Either Kalen didn’t notice, or he pretended not to. He just held onto her as she bounced around for a few seconds, and then he stepped her forward and lifted her hands to the first holds.
An hour later, she was sweating and shaking, and her mind was blissfully blank. There was no room for her to agonise over what her father had said or his plans for her summer break, because if she missed a single word Kalen said, she could hurt herself. When her feet hit the ground again and she pulled off the blindfold, the sound of the storm outside seemed louder than ever, crashing up against the windows.
“Is Mikel … I mean, is this okay?” She gestured to the rain lashing the glass on the opposite wall.
“He’ll be fine,” Kalen assured her. “It’ll ease up before the end of the day. What class do you have next?”
“Film Aesthetics.”
“You’re skipping it,” he said. “They don’t have any final assessments, do they?”
“No …”
“Good. Give me a minute, then we can walk to my office. We need to sort out your classes for next year.”
Kalen cast another quick glance to the window before he pulled out his phone. The group chat without Isobel had half a dozen messages from the other Alphas asking if Mikel was okay and what had happened with Isobel’s father. Mikel had written back only a few minutes ago, saying:
I’m not going to lie … we have a slight problem. Braun Carter made a deal with Matthias Bellamy to get a movie role. In exchange, he said Adam Bellamy could stay with Isobel as her surrogate for the summer. He hasn’t submitted it as a proposal through any of the official channels yet. I’ve already submitted five separate proposals. One for Isobel to stay with the Kanes in the Hudson settlement—since two of her surrogates would be available there—and another for her to stay in the Piney Woods settlement with Elijah and Gabriel, for the same reason, even though Elijah isn’t one of her surrogates, he still lives with Gabriel. The other options are for her to stay with Kilian or Oscar, and finally … the last option is really fucking shit. I’m holding onto it until it seems like they’re going to reject all the other proposals. But I’ve suggested that Theodore, Moses, and Oscar should all accompany her to Vermont to stay with Kilian. They went to all the trouble of bringing Eve back to Ironside, so they’re clearly hoping for an altercation of some kind and so far, Isobel has been denying them that.
Mikel: I’m sorry, Oscar. I know home time is crucial for you right now.
Kalen shook his head, checking on Isobel. She had hung up her harness and was picking through her bag for what turned out to be painkillers. She popped two of them and then sat down against the wall, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. He flicked through the replies that had come after Mikel’s messages.
Moses: I haven’t actually submitted an application to be her surrogate.
Mikel (admin): I did it for you.
Oscar: The last plan is worse than shit. Why Theo, Moses, and me?
Gabriel: For the drama. Theo’s secretly in love with her, you’re a complete asshole who nobody can figure out the motivations of, and Moses just volunteered to surrogate for the girl his brother is secretly in love with.
Theodore: I’m ignoring that.
Theodore: Why are you letting it storm, Mikki? What else happened?
Mikel (admin): Isobel was overloaded. I had to make sure I was directing all my shit elsewhere.
Kalen (admin): What shit?
Mikel (admin): Her father is an abusive waste of oxygen. There are pills that can sustain a Tether without their mate, and they’ve been around for a long time. The officials have been hiding their existence, probably because they’re expensive to produce and the Gifted aren’t worth the investment. Braun and Caran Carter weren’t even mates. Her Anchor died back in the settlement she came from, and she’s been using Braun and the pills to survive ever since.
Elijah: That … is a lot.
Kilian: Is Isobel okay?
Kalen (admin): She’s on autopilot right now, but she’s going to crash tonight. Theodore and Oscar, can you hold off killing each other for a night?
Oscar: No promises.
Kalen (admin): Let me rephrase. The only person you touch tonight is Isobel. Comfort the bond only. She needs time to process, not another sexual encounter to freak out about and I haven’t even spoken to her about birth control yet.
Niko: Let me. She’s too intimidated by you. She might just agree to whatever you say.
Cian: Maybe Teak should do it.
Niko: No. I’ll do it. Nobody has a better chance of gauging where she truly stands with all of this than me, and I’m sick of entrusting her to everyone else and watching everything go to shit.
Kilian: Okay seriously, what the hell? When did you catch feelings for Carter? Like what the actual fuck is going on here?
Niko: I didn’t. She’s just an innocent girl caught up in all our Alpha bullshit and she needs someone looking out for her who ISN’T trying to fuck her.
Moses: If anything, she tried to fuck me.
Kalen (admin): Moses.
Moses: Yeah, yeah. I know I fucked up.
Kilian: I want to be there too.
Kalen (admin): Kilian and Niko—talk to her together and do it soon. Everyone else …
Kalen (admin): We need to have a meeting.
Elijah: I’ll sort out a loop for the cameras tonight. The cleaning crew is usually there an hour before midnight and usually finishes just before midnight, so let’s say 12:30?
Gabriel: Works for me.
Theodore: With Isobel?
Kalen (admin): Yes. It’s time we looped her into the bigger plan. Her mistrusting us and us mistrusting her has only caused problems. We do this as a team from now on, or we don’t do it at all.
Niko: Shouldn’t we vote, first? About whether we bring her on?
Theodore: Are you saying no?
Niko: My vote is yes, actually. It’s not me I’m worried about.
Kilian: My vote is obviously yes.
Elijah: It’s the only option.
Gabriel: I agree.
Cian: It was going to happen anyway. There’s no point fighting it.
Theodore: It’s a yes from me.
Kalen (admin): Mikki and I have already spoken. He’s on board. Oscar? Moses?
Moses: I can hardly say no after today, can I?
Oscar: I can still say no.
Moses: But you won’t.
Oscar: Why’s that, dead-man-walking?
Moses: Because you recorded her singing in Mikki’s session the other day.
Theodore: You know she’s good. You know she could be incredible. And you want to win.
Gabriel: Initially, I couldn’t see how adding another person to the plan could be anything less than a burden, but I agree. She could be the piece we didn’t even know we were missing.
Oscar: Or she could be the final straw, and we could lose everything. I can’t afford to lose everything. I’m Lily’s guardian. If I get out of the settlements, so does she.
Kalen (admin): You knew this was coming, Oscar. We’ve been biding our time, but we can’t actually win separate from Isobel. Now more than ever, we have to do this together. She might not survive without us, and she’s as much a victim of this situation as we are.