Chapter Text
Sirnea, Romania.
“Shit, Chris, when are you going to pick up your phone?”
Her voice was muffled over the voice message, but still, the worry he used to know so well was still present in it.
“Carlos will arrive in three days. He asked me to gather everybody I know for a big party, because he has something important to say. Fuck…” She scoffed, disbelief exuding from her tone. “I think he’s actually going to propose to me. And if he does, I need my partner there to catch me if I faint, okay?”
Partner.
They used to call each other that as if it were a sworn promise. Something sacred. An unbreakable bond that no human being or force of nature would be able to tear apart.
But it felt like it had lost its meaning with time. He had fought really hard to bring her back from oblivion, but couldn’t find a place for himself in the life she built after that.
So the partner became the friend, who became the colleague, and now not even a work relationship remained between them.
“Chris… I know you’re mad… About a lot of things,” Jill said, dancing around the point so he would take it lighter. “But please, stop ghosting us. Your sister has been calling me to check if I have any news of you, and it pains me to tell her that I don’t. At least call her now and then—you’re her only family. She misses you.”
A beat.
“We all do. Take care.”
The message ended, not with a bang, but with a sad sigh. Another woman’s voice, this one far more aggressive, came chopped over the radio on the passenger seat of the car.
“Radio check, Alpha.”
“Got you loud and clear, Tundra,” he pressed the button to say, then started threading a long curve in the darkened dirt road.
“The Winsterses are clear,” Tundra informed, her tone mechanical. “Nothing around the cabin but trees and vermin, as usual.”
“Roger that,” Chris picked up the radio and tuned it to the general frequency. “Wolves, hold position until second order. This should only take a minute.”
Five voices gave him confirmation. His own announced, “Alpha out,” and with that, his relationship with the Wolves was put on hold for the following hours.
Still, he put the radio in his coat’s pocket as he climbed out of his truck, parked in front of a small stronghold in the middle of the forest, nowhere between the Balkan Mountains and the rest of Eastern Europe.
The lights were on, but nobody rushed for the door. That meant they remembered the proper protocol he had established, so only he or his men would have access to the house.
Chris knocked on the front door three times, paused, then knocked twice. Only then he heard footsteps, and the locks unlatching.
“I knew it was you,” Ethan welcomed him on the other side, smiling with relief, but still clutching a gun between his mauled fingers.
“Anyone else has been dropping by?” Chris raised an eyebrow.
Ethan looked lost for a minute, but still blurted out bravely: “A family asked to use the phone these days. They were lost, and had children… I had to let them in. But come inside, Chris, it’s freezing there.”
Chris stepped in, displeased with the news, but glad to shake off the chill.
“I brought supplies, so you don’t have to hit the town as often…” Chris said, glancing around to find that they had indeed made the place a quaint little family home. “Maybe it’s time I move you guys again…”
“I’m not moving again, Chris!” Another woman’s voice reached his ears, this one pissed off to her bones.
“Good evening, Mia,” Chris turned to her to say, only to find her staring down at him with murder in her eyes. “How’s the little watermelon you swallowed?”
That seemed to mellow her a bit, as she immediately embraced her swollen stomach and patted it tenderly.
“Doing jumping jacks every time I eat something spiced with anything but plain mayo!” She said humorously, but then her visage turned to desolation. “You’re not making us move with me just two months away from giving birth, are you?”
Chris looked down at his feet and sighed. He knew very little of women’s bodies beyond how babies were conceived and which buttons to press to make them happy in bed, so he could only assume by Mia’s expression that the added effort and stress of a move wouldn’t be welcomed late in a pregnancy.
“Guess I’ll just keep extra eyes on you for a while,” he said, quietly conceding defeat.
The other two in the room quietly beamed.
“Do you want a beer, or something?” Ethan offered awkwardly, just now storing the gun back in a credenza.
“Uh… Not now,” Chris offered with a nod. “You come help me unload first. Got a bunch of stuff for all three of you.”
He saw Ethan smile with the excitement of a little boy, and then guided him back out to reach his truck, where the bed, filled with assorted dry and canned goods, and other types of treats, waited to be relieved of its cargo.
“Goodness, Chris, that’s probably going to last us a year!” Ethan said, not waiting for an under to grab the first parcel.
“Not sure when I’ll be able to get back to you,” Chris picked up another sack.
“You’re not coming to see Rose when she’s born?” Ethan asked with alarm as rice beans rattled over the wooden boards of the porch.
“She has a name already?” Chris paired his load with his and just kept on working.
“Yeah! Rosemary, like Mia’s mom,” he said in a bright tone, then, fleetingly: “Rose for short. Will the people who want us want her too?”
“Especially her,” Chris didn’t measure his words or his tone, as was his habit, and when he looked at Ethan, he found the man’s skin paper white. “I said I’ll have extra security here, don’t worry. The doctor’s on call for when Mia is due, and she’s healthy—you won’t even have to leave the place.”
Ethan struggled to pick up a box of canned beef. Chris offered to share the load.
“This…” Ethan’s breath was hitched from effort, but also something else. “This is so fucking scary, Chris.”
“Can’t be worse than the Baker’s house,” Chris put a hand on Ethan shoulder.
“It’s not that,” Ethan frowned, then shook his head with measured violence. “I know your foot soldiers are always around, worst case scenario we can move again—Mia will bitch about it for weeks, but she knows it’s for the better… What really scares is not knowing what comes next.”
Chris paused for a second, reaching for a cigarette. Ethan, after a second of hesitation, went back to unloading the cargo. The flame of his old lighter sparked orange in the darkness, igniting dry tobacco and tar to convey the smoke he loved to poison his lungs with.
“I gave myself the goal of ending this war within my lifetime, Ethan.” Chris said, his voice echoing cavernously against the silence of the forest. “I will make it happen, no matter what. Then, your family will be safe.”
As a reply to that, Ethan looked at him, looking every bit the man child capable of crossing hell and back for the sake of the ones he loved.
“You promise?” Ethan’s voice was barely the trickle of a whisper.
Chris took the question in, and took it gravely.
“I promise.”