19 Ghosted

Bridger Donahue

Gamma Reuben grabbed me by the back of the neck and pushed me up the sidewalk toward the alpha offices. He didn"t like me much, and I supposed I couldn"t blame him. I got his little brother in trouble too many times to count.

Although, to be fair, Elijah was pretty damn good at coming up with trouble for us to get into all by himself.

As the gamma opened the front door and pushed me inside, a little ball of dread coated in panic formed in the pit of my stomach.

I hadn"t been reprimanded by the alphas themselves since I got arrested by the human police in the spring. Who would have thought they"d get that upset about a kid setting a dumpster on fire behind the Burger King? But the Greenville Police apparently had nothing better to do, and I"d been charged with a bunch of stupid stuff and had to go to court over it.

The alphas had not been amused.

I myself was not amused when they sent Alpha Mason"s dad, Royal Price, to court with me. They thought he looked more like a father figure than any of them, which I supposed was true, but that old fart was strict as hell! He even made me wear a freaking tie!

But I only got twenty-five hours of community service, so I guessed it was worth it.

Gamma Reuben led me to the first office on the left, and that ball of panicky dread bubbled up my throat in a gout of sour acid.

Shit! It had to be Alpha Ice! It couldn"t have been Alpha Ash or Alpha Wyatt!

The gamma knocked on the closed door and opened it after a gruff, "Come in."

"Rube, this is Alpha Kayvon Quake of Cold Moon," Alpha Mason said, nodding at a large, African American shifter standing next to him. "His wolf senses his mate somewhere in the pack. Are you free to take him on a tour?"

"Sure thing," Gamma Reuben nodded. "I"ll be happy to escort you, Alpha Quake. I just need to pick up my little brother after football practice. "

"Thanks, and that is not a problem."

"Come sit down, Bridger," Alpha Mason said in a no-nonsense tone, which is all I"d ever heard out of him.

Swallowing hard, I walked over and sat in the chair Alpha Mason pointed at. As the other two shifters left the office, I wondered exactly which incident had earned me this ass-chewing. Then again, I hadn"t done anything too bad lately.

"Did something happen to Grandma Sadie?" I asked as the thought suddenly struck me.

Did she leave me, too?

"No, but I wish you would have told someone she was in such a decline," Alpha Ice said as he closed the office door. "My father went out there today to do a wellness check. She"s needed to be in a facility for a long time now, hasn"t she?"

I bit my bottom lip and shrugged. How could I tell him I didn"t want to lose her, too? Sure, she wasn"t much good at keeping the house clean anymore and nodded off at odd times and called me by my dad"s name, but on the plus side, I"d learned to do the laundry and cook. I even got myself to school nine days out of ten. That was pretty damn good, wasn"t it?

"She"s dying, Bridger. The pack doctor said her wolf"s already faded. Gamma Nick and Beta Tristan moved her into the care facility near the pack house this morning." Alpha Mason"s cold tone never changed as he prowled around to sit at his desk. "She"s in room 213. You can visit her any time you want. She"ll be as comfortable as possible until the end."

I nodded and kept my eyes on the floor. I"d known her wolf was gone for a while now. I just didn"t want to accept the truth that she was leaving me.

Like everyone always does.

"Thank you," I muttered.

I was too shaken to ask what would happen to me. I just turned sixteen last month; no way they"d let me stay at the house alone. And I didn"t want to. I hated being alone. That"s when all the bad memories came out to bother me.

Are they going to put me in the orphanage? Oh, please, Goddess, no.

Alpha Mason cleared his throat, and I looked up at him.

"We found a new home for you, too. My parents have agreed to foster you."

Well, damn. My life"s over.

I wouldn"t be able to defy Royal Price, and his wolf, Alabaster, was far more powerful and dominant than mine. Max would obey him absolutely.

As much as I hated it, I knew I was stuck. I was a minor and needed a guardian, and I"d landed on the alphas" radar far too many times to stick me in the orphanage, where supervision would be minimal at best.

"Kill me now," I muttered, closing my eyes, and could have sworn I heard Alpha Ice snort.

Nah. Must have imagined it. He doesn"t know how to feel anything as human as amusement.

"It"ll be good for you and give my mother someone to fuss over. Let"s move on. There"s something very serious we need to discuss."

