Reaper

Jesse pulled away from the kiss, dazed. Without a word, he rested his forehead back onto mine, breathing raggedly. A smile spread across his face, one that I’m sure mirrored the one on mine.

Holy hell.

“I was not expecting that,” I breathed, letting my eyes slide shut as I took in the smell of him. He smelled clean, like he had just showered. It was so different, but equally intoxicating.

Jesse let out a laugh. “Me either,” he admitted, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer to him. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest underneath my hand as I reached out to steady myself.

That much was true, I hadn’t been expecting that. Kissing Jesse was warm, smooth, safe - it felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold day. I felt what I could only describe as a warm glow coming from the hollow of my chest. I felt a smile dance on my lips, thinking about the taste of his. It was light years beyond the alcohol-induced incident from so long ago, it was like that had never even happened. It wasn’t even in the same stratosphere.

My head started to spin. What did that mean? Did I really have these feelings for Jesse? Had they been there all along? What about Sawyer?

I winced. No, I wasn’t about to let Sawyer ruin this for me. He left me. I deserve to find some happiness without him, right?

While this internal debate was raging in my head, Jesse gently kissed me on the forehead. All at once, my mind was blank, replaced with a happy, warm glow. I didn’t know what it meant, but all I knew was that I didn’t regret it. Jesse made me feel safe when I didn’t even know that was possible. He was a harbor in a storm, a safe haven, and he was exactly what I needed.

I was wrenched away from my thoughts as someone banged on my door. “Charlie!”

Jesse and I gripped each other just a little bit tighter in surprise. It was close to four in the morning - who would want something from me at this hour? Most of the training in the compound didn’t start until eight, and that was a rare occasion that I’d even be there.

In a daze, I realize that the voice belonged to Mason. “Charlie, open up! It’s an emergency!”

Jesse and I stared at each other for a moment, frozen, before we began to untangle. Jesse jumped off of the bed and began to pace, running a hand through his golden hair. I quickly looked around for something to cover myself up - I hadn’t realized until then that I was only wearing a pair of shorts and a sports bra. Mason had seen more of me than I ever hoped he would, but I was still holding on to my modesty while I still could. I grabbed at a baggy white shirt and tugged it over my head frantically.

“Mason, do you even know what time it is?” I croaked, reaching for the doorknob and pulling the door open.

The look on Mason’s face made me freeze in my tracks. He looked like he had seen a ghost. No - he looked like he was a ghost.

“It’s Noah,” he breathed, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. “He’s been attacked.”



Sawyer paced a lap around the room for what seemed like the thousandth time. He had worn spots into the crappy motel carpet, but he hadn’t even noticed. His mind was working overdrive, and his body was struggling to keep up.

Hunter was gone. There was nothing he could do to bring him back.

They hadn’t seen eye to eye on everything. On the contrary, it seemed lately that Hunter was disappointed in every decision Sawyer made. That thought stung, and Sawyer stopped in his tracks. Hunter had practically raised him, taught him everything he knew about is current life. And he was a disappointment.

He wasn’t the leader that Hunter had hoped he would be. He wasn’t the leader that Hunter was.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” a voice said softly.

Sawyer jumped, turning toward the door. It opened, slowly, cautiously, as Saphira came into the room. She closed it gently behind her, leaning her weight against the frame, keeping her gaze on Sawyer.

Sawyer clenched his jaw, and resumed the pacing.

“It’s not your fault, S.”

He ignored her.

“It was a surprise attack. They had poisoned bullets. How were you supposed to know they’d be there?”

Sawyer whirled on her. He stalked over to the corner of the room, his face suddenly inches away from hers. “I know their weapons! I should have known!”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little ‘tortured anti-hero’ here?”

Sawyer growled deep in the back of his throat before he slammed his fist, loudly, into the wall next to Saphira’s head.

They both stared at each other for what seemed like ages. Sawyer’s eyes were on fire, his jaw clenched so tight that she could see the veins bulge near his temples. Saphira’s heart rate was through the roof, and she could feel the adrenaline coursing under her skin for the first time in what felt like forever. She had seen Sawyer upset before, particularly where Charlie was concerned. But it wasn’t like this. She could feel it rolling off of him in waves.

“Alright, noted,” Saphira mumbled, finally breaking the painful eye contact.

He was heartbroken. Sawyer looked, more than anything else, like he had been broken, and there was no hope for repair.

