"How about you let me make my own decision for once, Viv!" Nessy snapped, elbowing the fox away.

The temperature in the shed seemed to drop several degrees.

"Ness..." Viv's voice took on a wounded tone. "We're just trying to protect you. We've been your pack for years!"

"Have you?" Nessy asked. "Or have you just been... managing me? Deciding what's real and what isn't? Telling me my dreams are mere delusions?"

"Because they are!" Viv exploded. "You're obsessed with some imaginary person who doesn't exist! We've been trying our best to help you get over this unhealthy fixation!"

"What if he does exist though?" Nessy's gaze found mine across the shed. "What if everything I've been dreaming, everything I've been singing about... what if it's real?"

Sage made a frustrated noise. "Nessy, we've talked about this a million times, the statistical probability—"

"Screw your statistics!" Nessy snarled. "I'm tired of having my feelings explained away or invalidated by your book's mathematics!"

Sage frowned at that.

Candace had been watching the exchange with growing interest, her gray eyes flicking between Nessy and her friends. She spoke up, her voice deceptively sweet. "You know what I find interesting about you two? You're so concerned about magical influence, but you've never once asked Nessy what she actually wants."

"We know what she wants," Viv said defensively. "She wants to pass the class and also not get manipulated by some—"

"No," Candace interrupted. "You presume what you think she should want. There's a difference."

Adelle nodded emphatically, letting out a burp as she rubbed her overstuffed belly. "Yeah, you two are like... Her fucking helicopter parents or something. Hovering around, making decisions for her."

"We are not—" Sage began.

"You are though," Kristi cut in. "I've known your trio for four years. Nessy clearly can't make a move without you two 'protecting' her from her own choices!"

The argument was escalating rapidly, pradavarian voices rising as accusations flew back and forth. I was feeling too sunburned and exhausted from dragging compulsion-bound prads to safety, so I simply groaned and sat down, leaning against the cold wall, my head spinning.

Nessy looked like she was about to cry.

"Nessy, you can go be with your friends," I said. "I don't want to force anything or distress you. Nobody's bound me. I just somehow ended up with three prad packmates because of my excessive stubbornness and paranoia."

I slumped further against the concrete, feeling every burn, every cut, every bruise from the past two days catching up with me at once. The adrenaline that had kept me moving was finally wearing off, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that made my limbs feel like lead.

Nessy's gaze again traveled over my blistered arms, my bandaged face, the way I was unconsciously favoring my left side with the least amounts of cuts and burns.

"Slayer, Alec," she whispered, her voice breaking as she inhaled deep. "Look at you. You're... you're really hurt."

"I'm fine," I mumbled automatically, though even I could hear how unconvincing it sounded.

"No, you're not!" Nessy said, pulling against her handcuffs as she stepped closer to me. "Your skin is literally peeling off your arms. Your lips are cracked and bleeding. You can barely keep your eyes open."

Viv glanced at me dismissively. "He's just trying to get sympathy. Classic human manipulation tactic."

Sage nodded sagely. "Humans often exaggerate their injuries to gain emotional leverage over—"

"SHUT UP!" Nessy roared, her voice carrying a sonic force of Riffweld that made everyone in the shed flinch. "Just... shut up for five minutes and look at him! Actually look!"

The sudden silence that followed was broken only by my labored breathing and the distant sounds of other students outside arguing and making their choices.

Kristi, Candace and Addie stared at me with growing alarm too.

Nessy inhaled deep, staring at them. "Fuck. You're… You all smell and look like you're genuinely worried about him… so much. This can't be a deception!"

Her mouth fell open when she stared at Candace. "And you… you actually… what…"

"No fucking really," Kristi bent down to me. "Alec, you need the nurse. Now."

"S'fine," I mumbled. "I can't die."

"Don't care," she said firmly, crouching down beside me. "You're swaying, sitting down like you're going to pass out at any moment. Come on, arms around my neck."

Before I could protest further, she had her arms under my knees and behind my back, lifting me up.

"Kristi," I said weakly, "quit manhandling me, this is embarrassing."

"Shut up," she replied, though her tone was gentle. "You saved my life. Let me return the favor."

"When did this happen?" I asked blearily as my head spun, making me feel drunk. "Pretty sure I let you die, pretty bird. The Lynx got you good. Right through the heart…"

I reached out and poked her in the middle of her chest. "Right… there."

