Chapter 22 - Rosa

The first thing I realize is that I'm warm—warmer than I've been in a long time.

Then I realized Bigby's arm was around me, and I had fallen asleep in his bed the previous night, meaning Kaila was alone in the guest room. I sit upright, heart pounding, until Bigby touches my shoulder, pulling me back down.

"She's okay," he murmurs, "I just checked on her. Fast asleep. Think she has a Monopoly card stuck to her cheek."

"Ha," I breathe, putting my hand to my chest, still trying to slow it down. How could I have fallen asleep in here? My father could have come last night, slipped into that room, and taken Kaila without my ever knowing.

Bigby tugs on my shoulder, slowly pulling me down until I'm cuddled into him.

"It's okay," he soothes, "I promise you, nothing is going to happen to her while you're here."

I take a deep breath, turning away from him and wiggling my hips against his, which makes him hiss through his teeth.

"Rosa," he says after a moment. "Stay."

"Am I a dog now?"

"No," he grumbles, his grip tightening on my hip. "Stay. Here. In Rosecreek. With me. With us. Join the pack. Surely you can see that you belong here?"

"Bigby—"

"The school system here is amazing. There's even a private school a town over if you want something better for Kaila. I'll drive her every day. And I'll take care of everything so you can go back to school. The University of Minnesota is a great choice for chemistry. When she gets older Kaila could do summer camps there. It's so beautiful here in the fall, and I can take you guys camping. We can do s'mores. We can travel as much as you want—even go to the coast. We—"

"Bigby," I snap, twisting in his arms and putting my hands on his chest so I can look at him and get some space from his body, which is making it difficult to think. "California is my home . It's in my blood. If leaving your home is so easy, why don't you leave here? Why don't you move back with Kaila and me?"

He's silent, and I know I've made a point he can't argue with. Aris is his best friend. He's practically an uncle to Araya and Percy. Linnea relies on him—his pack relies on him. Everyone in the town knows him. He's the link between the humans and the shifters. This town needs him. It's not that easy for him to move.

I know, on some level, that I'm not being fair. Yes, I'll miss California, but there's not an entire community waiting for me. I haven't seen anyone from my family in years. Bigby has far more roots than I do.

But I resent the idea that it would be easy for me to pick us up. I hate the idea of taking Kaila away from the ocean—she was practically raised on the beach.

"You can't go back right now, anyway," Bigby says, "we don't know how long your father is going to be alpha there, or if Hector is even planning on taking him on. If you can't go back, isn't it worth a shot? Can't you give Rosecreek a chance to charm you? To convince you it's worth staying?"

"I don't think this is about Rosecreek," I mutter, glancing up at him, remembering last night. When I'd first kissed him, I'd been thinking about the way we'd usually had sex before, Bigby bending me over the bed, something quick and dirty, his body, but in a way that was a simple release.

Instead, he'd stared at me while I came. He told me he loved me.

I look away. Love is a lot more complicated than a single feeling. It feels like the only person I could ever truly love is Kaila. She's the only one I would give my life for, stick with through thin and thick. Bigby apologized, and he explained why he had to leave that night, but that didn't make it hurt any less. It doesn't heal the cracks that formed in my heart the day he left, getting deeper every day he didn't come back to me.

"I don't know about what's going to happen with Hector and my father," I say, voice soft, "but I don't want to lead you on, Bigby. I don't want to give you the impression that we plan to stay."

"Just…think about it."

I open my mouth to say something, but his phone rings loudly, flashing red.

"Sorry," he says, glancing at me and grabbing it from the nightstand. "This is a code red from Aris. I'll have to go—can you get Kaila ready? I'll text Byron to meet us at the compound.

Part of me is glad this distracted from the conversation about Kaila and I moving to Rosecreek, another part of me is already worried sick about what the call could be about.

I move to the guest room, getting Kaila up and braiding her hair while Bigby serves her up some toaster waffles. It feels so domestic, and for a moment, I allow myself to think about what this life could be like with Bigby, sending our daughter out into the world with the best of both of us.

We climb into Bigby's Jeep, and, true to his word, Byron is waiting for us outside the compound. He's bouncing on his toes, a huge smile on his face, and I glance at Bigby, wondering if it has anything to do with Olivia. The two of them are either at each other's throats or off somewhere out of sight, doing Gods-know-what.