He finally withdrew his hand from the wall before withdrawing to the other side of the room. Saphira stood completely still as he slowly moved over to the edge of the motel bed. With a sigh, he sunk down onto the edge of the bed. After a pause, he slowly leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradling his forehead in his hands.

Saphira wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Everything that came to her mind to say sounded insensitive or unhelpful.

Slowly, Saphira walked over to where Sawyer was sitting. He made no movement to acknowledge her, but she knew he knew she was there. She carefully knelt down in front of him, sitting back on her heels and looking up at him. His face was still buried in his hands.

It seemed like an eternity before either of them moved again.

Sawyer lowered his hands, but he made no move to look Saphira in the eyes. His eyes flickered lowly in the dim light. She could see tears welling up in the corner of Sawyer’s eyes, and suddenly she felt her heart drop out of her chest. Sawyer was not the kind of person who she even believed could cry. And true, he wasn’t sobbing - but this might as well have been.

Saphira raised her hand and placed it gently on Sawyer’s knee.

He was broken. He hadn’t been the same since he had left Charlie behind, but this was more than even he could take on. Hunter was more of a father than anyone else in his life had been. He hadn’t known what it meant to lose one of his own - he had never known a real family before the pack. Hunter had basically been a brother, maybe a father to Sawyer. Who knows what would have happened to him when he had been turned out onto the streets?

Without a word, Sawyer raised his eyes to look directly into Saphira’s. He didn’t need to speak to confirm what she was already thinking.

“What now?” It was barely louder than a whisper, but she heard it loud and clear.

Saphira paused and bit her lip. She looked back and forth between his eyes, searching for an answer. “I-I don’t know,” she breathed.

They sat in silence again, staring at each other. Saphira wanted badly to reach out to him and hold him close. If she thought it would help him, she would - but Sawyer had never been the type to find comfort in close contact. Only where Charlie was involved, and even that had taken come coercing. And Saphira was painfully aware of the face that she was not Charlie, not would she ever be Charlie, at least not to Sawyer.

Saphira was jolted out of her thoughts by a knock at the door.

She snapped her head over to the door. Normally she could Sense the person on the other side, at least from this distance. She knew how it felt when one of the pack was nearby - she could recognize what it felt like for Lina, Forrest, or Simon to approach. This presence was different, yet vaguely familiar. It made her stomach turn.

The person knocked again.

Sawyer breathed in sharply.

Before Saphira knew what was happening, Sawyer leapt up and flew to the door. He wrenched it open. In a flash, he took the person that had been knocking by the throat, bringing them into the room and promptly slamming them against the wall.

“What the hell?!” Sawyer roared.

Saphira was nearly blinded by the light emanating from Sawyer’s eyes. He was furious, out of control of his own actions. The force of his anger took her by surprise, knocking her backwards onto her bottom. She braced herself on the floor, shielding her eyes from the light.

“What. Do. You. Want?” Sawyer’s words were strained, like it was taking all of his self- control not to rip the intruder apart.

The voice that responded made Saphira’s blood run cold.

“I guess I just missed seeing your sweet face, Sawyer.”

It was Iris. And whatever she wanted, it couldn't be good.



“Charlie, you’re not fully healed, maybe you should-”

“I don’t wanna hear it!” I snapped, elbowing Mason out of the way. I knew he meant well, but there was no time to waste with things like pain, not when Noah was unconscious. Or dying, my brain added.

I was running as fast as I could towards Noah’s room. I don’t even think I was breathing, let alone thinking. I was on auto-pilot. I had made this walk so many times trying to find Noah under so many normal circumstances that it was planted in my memory. Now the familiarity felt like it was mocking me. With every step I took, it felt like there were a thousand more to go.

After what seemed like forever, I reached Noah’s door. I yanked open the handle and stood in the doorway, panting, and trying to placate my protesting muscles.

Noah looked like a ghost. He was there, and he was breathing, but that was about it. His face was white, his lips were blue, his skin was sunken. He looked like he literally had had the life sucked from him, when he had been so full of it the last time I had seen him.

I let out a choked sob and ran over to the side of the bed.

“Wake up, Noah,” I pleaded before I could stop myself.

I vaguely realized Lily was in the room, sitting in the corner. She stood up, presumably to make sure I wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I also distantly heard Jesse and Mason come into the room, but my mind was trying to navigate the storm of emotions going on in my head.

“Come on, stop it!” I touched his arm, and yanked my hand away at the cold touch of his skin. “No, no, no…”

Noah didn’t move.