He clasped his hands together on top of his desk and said nothing else. Curious, I raised my eyes to meet his, but he only sat as silent as the grave and stared at me.

And stared at me.

And stared at me.

Feeling antsy, I shifted around, jogging one leg and rubbing the back of my neck. I didn"t know which specific sin or crime he wanted me to confess to, but I was on the verge of spewing apologies for all of them when he finally spoke.

"Tell me about Brynn Wessinger."

Unprepared to hear that name, my whole chest clenched in a tight, painful ball.

"What about her?" I mumbled.

"When"s the last time you talked to her?"

"March. She ghosted me after she promised she wouldn"t leave me. She said we could make a long-distance relationship work. She said we only had to make it a couple of years, then we"d turn eighteen and could be together."

I understood why her dad wanted to move. He was offered a delta position at Cold Moon, and what shifter wouldn"t try to elevate his status? But Brynn said that if we were loyal to each other, it would work out.

And it did for a while.

For three months, I kept my side of the promise. I believed her. I trusted her. I waited for her.

Then she cut off all communication. Never answered another text. Never picked up another call. Never responded to me on any of her social media. In fact, she disappeared off all her accounts.

She broke my heart.

As if it wasn"t broken enough to begin with, I chuckled darkly.

At first, I was worried about her, thinking something might have happened to her. I even tried calling her dad"s number, despite knowing how much he disliked me. He never answered, though, or responded to my voice messages or texts.

That"s when my worry morphed into anger, and I already had way too much of that inside me to be safe. Being dumped threw a lit match on gasoline. I spiraled out of control and smacked away any hand held out to help me. I wanted to smash everything until the world around me was as destroyed as I was inside.

"We knew we were going to be mates. We just knew it! And even if we weren"t, we decided we"d be together anyway. She knows how much I hate being alone, and she promised that wouldn"t happen. She promised, alpha!" I dropped my head into my hands and whimpered as the pain became more than I could take. "She promised!"

Why am I telling him this? I kept it from everyone but Elijah for months now, yet all Alpha Ice has to do is stare at me and it"s confession time? What the hell?!

Now that the words were coming out, though, I couldn"t stop them. Like a flash flood, all the hurt was rushing out of me in a torrent of hot, harsh words.

"I trusted her!" I snarled. "I loved her! And that fucking bitch ghosted me!"

Squeezing my eyes shut tight against the memories, I grabbed fistfuls of my hair and pulled it hard, but that was nothing compared to the agony inside me.

"She didn"t ghost you, Bridger. There was an accident," Alpha Mason said quietly. "Her father was killed outright, and Brynn"s wolf succumbed a few hours later."

Shocked, I unclenched my fists from my hair and opened my eyes to stare at him.

"Brynn"s— Brynn"s hurt?"

"Son, there"s no easy or good way to say this, and I wish Jay was here because he"d know what to say to comfort you. Unfortunately, you got me, and all I know to do is just say it."

Oh, my Goddess. It must be bad if Alpha Ice is rambling.

"I"m so sorry, Bridger, but Brynn is gone. She passed away four days ago."

Brynn is gone.

Brynn is gone.

Brynn is gone.

The words cycled on repeat in my head. I couldn"t breathe and cotton muffled my hearing. My vision tunneled down to nothing.

She dumped me. She dumped me before she died, I tried to tell my stupid heart, but it wasn"t listening.

It was too busy breaking all over again.

How many times could it break and be mended before it couldn"t be mended anymore? Surely some of the pieces had been ground down to fine dust by now. A few more heavy hits and there"d be nothing left.

I sat there in stunned silence for I didn"t know how long, but I gradually came back to my senses as a voice right next to me encouraged me to breathe. Slowly blinking away the haze, I saw Alpha Mason crouched down beside my chair.

"You said she didn"t ghost me. But she was alive until—"

"She was in a coma," he said bluntly. "The accident happened in March. Show me the last text she sent you."

"I deleted it," I lied, the same fib I"d been spouting for months, although I was fairly sure Elijah saw right through it. "Got rid of anything connected to her."

"Unlock your phone and give it to me."

