Chapter 3 — The First Time I Said Yes

Elliot

I didn’t sleep much.

That was hardly unusual.

What was unusual was the reason.

For years, I had pictured my escape as a hole in the world. Daniel found me, brought me home, and the people who had hurt me lost track of where I had gone.

Now I knew someone had drawn a line from Black Hollow to the Mercer house.

Someone had looked at both ends of it and decided there was nothing to investigate.

By seven, I was dressed.

By seven fifteen, Rowan knocked.

Caleb opened the door carrying a piece of toast.

“You’re early.”

“So is he.”

I stood behind my brother.

Rowan looked at me, then at the bag in my hand.

“You’re ready.”

“I want to see the originals.”

“Breakfast first,” Caleb said.

“I ate.”

He looked at the abandoned bowl on the kitchen counter.

“That was two strawberries.”

“Three.”

Rowan lowered his head.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to say I brought coffee.”

He lifted a cardboard tray.

Caleb took one cup.

“I like him.”

“You like anyone carrying caffeine.”

“An excellent foundation for friendship.”

Rowan handed me the remaining cup.

The label said tea.

I looked at him.

“You didn’t drink the coffee Grace offered last night,” he said. “I guessed.”

It was such a small thing.

I wished it hadn’t felt like one.

The council archive occupied the basement of a municipal building near the river.

Its windows were narrow. Its corridor smelled of damp wool and old heating pipes.

I stopped at the top of the stairs.

Rowan stopped beside me.

Behind us, the archivist waited with a key ring.

“There’s another entrance,” Rowan said quietly. “A ramp on the west side.”

“It still goes down.”

“Yes.”

I looked at the stairwell.

A metal door waited at the bottom.

My body had already made an assessment my mind was trying to overrule.

Rowan turned to the archivist.

“Can the files be brought upstairs?”

“We don’t normally—”

“Please,” he said.

She glanced at me.

Then she nodded.

“The reading room is available.”

I let my breath out slowly.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“It seemed easier than carrying a table into the stairwell.”

I looked at him.

His expression was perfectly serious.

I made a sound that startled both of us.

Almost a laugh.

He smiled then, briefly, as if he had been given something he hadn’t expected.

The files arrived in two gray boxes.

I asked for a clean surface, a pencil, and permission to photograph each page.

The archivist introduced herself as Nell Porter.

“If you find anything missing,” she said, “tell me before assuming someone stole it. Half this place was moved during the roof repairs.”

“When?”

“Three years ago.”

I noted that.

Rowan sat opposite me.

His knees nearly touched mine beneath the small table.

He shifted his chair back.

I pretended not to notice.

We began with my file.

Daniel’s report was handwritten. I recognized the firm, square letters from notes he left on the refrigerator.

Subject flinches at raised voices. Will not identify attackers. Extensive injuries. Requested medical assistance immediately.

I laid a sheet of blank paper over the lower half.

Rowan’s gaze stayed on the section I left uncovered.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded.

The closure slip had been added two days later.

No interview with me. No visit to the house. No request for medical findings.

Only a stamped disposition and an official’s initials.

I wrote them down.

Then I asked Nell for other cases assigned to the same official.

“Which years?”

“The twelve months before and after this one.”

She hesitated.

“Some contain private information.”

“I don’t need names. I need disposition codes and approval records.”

She looked at Rowan.

He looked at me.

“The request is his,” he said.

Nell considered it, then brought an index ledger.

By noon, we had found six entries.

Different families. Different allegations.

The same reduction.

Unlawful confinement became a residency disagreement.

Assault became an internal disciplinary matter.

Requests for sanctuary became transfers requiring home-pack approval.

I photographed the relevant entries with their names covered.

Rowan said nothing for a long time.

Finally, he stood and went to the window.

I watched the muscles in his back tighten beneath his shirt.

“Angry?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“At me?”

He turned immediately.

“No.”

I hated that I had asked.

His face changed when he saw mine.

“Elliot.”

“You don’t have to make a speech.”

“All right.”

He sat down again.

A little nearer this time.

“I’ll be careful where I put it,” he said.

“What?”

“The anger.”

I looked down at the ledger.

After a moment, I moved the next page toward him.

“Start with this.”

At one thirty, Caleb sent me a screenshot.

Someone had posted a statement on a local pack forum.

It didn’t name me.

It didn’t need to.

A vulnerable former resident experiencing a serious emotional episode has been drawn into a political disagreement. Black Hollow asks for privacy and responsible handling of unverified accusations.

Below it, someone had asked whether the Omega from the university reception was dangerous.

Another person replied that the Ashford heir had apparently mistaken trauma attachment for a mate bond.

I locked my phone.

Rowan noticed.

“Do you want to tell me?”

I handed it over.

He read the screenshot.

Then he set the phone down carefully.

