22. Jane

I assume I've absorbed some of Law's minty goodness, because Manson glowers at me for the rest of the day. Even though I know they're locked up in Bleak House, I fruitlessly scour every hallway and campus path for a glimpse of the guys, and it's almost a relief to head back to the den. The rest of the team is buzzing with pre-game energy, but I feel so nervous my stomach aches. There are a few slaps on my back as I head upstairs to change out of my uniform, but as soon as I'm dressed, Manson drops his gear on his bed and drags off his shirt. "I want a massage."

I blink at him. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not kissing your mouth until you wash Michaelson out of it. But I could do with a back rub." When I continue to stand in the center of his bedroom and gape at him, he cocks a brow at me. "I'm not really asking, Mercy."

"Because that would suggest you possess the qualities of respect, self-awareness, and compassion?"

My tone is icy, but a faint smile tugs at his lips as he sprawls across his bed. "You didn't like me schooling you on being a good alpha leader, did you?"

"I'm starting to think those words are mutually exclusive."

"You could be right." I've advanced no closer to the bed, and he sits up and lunges forward, grabbing my wrist. I let him tug me over, watching the play of muscles as he rolls onto his stomach. His skin is dotted with the small scrapes and bruises you'd expect to see after a hard practice, and I wonder again how he got so badly injured the other day. But his thoughts have gone in a different direction. "We've been at war with Vistria for a couple of decades, with no end in sight. How would you fix it, Mercy?"

I huff and press my hands tentatively to the muscles on either side of his spine. It's like kneading rocks, and he grunts as I dig my thumbs in deeper. "I'm not cleaning up your mess. I do enough of that on the ward."

"Fair call. But if you had a day to make any change you want, what would you do?"

I consider for a moment. "Anything?"

"I gift you unlimited power."

"Then I'd find my pack." He stiffens under me, but I keep digging my fingers into the tight muscle, working them loose with slow, soothing circles. "But on a world scale, I guess I'd try to get the Vistrians to engage in peace talks. See if there isn't some way we could find middle ground."

He scoffs, and I can't tell if it's because of my answer or my rudimentary massage technique. "It would never happen. You heard the professor say it today in anatomy. The Vistrians carry a feral gene. It makes them hard to kill, and even harder to reason with. Why would they negotiate for peace when their entire society is built around war?"

"And ours isn't?"

"I don't know. I was born on a UAF base and haven't been more than a couple of miles from a military compound ever since." He rolls, dislodging my hands, my fingers brushing over the script tattooed on his ribs before they fall into my lap. "What about you? Did you spring from the ground a perfectly formed mercy, or did you get a normal childhood?"

I brush a piece of lint off my pants, ignoring the mocking glint in his eye. "I was born on the Faraday Commune and lived there until I presented as an omega."

"Do you miss it?"

"Some things. Working outside, the seasons, the friendships. But it was a hard way to make a living, and people don't always show their best sides when they're struggling." I bite my lip, wondering if there was more to the strain I often saw in the faces of the adults. "Did you really mean what you said about us getting dumped on communes? I mean, there were farms before the war, right? Maybe they just decided to band together, and that's how they came about."

Because isn't that what a commune is about? Community and cooperation ?

Not that it felt much like a family after my dad died. My mom never showed any interest in mating one of the other single men, despite some pressure from the elders to move on with her life. I have to wonder now why she stayed. Was it because it was too hard to start over, or because city life held no appeal?

I try to remember the stories she told me about her youth, but all she said was that she grew up on another commune and moved to Faraday when she mated my dad. It had to be lonely after he died, but she didn't move back. Why? How much choice did she really have about where she lived, or who she mated, for that matter?

Did she know about packs?

The suggestion makes something cold and heavy settle in my chest. Was she in on the open secret?

And then there's a question that I know will gnaw at me for a long time. Would my mom have been happier – found it easier to go on after my dad died – if she had other mates to help her through her loss?

Manson pulls me out of my thoughts by taking my hand and putting it on his lower back. With a weary sigh, he rolls over, hugging his pillow. "Not as good as a kiss," he mumbles into the foam, "but better than a damn ice bath."

I can't help but smile, and for a moment I just look down at him, appreciating the view. Levi Manson is a cold, arrogant bully, but on a physical level, he has a couple of admirable qualities.

I'm just not sure that honesty is one of them. "Is it true what you said about packs?"

He squints over his shoulder at me, then huffs out a breath. "Yeah, I think so. I've never been able to find anything on record about it, but I've overheard a few senior officers talk about it. And some of the other guys let things slip when they're drunk. Just ramblings about how good our great-great-grandfathers must have had it. Like I said, it's an open secret."

I don't try to hide the flash of anger in my face. "Not to me. Not to anyone back on the commune."

"Unless the older folks in your community didn't see the point of talking about something that was in the past. Maybe it was too painful for them." He sits up, running a hand over his crewcut. Even out of uniform, Manson couldn't be mistaken for anything but a soldier. "The powers-that-be didn't just wait for packs to die out, they dissolved them. Split them up and tore them apart. "

I rub my chest, feeling the phantom pain of those severed bonds. If the romance books and corny movies are true, packs weren't just polyamorous groups that decided to live together. They shared deep bonds, forged through bites that produced an almost magical connection. Some stories even claim that packmates are fated to be together.

