Chapter 6 6

ELODIE'S POV~

The day after I was discharged, I made the mistake of stepping back into the office.

Maybe I thought slipping in quietly, finishing the paperwork, and leaving for good would grant me some peace. I should have known better. In Calhoun's world, peace wasn't meant for someone like me.

I hugged the small cardboard box to my chest, filled with the scraps of a life I'd tried to build here, half-used notepads, a chipped mug, a picture frame that no longer meant anything. My steps echoed down the polished hallway, too loud in the silence, as though announcing my presence to the one person I prayed I wouldn't meet.

But fate has a cruel sense of humor.

The elevator chimed just as I reached for it. The doors slid open, and there she was. the bitch, Carmela. Draped in designer fabric that clung like second skin, holding a coffee cup like it was an extension of her hand. Her smile was already sharp, as though she'd been waiting for me.

She didn't sidestep. She collided into me deliberately, the coffee tilting, splashing across her pristine dress.

Her gasp pierced the air, fake, theatrical. "You ruined my dress! Again!" Her voice rose, carrying across the lobby. "You pathetic little thing, do you think this is funny? Do you think Calhoun will save you?"

I froze, my chest burning with humiliation as eyes turned toward us. "I didn't-"

But she didn't let me finish. She tossed the rest of the coffee in my face. The liquid was lukewarm but the shame scalded hotter than fire.

"What's that look for?" she sneered, tilting her head, savoring the spectacle. "Do you think this is unfair? News flash, sweetheart, Calhoun only has eyes for me. Whatever I want, I get. Taking down some nobody Gamma girl? That's not even worth his time."

Her heels clicked as she sashayed past me, leaving the bitter stench of coffee on my skin and a thousand eyes burning into my back.

"Security," she called lazily over her shoulder, "make sure she apologizes. On her knees. At the entrance. Don't let her up until I say."

My heart plummeted as two guards stepped forward.

"I don't even work here anymore!" I snapped, voice cracking. "I just resigned. You can't make me kneel like this!"

Their expressions didn't flicker. "Standing orders from Alpha Calhoun. Whatever Miss Carmela wants, Miss Carmela gets. Save your breath for him."

Those words shredded whatever pride I had left.

Still, I fought as they dragged me outside, the box falling from my arms, papers scattering across the floor like worthless confetti. My knees hit the concrete hard, pain shooting up my legs. Cold air bit into me, slicing through my thin clothes.

"Please." My voice was hoarse. "Don't do this."

But the guards didn't hear me. Or maybe they just didn't care.

And so, in front of coworkers and strangers, I knelt. Hours passed, my body trembling violently. My knees bled through the fabric, the blood freezing almost as quickly as it surfaced. Faces blurred as they walked by, some snapping pictures, others whispering.

I refused to fall. Stubbornness was the only thing holding me up when my body begged to collapse.

By the time the office lights dimmed for closing, my vision had gone hazy, every breath ragged. My head hung low, my body nothing but pain.

"Elodie!"

The sound of my name dragged my head up weakly. Through the blur, I saw Mila, her expensive heels clicking against the sidewalk as she rushed toward me. Her eyes were wide, almost horrified.

"You just got out of the hospital," she cried, kneeling beside me. "Why the hell are you kneeling out here in this freezing cold? Who did this to you?"

Her voice cracked with genuine fear, and I wanted so badly to collapse into her arms, to cling to the warmth of her concern. But my throat was dry, every word jagged as I forced it out.

".Mila," I rasped.

And then everything tilted sideways.

She crouched quickly and helped me up, fingers gentle as she guided me to sit on the low pavement of the corridor. "Can you breathe?" she hissed, checking me like I was the only thing that mattered. Her hands were steady, but her shoulders were wound tight with fury. She made sure I was steady, then, without a backward glance, she stormed off toward Calhoun's office. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would burst.

"I can't let her do this," Mila mouthed over her shoulder, eyes fixed on the door. "Not to you."

I pushed off the ground with shaking hands and stumbled after her. I couldn't, wouldn't, let her go alone. If Mila got into trouble for me, I would never forgive myself.

She didn't knock. She slammed the door so hard it rattled in its frame and the whole hallway seemed to flinch. Before I could catch up, she was inside, voice already shredding the air.