"Fucking hell, he's burning up," Kristi growled. "You all can keep arguing like knobs in here, I'm taking him to the nurse!"

"Wait," Nessy was straining against her handcuffs, tears streaming down her black and white cheeks. "I want to help," she said desperately. "Please, I want to help him! He… he's…"

"You can help by fucking out of my way faster," Kristi tried to step around Nessy and her friends blocking the exit.

"I… I accept Alec Foster as my Alpha!" Nessy barked. The handcuffs around her hands detonated into silver sparks. She jumped out of Kristi's way.

The exit from the shed became a messy bottleneck as Kristi tried to maneuver through the doorway while carrying me. Sage and Viv were still blocking the path, stunned into immobility by Nessy's sudden Alpha-declaration.

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"Move!" Candace snarled, her silver form blurring as she shoved past the owl with enough force to send him stumbling backward. His oversized wizard hat went flying, and the tome chained to his side swung wildly as he ended up on the grass.

"Hey!" Sage protested, scrambling to retrieve his hat, gray feathers bristling. "You can't just—"

Adelle solved the fox problem more directly, grabbing Viv by the shoulders and physically lifting her out of the way.

"Put me down, you oversized furball!" Viv struggled against the cheetah's grip, her hand instinctively moving toward her holstered pistol.

"Point that party popper at me and I'll stuff it where the sun don't shine," Adelle growled, setting the fox down roughly outside the shed before following Kristi out into the afternoon sunlight.

"Sage, Viv, I'm sorry!" Nessy called over her shoulder as she rushed after us, her voice thick with emotion. "I have to... I need to... I'll explain later, okay? Just please understand!"

The last thing I heard before the world started spinning was Viv's wounded voice calling back: "Ness, wait! Don't do this! You're making a mistake!"

. . .

The journey to the nurse's office passed in a blur of concerned voices and swaying motion. Kristi's strong arms kept me steady, but my vision kept sliding in and out of focus. The burns on my arms felt like they were on fire in places where my nerves still functioned, and my head was pounding like a deepening drum.

"Stay with us, Alec," Candace's voice came from somewhere to my left. "We're almost there."

"Fucking hell, why didn't anyone notice that he's passin' out earlier?" Adelle's voice was thick with guilt.

"Because he's too damn stubborn to admit when he's hurt and exhausted," Kristi replied, her arms tightening protectively around me. "Probably learned it from dealing with that psycho brother of his."

"Is he gonna be okay?" Nessy's voice was close by, worried. "He looks so pale..."

"He'll be fine," Kristi said firmly, though I could hear the uncertainty underneath. "He has to be fine. We're almost there!"

The last thing I remembered was the sound of doors swinging open and Nurse Redstriss's sharp intake of breath before everything went black.

...

I woke up to the familiar antiseptic smell of the nurse's office and the soft hum of medical magitek equipment. My arms were wrapped in what felt like cooling and healing bandages, and there was an IV drip attached to my left hand feeding me some kind of pale blue healing solution.

"Finally," came Nurse Redstriss's crisp voice from beside the bed. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd developed a talent for medical complications along with your apparent death wish."

I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through my torso. "How long was I out?"

"About thirty minutes," she replied, moving into my field of vision. Her crimson feathers were ruffled with what I was beginning to recognize as professional irritation. "Long enough for me to treat second-degree burns over thirty percent of your body, severe dehydration, and what appears to be severe heat stroke."

"But I'm fine now, right?" I asked, noting that the four girls were clustered around my bed like worried sentries. Kristi sat in a chair pulled close to the bed, Candace was perched on the windowsill with her silver tail wrapped around her feet, Adelle was sprawled in a corner chair. Nessy stood at the foot of the bed, her blue eyes red-rimmed from recent tears.

"You are decidedly not fine," Nurse Redstriss said sharply, her amber eyes blazing with medical authority. "You deliberately pushed yourself beyond your physical limits, and then, from what I've been told, had the audacity to tell your packmate that you 'can't die' as if that excuses reckless behavior."

"I mean... I technically can't die," I pointed out. "My Reconstitution skill—"

"Your Reconstitution skill," the nurse interrupted, "is sitting at exactly two percent, Mr. Foster. Do you know what that means?"

"That I can... barely reconstitute?" I joked, smiling at the unexpected extra percent.