Unable to deny an alpha command, I pulled it out of my pocket and did what he said. I closed my eyes, knowing he"d find the hundreds of pictures and thousands of texts I couldn"t bring myself to delete.

It took him a few minutes to scroll past my many pathetic attempts to get her to answer me, but he finally found our last exchange and sighed heavily after he read it.

"She most likely never saw that good morning text," he murmured and handed me back my phone.

"Is that why Alpha Quake was here?" My head finally decided to do some thinking and dot connecting. "To tell you what happened?"

"Yes, and to find you. She left something behind for you."

"What?"

"You shouldn"t have slept with her, Bridger. You were both only fifteen." His face went back to its usual blankness as he stood up. "There are laws for a reason. Just as you found out when you burned that dumpster, breaking them carries a cost. You"re not ready for this, and I"m sorry about that."

Maybe my brain wasn"t going to connect any dots, after all. I was clueless about what he was implying.

His eyes fogged over, and Alpha Ash opened the door a moment later. He walked slowly and carefully, even remembering to duck as he came in, and held a small bundle of cloth against his chest. Whatever it was, he looked down at it like it was more precious than diamonds and gold, and a terrible suspicion cramped my stomach.

"Meet your daughter," Alpha Mason murmured.

Pup? gasped my wolf, Max.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "No, that"s impossible. We only did it one time."

"One time"s all it takes, buddy." Alpha Ash met my eyes. "Are you ready to meet your pup?"

I shook my head, the familiar anger rising up inside me like a flame and burning out all other emotions.

"I don"t want it!" I snapped as I jumped to my feet. "This wasn"t supposed to happen! Brynn wasn"t supposed to leave me! She wasn"t supposed to die! And there for damn sure wasn"t supposed to be a baby!"

I want my pup, Max barked. Get my pup, Bridger!

Shut up! I shouted. We don"t even know if it is our pup! Brynn could have—

You shut up! Max roared. You know she wouldn"t do that. Now get my pup! I want my pup!

Drowning in rage, grief, and panic, I backed into a corner and hit my forehead with my fist over and over and over until a big hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled it away. Then heavy arms engulfed me in a tight hug and held me together as I fell apart.

"You"re not alone, Bridger," Alpha Mason murmured. "We"ll help you get through this."

He squeezed the life out of me, and I couldn"t hold back the tears any longer. The last person who hugged me like this was my dad, and that was six years ago. I didn"t realize how much I missed it, how much I craved it, until now.

After hours and hours of sobbing, which was probably only four or five minutes in reality, I got myself under control, but didn"t move. For just a moment, I let myself lean on someone, more exhausted than I"d ever been in my life.

"You needed to do that for a long time." Alpha Mason"s voice was soft and kind, and I blinked in astonishment.

Soft and kind were not words anyone ever said about Alpha Ice.

Finally, I took a deep breath and moved away, and he dropped his arms the second I did. Then he guided me to the bathroom, told me to take all the time I needed, and pulled the door closed behind him.

After I blew my nose and splashed water on my face, I stared at myself in the mirror. Who was this red-eyed stranger? How had his life gotten so screwed up?

Please let me see my pup, Max begged so pitifully, I couldn"t deny him.

I went back to the office and saw Alpha Ash still holding that little bundle of cloth, only now he was sitting on Alpha Mason"s desk while Alpha Mason poked his ass with a pen and told him to get up.

I stood there awkwardly in the doorway, feeling like such a loser for crying in front of these two tough, strong alphas, but then I caught a sweet hint of something I"d never smelled before, and that feeling faded under a strong and sudden need to meet my pup.

Bonding scent, Max told me. Hold our pup. Bond with our pup.

Wanting that desperately now, I approached Alpha Ash and hesitantly held out my hands.

"Can I— Can I hold her?" I asked quietly.

"You said you didn"t want her," Alpha Ash reminded me, "which is fine. If you can"t take on the responsibility of a child at your age, there are lots of families who would love to adopt her. I would myself if we were ready to start our family. We"ll make sure she goes to a good home—"

"I want to hold my pup, alpha," I dared to interrupt. "I need to hold her."

And the moment she was in my arms, my whole world shifted. I stared down at her, awed and humbled. This was my daughter. My pup. The last - and only - piece of Brynn I"d ever hold again.

And I was never going to let her go.