"Where the fuck is that bitch who dared to touch my girl?" she screamed, wild and raw. "Oh-there you are, you stupid, silly slut! How dare you?!"

Carmela stood there like a porcelain doll tipped into motion, perfect hair, a smear of faux-innocence plastered across her face. She widened her eyes so perfectly I could have vomited. She acted hurt as though I had plunged a dagger into her lily-white heart.

Mila didn't stop. Her words spilled in a torrent. "You hear me, Carmela? How dare you lay a hand on her! Elodie did nothing to you. She works for Calhoun, she's not your property. Stop acting like some senseless woman clawing for a Luna position you don't deserve. You're not worthy of him. You're not worthy of anything!"

Calhoun's expression changed in a single breath. The air tightened. He growled then bared his fangs as his eyes flared amber. "Enough!!!" he thundered, and the sound hit me like a physical blow. Mila froze mid-sentence, the muscles in her neck working as she forced herself to stop.

My heart felt like it had been folded small and put in a drawer. Calhoun turned, and for one suspended second his eyes landed on me. They scanned my hair, my ruined clothes, the dried crust of blood at my knees from earlier and I felt exposed, like someone had peeled the skin off my chest and was holding it up to the light.

Before he could say anything, though, I saw the panic flash in Carmela's face. It was quick at first,too late to be genuine and then she dove forward like a practiced actress, flinging herself into Calhoun's arms. Her shoulders shook in theatrical sobs. "This wasn't what happened," she cried, wailing with perfect cadence. "They're trying to make me look like the villain. Elodie provoked me, she and Elodie planned this! How could I make Elodie kneel? This is a setup!"

I stood frozen, every instinct screaming that she was lying. Her voice was the smoothest lie I'd ever heard. Calhoun's posture shifted to protective posture, arms tightening, his whole body forming a shield around her.

That was when Mila lost it.

"You bitch!" she screamed. She closed the space between them in two steps and slapped Carmela hard across the face. The crack of skin on skin was loud in the hallway. Carmela's earring flew off, glittering through the air, and she staggered back, stunned. She nearly went down, but Calhoun's hands were there, catching her before she hit the floor.

My hand flew to my mouth before I even realized I'd done it. I couldn't breathe properly; the world had narrowed to Mila's shaking fist, the fallen earring, Carmela's face, mouth open in hurt, eyes shining with tears and Calhoun's ironed sleeve bracing her like she was fragile china.

Calhoun's jaw clenched. He looked like he wanted to shatter something. I wondered which of us he'd do it to.

I wanted so badly to tell him that Carmela had thrown coffee in my face, that she'd made me kneel for hours until my knees bled, that she'd smiled while strangers snapped photographs of me crumpled and humiliated. I wanted to tell him the truth, the whole brutal, ugly truth. But words stuck to my tongue.

The sound of Carmela's sob tore through the hallway. She lunged into Calhoun's arms, fingers clawing at his sleeve, and all the practiced fragility she wore fell into a poisonous, trembling plea.

"Did you see that?" she cried. She tugged at his sleeves, looking up at him with eyes full of hurt that I knew were false. "The way she slapped me.your sister just struck me over a lie her friend cooked up without even checking if it was true. How can you stand there and let this happen? Fine! It seems I know where your loyalty stands now! We are done!"

The words landed like thunder. For a second the world narrowed to the four of us. Carmela, weeping on his chest, Mila pressed tight and furious, and me, bleeding from humiliation. Panic flashed across Calhoun's face in a way that made my blood run cold. I'd seen him furious before, but there was something in that panic that felt like a door slam closed on whatever small hope I'd been foolish enough to keep alive.

Then everything moved too fast.

Calhoun crossed the space between him and Mila in two long strides and struck her hard. The sound of his hand on her cheek echoed. Mila staggered, a sharp gasp tearing out of her, one hand flying to her face. I lunged forward before I even thought, arms wrapping around her as if I could hold her together with my body. She was trembling under me, the fury that had been a roaring tide in her a moment before had turned to pain.

Carmela's eyes glittered in a way that made bile rise in my throat. She wore victory like perfume.