Kaila hops out of the Jeep, running over to Byron and saying something to him excitedly. I open my door, turning and looking at Bigby before I go.

"Be careful," I say, but what I mean is I love you . For some reason, I can't get the words to come out. His face softens as he gazes back at me, and I feel ridiculous. Looking at him and at how he towers over everything, I feel silly asking him to be careful. But I can't stop the worry churning in my stomach for him.

"Of course," he says. I close the door and take a deep breath, turning to Byron and Kaila, chatting animatedly.

"What is the call about?" I ask Byron, who shakes his head as he holds the door open for us.

"No idea," he says. "No offense, but ever since I was put on babysitting duty, my job has been a lot more boring."

"Well, I'm not exactly enthralled about having a shadow," I say, and then, just to get under his skin, "I bet it would be a lot more exciting if you were babysitting Olivia instead, huh?"

He gives me a side-eye look.

"Where is Olivia, anyway?" I ask, feeling strange that Byron might have a better idea about that than I do.

"She's up at the alpha house," Byron says, jerking his head in that general direction, "working on the security problem. Or, as she puts it, a non-security problem. She's convinced she's going to find something to prove it wasn't the cyber security that was the problem."

Byron shakes his head as we turn the corner, entering the lab. Maisie and Gerard are already here, arguing about something. After I get my lab coat on, I realize Gerard is holding up a sample of my proposed antidote.

"What are you doing?" I ask, eying the two of them suspiciously.

"Gerard was saying that we should test it on one of the shifters, monitor the effects, the adjust the antidote," Maisie says, crossing her arms. "But you'd said on Friday that you wanted to make more changes, so I didn't think it was a good idea."

"Yeah," I say, putting my hand to my chin. I had wanted to make some changes, but they were based on data in the system, not live feedback from testing on a subject.

My brain interjects with the ethics of testing before we're ready, but I can't stop picturing the shifters and the clear agony they're suffering from. If this version of the antidote can alleviate some of that pain, wouldn't it make sense to try it?

"Let's test it," I say, which makes Gerard smirk and Maisie raises her eyebrows.

Byron settles down in the far corner with his laptop, and Kaila already has her nose buried in a book. I take a deep breath, and the three of us—Gerard, Maisie, and I—walk into the room that holds the shifters.

Several of them are howling or crouched in the corner, but one is sitting on their cot, staring at the wall.

"Colin?" Maisie asks, tapping on the glass lightly. "Hey, how are you doing today?

"Maisie," he rasps, turning his head in our direction. His eyes are red, and the bags under his eyes are heavy, but he seems lucid.

"Happens every once in a while," Gerard says quietly to me. "They experience brief moments of lucidity, when we can talk to them and gather some data."

His tone is overly clinical, but I suppose working with these people without getting too attached or emotionally distressed is necessary.

Colin comes to the front of his cell, placing his forearm into the slot. Maisie, wearing gloves, unlocks and opens the divider, then sterilizes his arm.

"This is the antidote our new chemist has been working on," she says, nodding at me. "We're really hoping it will help you feel better."

A shifter on the other side of the room lets out a guttural scream and starts throwing herself against the glass. My hands shake as Maisie administers the dose, and we watch Colin step back from the glass.

Maisie quickly closes the sliding partition and locks it again.

He puts a hand on the wall to steady himself, then sits hard on his cot before collapsing to the floor.

"Colin," Maisie cries, grabbing a first aid kit from the wall and opening the door to his cell. Just as she's about to pass through the threshold, Colin starts to seize, and Gerard reaches out, grabbing Maisie and pulling her out, slamming the door just before Colin slams against it, a little trickle of blood coming from his nose.

"Oh, Gods," I cry, as Gerard herds us from the room. Maisie is crying, and I feel the hot flame of embarrassment on my cheeks. First, my antidote didn't work, and second, I encouraged us to try it when I wasn't sure it was ready.

"It's okay, it's okay, Maisie," Gerard says, being surprisingly comforting, rubbing her back as she struggles to breathe.

"He's such a good man," Maisie heaves, "he just wants to get back to his family—"

"When he calms down, we'll go check on him," Gerard says. "Make sure he's okay."

What he doesn't say is that calming down might mean slipping into a coma, or even dying.

I sit down, hard, at my station, throwing myself into the work and vowing that I won't be done until I help these people recover from Varun's serum.