Knots
Knots
After somehow managing to park the bike outside, I led Elara and little Zias into the building, right through to the narrow stairs to the second floor, with my hands trembling as much as Elara's.
There were few of the other tenants out of their apartments this time, but save for the stares, no one really tried to butt in nor seemed too concerned.
None of us spoke to the other, barely holding back the rowdy emotions that tore at us. And the silence, it wasn’t just quiet – it was heavy, bruising, pressing on my chest like the very air that still had the faint stench of diner grease and dry laundry detergent had turned to stone.
Icarus image as he fought the betas resurfaced in my mind, he's voice as he yelled at me to run wouldn't stop echoing in my head.
I wondered if I'd done the right thing leaving him there, but there wasn't anything else I could have done anyway.
I wanted to believe I’d see him again. That he’d push through somehow, and that such a good man I’d met in this cursed pack isn’t destined to die like that.
But the sight of him standing against three betas with nothing but raw will… it was too familiar.
Too much like... Michael.
'No!' I shook the thought of my mind, refusing to feed into it. Icarus would come back, I have to believe in him.
'For them...' I looked behind me as we climbed the worn staircase up to my apartment. Elara seemed lost, while Zias just clung onto her like she was the last hope he had in the world. Elara seemed to be searching through her mind, her expression blank conveying the vanity in her thoughts. She seemed so devastated and just lost...
My heart pounded more from dread than from exhaustion.
' Please, Icarus. Stay alive and return. Please' I prayed, I couldn't bare seeing Elara and Zias in such a state.
We got to the door of my apartment, stuck but still unlocked after Ciel had broken it open the last time.
I paused as I reached for the rusty knob. I'd left this place behind thinking I’d never step through that cracked door again. But I've been here twice after that, each time a result of a terrible situation.
Here I am, dragging in the shattered remains of another family.
I put the thought aside and pushed the door open, bracing myself for the smell of dust and neglect. Wat matters now is getting Elara and Zias to settle first.
But what met me instead was the sight of someone sitting on the bed, seemingly in deep thought.
My breath caught.
“...Ciel?”
His gaze that had shot up the moment I walked in set on me in surprise. His eyes widened when he saw me, then his gaze darted past me to Elara and Zias huddled close behind.
For a heartbeat, we both just froze.
“You, Aren't you supposed to be in the packhouse–” I started.
“Didn't I leave you at the packhouse–” he said at the same time.
Our voices tangled and died mid-sentence, each wanting answers but also willing to hear the other out.
We stared at each other, bewildered, caught between too many questions. He wasn’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to be here. And yet… here we both were, facing one another again after everything.
For the briefest moment, the rage I thought I’d buried flared hot inside me. The memory of the packhouse, of being accused, of being spat on and kicked out, tore through me.
Ciel wasn’t there? I mean, I thought he was only hiding, but he really wasn't there?
Or had his guilt finally overwhelmed him and he's come to apologize?
What the heck is going on?
I clenched my fists so tight my nails bit into my palms, frustrated that everything just continued to knot into a complicated yarn of twists and turns. If he really thinks he could just waltz in and apologize, then he was in for a rude awakening. I waited for him to speak...
But then I caught something. His clothes were scuffed with dirt, his knuckles grazed raw. Taking a closer look, I realized he seemed a bit battered but upright, his hair damp with sweat, a thin cut dragging across his cheek like a crimson slash of war paint.
This wasn’t the face of a man who’d been lounging while I was cast out. He’d been fighting, maybe even surviving. But mostly suffering his own war in silence.
At this, my heart clenched as a thought crossed my mind. Did he have a fight with the elders?
The rage in me didn’t vanish, but it lost its sharpness, leaving only confusion in its place. Why is he in that state? How did he get himself into it?
I wanted to ask him.
He looked like he wanted to ask me the same question I wanted to ask him:
"Why are you here, looking like that?"
But before either of us could speak, Elara stepped forward.
Her voice cracked, desperate, shaking like glass about to shatter.
“Please, you have to help him. You have to help Icarus! He’s fighting them alone. All three of them. He’ll die if no one goes to help him!”
Ciel’s whole body jolted from the bed, his eyes widening. “What?”