"Do you believe some things are just meant to be?"

It's Manson's turn to be caught off-guard. "What? Like destiny, you mean?"

"We talk a lot about Mother's will on the ward," I muse, staring at the tiny crack of light cast from his window. It's past dinnertime, but my stomach still feels too raw to eat. I should probably go downstairs and get some meat out of the deep freeze, given it's the night before a game, but I find myself curling my fingers into Manson's military-issue comforter. "My mom used to say I was given this gift of healing for a reason."

I expect him to make some quip about how the senior officer I poisoned probably didn't see it as much of a gift, but he just tilts his head, studying me. "You know why we never talk about having a gift of war? Because hurting people is easy. Anyone can do it. You can train a pack of dogs to take down a fox, and they'll happily do it every time they see a flash of fur."

"Sure, but war isn't just killing," I argue, my attention snapping back to his face. "There's strategy and leadership. Like you said, there's strength and courage, and the endurance to survive even when the odds are stacked against you."

His lips quirk up into a full smile now. "Are you quoting me, Mercy?"

I roll my eyes. "It's just one point of view. And I'm pretty sure you were just brown-nosing Major Waterford."

He laughs, rolling his shoulders, but a plan is shaping in my mind. I climb off the bed and cross to the window, standing on my tiptoes so I can see across the quad. "The army's archives are under the library, right?"

"Yeah. They take up a couple of basement floors."

"Think about what you told me. The council would have had to use the military to break up the packs, right? People would have fought to stay together, resisted being sent away. Even if it's a secret now, it had to be a mission at some stage. Which means there must be a record of it. Maybe not the orders, but stuff about relocation, transportation, maybe even setting up the communes." I pause, my excitement growing as I think it through. "Avery said there are a heap of paper records down in the archives that aren't in any system. It would make the perfect hiding spot for sensitive information."

I turn, and Manson is leaning back on his hands, glaring at me. "You mean the same Avery whose dad was the chief archivist before he went to jail for selling military secrets?"

I narrow my eyes at the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "That doesn't mean he's wrong."

"Okay," he grunts, still frowning. "But so what? Even if you find some troop carrier log, it's not going to change anything. Packs are history, and I'm starting to think I should've never mentioned them to you in the first place."

I glare at him. "Information is power, Manson. Hasn't Major Waterford taught you that yet?" I bite my lip, thinking I probably shouldn't be saying these things to a general's son, but I'm too far gone to stop now. If he wants to label me a traitor, at least I know I'm in good company. "If I had proof of something they wanted to keep hidden – like purposefully fracturing our society and herding us to communes like cattle – they'd have to negotiate."

" Negotiate. " He draws the word out like it's the first time he's heard it.

"Just like the way you end a war."

My smug smile has his lip curling. "I was talking hypotheticals, Mercy, not about taking on the UAF single-handedly."

"Why single-handedly? If this information got out, I'm betting plenty of people would want answers. Not everyone just takes a beating and doesn't fight back."

I regret the words as soon as they're out of my mouth, because I don't mean him . The sight of his ulna bone pushing through his skin has been haunting the back of my brain ever since I healed him, and even though I don't know how it happened, I know it was part of a vicious, prolonged attack.

I open my mouth to explain, but Manson pushes himself off the bed and stalks towards me. "You're right; information is power. But it's also a grenade waiting to explode in your hand. Because to negotiate, you have to come to the table with the same authority as the enemy. And the army isn't afraid of little omegas, Mercy. You threaten them, they'll make you disappear. Or worse, hand you over to Van Ness for one of his experiments. "

There's nothing but scorn on his face now, and my excitement fizzles to a sour ache. There was a moment there where we were almost talking like equals. Not friends, because we'd never trust each other enough for that, but like there was some small sliver of common ground between us. But now I narrow my eyes and stare him down. "Like you threatened to do yesterday, you mean? Don't your threats ever get old?"

"Never, because I'll always be in a position of authority when it comes to you."

It's the truth. He's the son of the general and a college superstar, while I'm a disgraced mercy who they'd arrest on sight.

But this isn't just about me. The pack issue affects everyone, and that means I have to find some authority for myself.

"If I could fix that, if I had something the people in power wanted, I could get a better deal for the guys. More privileges, for starters. Maybe even a transfer to a normal college so Travis could study whatever he wants -."

"Enough!" Manson moves away from me, shaking his head as he grabs his shirt off the floor. "You're being na?ve."

"Because I want more for them? For me?" I trail after him as he stomps around, shoving his feet into his shoes and glaring at the furniture. "Don't you want more than being sent to the front to die?"

His head whips around, his hand on my throat before I can catch my breath. "We're not all cowards, Mercy. And not everyone gets the choice between kissing or killing."

He lets me go, his hand clenching into a fist as he storms out. The door thuds behind him like he doesn't plan to return in a hurry, but I still stare at it a long time, my fingers touching the ache he left on my neck.