on my way in, but it's wide open."
"That would be because Cliff broke it," Raff says,nodding at the cracked door frame. The wood around the lock is visibly splintered, the strike plate hanging loose from a single screw. Raff turns back toward the room, a smile already pulling at the corner of his mouth like he's about to say something to Cliff about it. “You could have?—”
The alpha freezes and his smile falls.
Raff’s whole body changes in the span of a single second.
The easy looseness drains out of him, and something hard and alert takes its place. His chin drops, his weight shifting forward onto the balls of his feet. His eyes are fixed on the kitchen doorway.
"I knew you'd eventually come home." An unknown voice carries from the kitchen behind me.
The cold moves through the room so fast it's almost physical. I feel Elowen go rigid beside me without looking at her. Cliff is already moving, stepping forward, his arm coming back to press both me and Elle behind him.
I don't breathe.
I can’t.
The Sad Living Room
Elowen
I recognizehis voice before I see his face.