Calhoun's voice cracked as he yelled. "How dare you slap your future sister-in-law and your future Luna? Are you insane?!" His words were raw, a kind of cold wrath that burned. Mila froze, eyes wide as if she'd seen a reaper.

Calhoun didn't stop there. He turned his gaze to me, slowly, and merciless and said, "And you! The next time you lie about Carmela, you will be fired. No discussions. No excuses." There was finality in that sentence, a blade closing on whatever remnant of me had hoped for fairness. He took Carmela with him without another look, his hand possessive on her back as they walked away. Mila stood in the corridor trembling, wiping at her cheek with the back of her hand, eyes bright and furious and broken all at once.

I let out a breath that hurt. I pulled Mila to me because it was the only thing my body knew how to do, pressing her face into my shoulder. "There's no need," I told her. "Don't fight for me. I'm leaving. I'm leaving the Pack. I'm. I'm probably moving to Paris. I can't stay here." The words fell out of me like a stone.

Mila jerked away as if I'd punched her. For a second her face went blank and then she spun to look at me, searching my eyes like she could read a lie if there was one. When she saw nothing but coldness here, her knees buckled and she collapsed into my arms, sobbing. "No.please, Elodie, don't go," she begged between hiccups. "Is it because of Calhoun? Because of Carmela? I can handle them. I'll. I'll deal with them for you. Don't leave me. Don't-" Her mouth trembled on my name until it broke my chest.

I hugged her tighter until the wordless sobs reduced to soft, strangled noises. "I'm sorry, Milly," I whispered, using the pet name that had always made her face soften. "I can't stay. Nothing lasts forever. I can't keep waiting in this place for crumbs that were never mine. I'm sorry."

Days passed quickly. Mila never left my side. We ate noodles on my sagging couch, laughed at memories until the laughter cracked into tears, and then we cried until our throats burned. She packed my shirts into suitcases with hands that shook. When she saw how steady my hand was when I sealed the zipper, she would cover her mouth and sob harder. We spoke of Paris like it was a different life and the only place I could see myself breathing again.

The night before my flight, Mila's eyes were swollen and raw. She picked up her phone, fingers trembling, and began to type a furious message to Calhoun. She stopped when I put a hand over hers. "No," I said. "Please, Mika. Drop it. There's no time." She looked at me as if I'd stabbed her, then let out a wet, defeated sound. "Okay. Okay. But I hate him."

She hated him the way you hate a storm that took your house. Her voice kept shattering. We folded into each other on the couch until the city hummed outside the window like some indifferent animal.

My phone buzzed then with a new message. I didn't want to see his name, but instinct made me look. It was Calhoun: "Where are you?"

Mila's face flamed with anger; she snatched my phone like she intended to fire back. I managed to stop her hand.

"No," I said quietly. "Drop it, Mika. It's over." The last flight metaphor found me suddenly at the center: "It's over. No more layovers for a love that won't land. I've been waiting in this emotional terminal for years. It's time I board a different flight. Stop fighting with her because of me. Your brother is crazy about her; she'll be family soon. You need to find a way to coexist." My voice broke somewhere between brave and dead inside.

Mila's anger collapsed into fresh sobs. She held me like she was trying to hold every broken piece of me together. After a long time she helped me with the last of my bags and printed the ticket, her hands steady for the first time since that slap. At the gate she kissed my forehead again and again like memorizing a map.

Before I walked down the jetway I typed out one last message. My fingers felt like they belonged to someone else.

"Nine years loving you in silence. Five years pretending it was enough. This is the end of the line. Alpha Calhoun, I'm no longer your assistant. I no longer have feelings for you. We're just two strangers now. In this lifetime, let's never cross paths again."

I hit send, watched the dots spin and disappear, then blocked his number, email, social until his presence on my devices was gone like a bad dream. I didn't wait for his reply. I gave Mila one last look, one that contained grief and gratitude and every unspoken apology. She waved like a small, fierce flame.

When the plane lifted and the city shrank to a scatter of lights, I pressed my forehead to the window and let the tears come. It hurt like being cut open and then held over the sea. But as the miles put space between me and everything that had loved me only as an object, or a convenient thing, or a shadow, I felt myself unclench just enough to breathe.