DAVE
Inside Jobs
The retching sounds from our bathroom pull me from sleep like a hook through my chest. Three thirty AM, same as yesterday, same as the day before. My body moves before consciousness fully forms, grabbing the glass of ginger water from the nightstand along with the sleeve of crackers Margot swears will help. The mate bond pulses with Kat's misery, each wave of nausea hitting me like secondhand poison.
"Suzy?" I knock softly on the bathroom door. "Can I—"
"If you come in here smelling like blessed alpha pheromones, I will murder you with this toilet brush."
"Noted." I set the offerings outside the door. "Supplies delivered. Retreating to safe distance."
The toilet flushes. Water runs. Then she emerges, pale and magnificent in her misery, dark hair plastered to her neck