“Charlie -”

I shook his arm. “Noah, wake up, come on! This isn’t funny!”

Jesse and Mason exchanged glances.

Noah took another breath. When I stopped shaking his arm, he returned to rest. He looked like he was sleeping a haunted sleep, like he had left his body behind and his soul was out wandering on its own.

I threw myself down on top of Noah’s chest. I could hear his heart thumping weakly under his skin. He was there, but he wasn’t.

My eyes wandered over to his bare torso. Over his heart, he had had a compass and a map tattooed. I lifted my hand up shakily and placed my hand on top of it, running my fingers over the gently raised lines. Through the tears, I could make out that the letters in the directional arms of the compass didn’t read like they were supposed to - north, east, south, and west. Instead, they had each of our sibling’s names - Noah, Mason, Charlotte. The downward-facing one was blank. I wondered vaguely what he would put there. I had never known that Noah had ever even had that tattoo.

Something in that just made me cry harder. How could there be so much that I didn’t know about my own brother?

“Dammit! Wake up!” I started furiously pounding my fists on the bed, on Noah’s chest, on whatever was within reach. “I hate this! I hate this, hate this!”

Before I knew what was happening, a pair of arms had wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I let out a strangled cry before whirling around on them. I was staring wildly up at Jesse, whose face was stony. I tried to lift my arms, to fight against the entrapment, but it was no use - he was much stronger than me, and he had the resolve to stay that way.

Stuck, I buried my face into Jesse’s chest, and I cried.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard Mason begin to talk absently with Jesse. It sounded like they were standing on the other side of a wall, or something - distant, echo-ey, but I could still sort of make out what they were saying.

“What happened?” Jesse asked.

Mason grunted. “He took out a convoy to scope out a nearby airfield. The humvee ran into a pack of Reapers who were also patrolling the area. No one’s sure exactly who attacked first, but Lance and Noah were the only ones of ours who made it back.”

Jesse’s grip on me tightened ever so slightly. “Where’s Lance?”

“I’m going to have Lily go look him over as soon as we’re done here,” Mason replied. “He’s shaken up, but unharmed. He had to get Noah out of there on his own. Said they were outnumbered, six to one. Apparently they managed to take down the leader - said he was covered in battle scars, had one straight through his eye.”

Jesse and I both stopped breathing simultaneously.

I pulled back enough just to look at his face. He seemed to be thinking exactly what I was thinking. His face was drained, and his jaw had tightened. We didn’t know for sure, but there was something in both of us that knew it would be too much of a coincidence.

Hunter.

I whirled around as fast as I could, wrenching myself out of Jesse’s arms. “Where is Lance?!” I demanded, stalking up to Mason with as much will as I could muster. “Where is he?!”

Mason took a shaky step back, surprised by the outburst. “In the hall outside -”

I hadn’t noticed when I had come in, but Lance had been sitting outside of Noah’s door in an office chair. He had a blanket comically wrapped around his massive shoulders. He was staring straight into space in front of him, unmoving. He looked terrified.

I ran out to him and stood in front of him, panting.

His eyes flickered up at me, and then back to the wall in front of him.

“Was. He. There?” Each word was a struggle. It was as though I was speaking for the first time. My mouth couldn’t seem to form the words correctly.

I was almost certain that Lance knew who I was referring to. My entire body was shaking, quaking with adrenaline. I was balling my fists at my sides, clenching my fists so hard that I could feel my nails biting into the flesh of my palm.

Sawyer.

Lance’s eyes flickered up to meet mine. There was a pause for what felt like an eternity. Then one quick, terse nod. It was so fast that I barely even saw it.

But I did, and I felt my heart breaking in my chest.

The noise that escaped my throat wasn’t one I think I’ll ever forget, or ever be able to make again. It was a strangled cry, as though all the irrational fear I had been holding onto was escaping my chest. No, this was real fear, real anger - it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination anymore.

Sawyer was really still out there. His pack had attacked Noah, left him for dead. I couldn’t stand to think about that. He had lost Hunter, sure. That meant that he was the new pack leader. And he approved those decisions? He had said he loved me! I had trusted him with everything! How could he do this to Noah? To me? After everything that had happened?

Jesse was right next to me as I fell. He caught me in his arms, scooping me up and bringing me, bridal-style, into his chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest again, and I let everything out.

Sawyer was going to pay for this, even if it was the last thing I did.