“I can have our office issue a statement.”

“About what?”

“That you’re not dangerous.”

“That makes it sound like a question worth answering.”

He considered that.

“What do you want to do?”

I looked at my notes.

“Get something harder to argue with.”

I called Dr. Lena Ortiz.

She had treated me at the Mercer house, then continued caring for me after I could tolerate appointments.

When she answered, I told her about the date on the agreement.

Her voice went still.

“October seventeenth?”

“Yes.”

“Elliot, you were sedated for part of that evening. Your blood pressure was dangerously low. I documented everything.”

“Can I request copies?”

“Of course.”

“I need you to write what you can verify. Not what you think happened. Where you saw me, when, and whether I could have understood or signed that document.”

There was a brief pause.

“I can do that.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have someone with you?”

I looked across the table.

Rowan was reading an entry I had marked, his dark head bent over the page.

“Yes,” I said.

This time, the answer didn’t feel like an admission of failure.

The clinic had moved since my last visit.

The new building was bright, with windows facing the river.

Dr. Ortiz met us in reception.

She hugged me only after I stepped toward her.

Then she handed me a sealed folder.

“The copies are yours. I’ve included a factual statement, and my office retained the originals.”

I thanked her.

On the way out, an orderly wheeled a metal instrument trolley across the corridor.

One wheel caught against a threshold.

The tray rattled.

I stopped.

For a second, the clinic vanished.

There was another room. Another metal sound. A door I could not reach.

“Elliot.”

Rowan’s voice came from beside me.

Not an order.

A place to return to.

I pressed my thumbnail into the seam of the folder.

“What do you want?” he asked.

I swallowed.

“The door.”

He moved out of my path.

We stepped outside.

Cool air touched my face.

Rowan stood nearby, his hands loose at his sides.

“Car?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“All right.”

I counted the windows across the street.

Six.

A woman passed with a wet dog and an apologetic smile.

I counted the dog’s feet.

Four.

Eventually, I noticed that Rowan was shivering.

“You left your coat inside.”

“It’s in the car.”

“You could get it.”

“I could.”

I looked up at him.

There was rain in his hair. One dark strand had fallen onto his forehead.

My hand twitched before I could stop it.

He noticed that too.

He noticed far too much.

“I want to keep going,” I said.

“Then we keep going.”

By evening, the rain had settled into a steady whisper against the dispatch apartment’s windows.

My family went downstairs to collect dinner.

Rowan remained at the kitchen table, comparing the medical statement with the archive timestamps.

He had rolled up his sleeves.

I had discovered this was distracting.

“You’re staring,” he said without looking up.

I turned toward the kettle.

“At the clock.”

“It’s behind me.”

“Yes.”

“Useful clock.”

I felt my face warm.

He finally looked up.

The smile at the corner of his mouth was small enough to deny.

I brought him tea.

He accepted it, then glanced at the second cup.

“You guessed?”

“You haven’t finished either coffee you bought.”

“Mine was terrible.”

“And yet you kept drinking it.”

“I was trying to look competent.”

“It almost worked.”

He laughed.

It was lower than I expected. Less polished than the voice from the stage.

I wanted to hear it again.

That realization should have frightened me more than it did.

I sat beside him.

For a while, we worked.

Then his phone vibrated, and he reached to silence it.

My fingers touched his wrist.

We both stopped.

I could have moved away.

Instead, I let my hand slide down until it rested against his.

“Is this all right?” I asked.

His eyes lifted to mine.

“Yes.”

He turned his hand slowly, giving me time to change my mind.

I placed my fingers between his.

His palm was warm. There was a small scar across one knuckle.

I rubbed it with my thumb.

“Border work?”

“Bad fence.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“I’ll invent something heroic.”

“Please don’t.”

His thumb settled against the side of my hand.

Nothing more.

I stared at our joined fingers.

“I saw you at the library,” I said.

“Three weeks ago.”

“Two.”

“Three. Thursday.”

I looked at him.

He looked faintly embarrassed.

“You dropped your receipt.”

“You remember that?”

“I was trying to think of something to say.”

“You said, ‘You dropped this.’”

“My best work.”

I smiled.

Then the smile faded, because the next thing deserved honesty.

“I wanted to see you again.”

Rowan became very still.

“Before last night,” I added.

“I did too.”

The room felt smaller, but I could still breathe.

His phone vibrated again.

He glanced at the screen.

I felt the change in his hand before I saw it in his face.

“What is it?”

He turned the screen toward me.

Nell had sent the archive’s old authorization register.

The initials on all six closure slips matched a full signature there.

Councilor Adrian Pike.

Beneath it was another line.

Presiding officer: preliminary review of Elliot Mercer’s residency undertaking.

I tightened my hold on Rowan’s hand.

The man who had decided I did not need rescuing was about to decide whether I had to go back.