"It means," she said with the patience of someone explaining basic arithmetic to a particularly slow child, "that if you had died today from heat stroke or severe burns, you would have come back as essentially a living corpse. Functional, yes, but with significant brain damage, motor function impairment, and even more permanent nerve damage that even my magical healing cannot fully repair."

"I've had worse," I shrugged. "I got better."

The room went very quiet. I could feel the four girls and the nurse staring at me with varying degrees of horror.

"What? I didn't die," I huffed.

"No, you didn't," Nurse Redstriss agreed. "Because these four young ladies dragged your hide to my office before your core temperature could climb high enough to cause any severe damage. I suggest you take it easy for the rest of the day and let the bandages do their work. If I were you, I would start by thanking these four students for being so diligent."

"Right," I said, eyeing my companions as the nurse walked off. "I supposed I should start with… you."

I turned my head to Nessy.

"Thank you," I said softly. "For choosing to stay. For accepting me as your Alpha when you could have just walked away with your friends."

Nessy's ears twitched. "I... Erm, someone had to make sure you didn't do something even more spectacularly stupid."

"Hey," I protested with mock indignation. "My stupidity is very carefully calculated, thank you very much."

"Oh really?" she said, the corners of her mouth quirking up in a beginning of a smile. "So getting yourself cooked like a rotisserie chicken was part of some master plan?"

"Absolutely. Step one: become human jerky. Step two: profit when I smell irresistible to cute husky doggos."

That got an actual snort of laughter from her, which made something warm bloom in my chest.

"Your plan needs work," she said, moving closer to the bed. "Most successful strategies don't involve the pack's Alpha becoming a corpse."

"I prefer to think of it as 'adding dramatic tension,'" I replied. "Besides, it got you to finally make a decision about the whole Alpha thing, didn't it?"

Nessy's expression grew more serious. "That wasn't... I didn't choose you because you were hurt. I chose you because..." She paused, struggling for words. "Because when I look at you, something feels right."

"Even when I look like overcooked bacon?" I asked.

"Especially then," she said firmly. "Anyone can be charming when they're healthy and clean. But you... You spent your own health to save three prads you barely knew, including me. That says something about who you are."

She fell silent at that, suddenly looking very shy and rubbing her elbow.

I shifted my eyes to the other girls. "And the rest of you guys. Thank you for... well, for not letting me become a head in a jar."

Kristi's feathers fluttered slightly, and she looked away with obvious embarrassment, cheeks flashing dark violet. "Don't get all sappy about it. You're my Alpha now, remember? Can't have you dying on my watch—it would look terrible on my record."

"Right," I said with a grin. "How very pragmatic of you."

Candace bounced slightly on the windowsill, silver-white tail swishing. "I'm just glad you're not even more dead, you know? Like, undead Alec would probably be way less fun to hang out with. All moaning and shambling and... Ugh, imagine the smell!"

"Thanks for that mental image," I said dryly.

"Plus," she continued, warming to her theme, "if you perma-died, I'd have to find a new Alpha, and do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved in pack restructuring? The taxes alone—"

"Candy," Adelle interrupted from her corner chair, "you're rambling."

"I ramble when I'm nervous!" Candace protested. "Sue me for having feelings, ya overstuffed butt!"

I turned to Adelle, who was still looking vaguely nauseous. "And thank you for the muscle today, Ads. Though next time, maybe don't eat the obviously magical food?"

"Yea, yea, laugh it up," she fired back. "I haven't been this full since that time we found the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Iona truck stop and I tried to eat my own body weight in meat-infused-pancakes."

"Why would you do that?" Nessy asked, turning to the cheetah.

"Because I'm a dumb-ass with poor impulse control," Adelle shrugged. "And they offered a free meal to anyone who could eat a hundred of 'em in one go. Alec, I still don't get why you didn't go into the healing rain. It didn't change that much shit overall."

"Strategic paranoia," I shrugged.

"Strategic paranoia," Nessy repeated with a smile. "I like that. It sounds much more sophisticated than 'suicidal stubbornness.'"

Her tail started wagging and she sat down on the floor in a lotus pose, leaning her black and white head onto the side of my bed. I reached out and gave her a pet. The tail wagging intensified.

She let out an exhale and pulled out her phone, opening her Pradstagram.

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