Elara clutched her son tighter, tears streaming down her pale face. “Please. They came for us, they were holding us hostage. He stayed behind to fight so we could escape! You have to go!”
My throat closed up.
That's right, what matters is getting help for Icarus.
Ciel turned to me, shock still etched across his face. His eyes were searching mine, demanding an answer to a question I could read on his face.
" is this true?"
I didn’t have words. All I could do was nod, my throat too thick with guilt and fear to let sound through.
Tears threatened to spill, but I blinked them back. “ Please, Ciel,” I whispered, chiming in. My voice came out rough, almost broken. " It's true. He’s there fighting all by himself...”
For a moment, he didn’t move. He looked between me, Elara, and the boy clinging to her chest. Something unreadable flickered in his gaze, something more than fury, but definitely the will to do something. Unlike the helplessness that gnawed at me.
He moved to crouch in front of Elara and Zias, he patted the devastated mother's shoulders. His voice softened in a way I’d never heard before. “I promise. I’ll do everything I can to bring him back.”
Elara looked up to him and nodded severally, her eyes seemed to find a new light as she clung to those words like they were the only lifeline left in the world. "Thank you" She muttered between her welling tears.
Ciel nodded and hurried past her to leave, his eyes found mine again just as he opened the door. He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave me was that of: "We’ll talk about this when I return."
And then he was gone, slipping out the door like a storm breaking loose.
I stood there for a long moment, frozen. My body screamed at me to run after him, to help, to do something. But my legs didn’t move. Not when Elara collapsed to the floor, sobbing into her child’s hair, not when the silence of the apartment pressed in like a tomb.
So I went to her instead. My knees hit the floor beside her, and I wrapped my arms around her trembling shoulders.
“He’ll come back,” I whispered, patting her shoulder in small circles, my voice shaking almost as much as wails. “Ciel’s strong. He’ll bring Icarus back. You’ll see.”
But the words felt hollow even as I said them. I only hoped he found the bike outside so he could get there faster.
I should have mentioned that to him, but I wasn't even thinking at all this moment. It's all just been a mess after another.
I guided Elara to the bed after a while, sitting her down, and tucking Zias between us.
The usually lively boy hadn’t spoken a word, just clung to his mother’s arm like if he let go, the world would swallow her too. His eyes were wide and wet, staring at everything but never really seeing. He seemed like a lamp that lost its light, once bright, now... Off.
I wanted to tell him it would be okay. I wanted to tell him his father would come back.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn't.
As Elara cried into her hands, I sat in silence, staring at the cracked ceiling.
Why do the men who genuinely care about always have to be in this position?
Michael, who had thrown himself in front of me.
Icarus, who had offered himself for his family and for me.
Everywhere I turned, blood followed. Could I be the one causing all these problems. Could the rest of the pack be right in wanting to paint me as the murderer?
My fists tightened in the blanket, guilt overwhelming me.
Elara's words just earlier had solved the missing piece.
The reason Icarus had acted so strangely. Why he’d been nervous, why his story about taking his family away never added up. The betas had been holding Elara and Zias all along as hostages, forcing Icarus to lie about Michael’s death.
Gamma Jerome? All the the elders? I don't know how many of them precisely. But I do know that they’d been pulling the strings all along.
I could see it now: the way Jerome pushed me toward Michael, urging me to convince him to meet the mayor. How Icarus had been forced into testifying. How the betas had been waiting at his house.
Their schemes spread like rot through everything, twisting truth into lies until everyone dies!
They’d planned this. All of it.
However, I remain the cause of all this. If Icarus hadn't been close to me, if he hadn't been seen that way, this would have never happened.
But, I was confused as to what was their issue with me.
Since Michael was out of the way. Why am I being targeted?
My chest ached, my thoughts spinning so fast I could barely breathe. Why? What was their endgame? If Michael was gone, why keep hunting me? Why target Elara and Zias too? Even Ciel?
Just then, the most terrifying thought hit me. maybe it wasn’t just about Michael anymore.
Maybe it was about making sure no one loyal to him remained. No heirs, and no bonds. No one left to challenge the new power waiting to seize the pack.
A single tear slid down my cheek. I didn’t wipe it away.
All I could do was sit there, rocking a grieving mother who has been separated from her husband, and try not to collapse under the weight of it all, hoping everything would turn out just fine.