It Never Was About Me
1127 Words
Reza
I don’t hide the note.
Not because I’m careless, but because it never occurs to me that anyone would come looking.
The house is quiet in the way new spaces always are. Not peaceful. Just unfamiliar. The kind of quiet that hasn’t learned your rhythms yet, where every sound feels borrowed. Even the hum of the refrigerator feels too loud, like it doesn’t belong to me.
Water runs in the sink as I rinse a mug I barely used, my thoughts moving in slow, sticky circles I can’t quite break out of.
Starla lies low but alert beneath my skin, stretched tight.
- This is not over, she murmurs.
I nod. My throat feels raw, like I’ve been swallowing words instead of air.
The knock comes sharp and firm. Three raps, evenly spaced.
Not hesitant.
Not aggressive.
Confident.
Starla lifts her head fully now.
I dry my hands slowly, deliberately, forcing myself not to rush. My pulse is already picking up, my body reacting before my mind catches up. I tell myself it’s nothing. Just someone checking in. Just noise where there’s already been too much of it.
I open the door.
Stephany stands on the step, brows drawn together before she even really takes me in. Nancy is just behind her, posture straight, shoulders squared, eyes sharp in a way that feels practiced rather than suspicious.
They both still.
“Oh,” Stephany says softly. “You look like hell.”
A breath of something that might be relief slips out of me before I can stop it. “Nice to see you too.”
Nancy doesn’t comment. Her gaze flicks past me immediately, scanning the interior of the house with unsettling efficiency.
“We came to check on you,” she says. “You didn’t answer our messages.”
Messages.
I blink, trying to remember the last time I checked my phone. “Sorry. I didn’t hear it.”
Not a lie. Just incomplete.
I step aside to let them in, suddenly hyperaware of how bare everything looks. No art on the walls. No clutter. No signs of permanence.
The note lies folded on the small coffeetable in the livingroom.
Exactly where I dropped it.
Nancy sees it instantly.
She doesn’t reach for it. Doesn’t ask. She just stills, something in her posture tightening like a thread pulled too far.
“Reza,” she says carefully. “What’s that?”
I follow her gaze.
“Oh. That.” I shrug, aiming for casual and missing badly. “Just something someone left.”
Stephany’s mouth tightens. “Left where?”
“Outside my door.”
Nancy moves then, quick and precise. She crosses the room and picks up the note, unfolding it with two fingers like she expects it to bite.
Know your place.
The words sit there, small and cruel and deliberate.
The room goes very quiet.
“That’s a threat,” Stephany says flatly.
Nancy exhales through her nose. Anger bleeds through her control, sharp and sudden. “That’s not how you handle internal conflict.”
Internal.
The word lands wrong, scraping along my nerves.
“You mean… pack?” I ask.
Nancy looks at me then. Really looks. Whatever she sees must decide something, because her jaw sets, resolve sliding cleanly into place.
“Yes,” she says. “Pack.”
Starla bristles hard.
- She didn’t know, she murmurs. But she knows now.
“My brother will not respond well to this,” Nancy continues. “Threats inside his pack are taken seriously. Especially anonymous ones.”
Brother.
The world tilts.
“Your..” My voice catches. “Your brother?”
Nancy’s eyes flicker with surprise. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” I say too fast. “I didn’t.”
Aaron.
The name crashes through me like a dropped plate. Heat, tension, memory shattering all at once. The bond stirs instantly, tightens, a low hum of awareness that makes Starla press closer, protective and alert.
Stephany looks between us. “Wait. Have we never mentioned Aaron is Nancy’s..”
“Alpha,” Nancy finishes. “Yes, but also brother.”
My stumach drops so valiantly, I think I'm going to be sick.
Everything rearranges itself in my head with a sickening click.
Every glance.
Every pause.
Every careful non-reaction.
“So this note…” I whisper.
“Is someone trying to provoke a response,” Nancy says. “Or isolate you before one happens.”
Starla growls.
- They’re pushing lines they don’t understand.
Nancy folds the paper once, deliberately. Her movements are controlled, but I see something else flicker behind her eyes now, calculation layered over anger.
“This isn’t random,” she says slowly. “And it isn’t impulsive.”
Stephany frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean whoever did this understands pack dynamics,” Nancy replies. “They’re applying pressure without overt defiance. Creating discomfort without triggering immediate intervention.”
Her gaze lifts to me again, sharper now. Assessing.
“And they’re betting you won’t push back.”
My stomach twists.
Starla bristles. - We will push back.
“I don’t even know the rules of a big pack like this well enough to break them,” I say.
Nancy studies me for a long moment. Something in her expression shifts, not softening exactly, but clarifying. Like a picture snapping into focus.
“No,” she says quietly. “You wouldn’t.”
The certainty in her voice makes my chest ache.
“This feels personal,” Stephany says.
“Yes,” Nancy agrees. “But not because of Reza.”
I stiffen. “Then why?”
Nancy hesitates, just a fraction. Then: “Because of where pressure travels.”
I don’t fully understand.
But Starla does.
- The Alpha is the fulcrum, she murmurs. Hurt one side, and the whole balance shifts.
Nancy’s jaw tightens again. “I’m going to speak to Aaron.”
Panic spikes sharp and immediate. “Please don’t..”
She meets my gaze, steady and unyielding. “This doesn’t stay quiet anymore. Not after this.”
The bond pulses, hot and insistent.
He knows something is wrong.
“I don’t want to make things worse,” I say.
Nancy’s expression softens just a fraction. “You didn’t.”
The words land heavier than reassurance.
When they leave, the house feels even emptier than before. The silence rushes back in, louder now for having been interrupted.
Starla paces, restless.
- The lines are being drawn, she says.
I sink onto the edge of the table, staring at the place where the note had been.
And for the first time since I arrived in this pack, I understand something with brutal clarity.
This isn’t just about me anymore.
It never was.
- Writer
