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She nods, accepting the limit without argument. “What feels worst right now?”

That isn’t the question I expected. I thought she would ask what I saw. What the shadowy figures looked like. What I keep hearing. Whether I believe the photo meant position language or is tied to a ritual.

My throat works around the answer, the words thick and sharp like cut glass. “I don’t feel all the way me.”

Theo’s hand flexes on the blanket.

Pepper only listens.

I look down at my hands. They’re solid now. Long fingers, pale knuckles, a faint scar near my thumb from a utility knife I once mishandled while cutting mat board. My hands look like my hands. That isn’t enough.

“It comes and goes. Since the spring, I keep waiting for my body to check out again. Like I’m renting it from whatever place grabbed me.”

Pepper’s eyes shine. “Ezra.”

I shake my head once. “I’m not falling apart. I’m telling you the truth before I make it funnier.”

Theo leans forward and presses his mouth to my shoulder through my shirt. One kiss. Firm. Grounding. He stays there for a breath, his forehead resting against me.

Pepper touches my wrist. “Then we start there.”

“Where?”

“Your body.” Her thumb moves over the pulse at my wrist. “We remind you that it belongs to you.”

Heat stirs low in my stomach, tangled with nerves.

Theo lifts his head. “You want us to help remind you who you are?”

I look at his hand, then at hers. “Yes.”

Pepper’s relief shows in the way her scent warms. Theo shifts so I can lean back against his chest. His thighs bracket mine, broad and steady. Pepper kneels in front of me on the mattress, her knees sinking into the quilts she arranged.

The placement isn’t accidental. They’ve put me between them. It feels like a gift from my pack. I don’t know why it’s so hard to accept what I want.

Theo’s arms come around me carefully. One across my chest, one low on my stomach.

Pepper takes my hands and presses them to her thighs. “Feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Warm?”

“Yes.”

“Solid?”

I curl my fingers into her skin, not hard enough to hurt. “Very.”

Her breath catches. My body answers, waking with a slow pulse of want that feels blessedly normal.

Theo’s mouth brushes my ear. “Tell us if it gets too much.”

“I will.”

Pepper leans in and kisses me. The kiss is soft at first. She takes her time as if she’s teaching my mouth the shape of us. Theo holds me while I kiss her, his heartbeat steady against my back, his scent wrapping around us in warm leather and bourbon. When Pepper pulls away, her cheeks are pink.

“There you are,” she whispers.