The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 172

** Paige’s POV **

The little house Midnight Pack assigned us is warmer than it looks from the outside, all old brick and papered walls, with thick rugs thrown over the creaking floorboards. It smells a little musty, but it’s clean and safe, and that’s all that really matters.

Poppy and Jake left a little while ago to help with the injured pack members still recovering from last night’s chaos. Remy, Ronnie and Leo were gone before I woke up, and Callen and Ryder have gone to meet with Josh. So it’s quiet here with just me, Parker and Jax.

I kneel beside the bathtub in the small but fully functioning bathroom. Jaxon sits inside. He’s small and quiet, knees pulled to his chest as I run warm water over his hair with a cup. He hasn’t said more than a handful of words since he woke up. The silence crushes my heart. Jax is usually such a chatterbox.

“Are you okay, baby?” I ask softly.

He nods, but it’s that too-fast nod kids do when they don’t want to talk, don’t want to cry, don’t want to worry anyone. There’s a bright red toy bucket beside him that one of the Midnight pack brought over for him earlier, but he hasn’t touched it. He’s usually a whirlwind in the bath, splashing, narrating imaginary sea monster battles, talking my ear off. But today he just curls in on himself.

My chest aches.I stroke a hand over his wet hair. “You don’t have to be brave all the time, you know.”

His little shoulders rise, then fall. He doesn’t look up.

God, this is hurting him more than he can express.

Everything we’ve been through… the attack, the poison in the water, the frantic escape. We might have hidden enough to protect him before, but he’s felt it all through us. He’s just an innocent child, a child who has just learned the world is trying to kill his family.

I swallow hard and force a small smile onto my face, reaching for the bar of soap. “Let’s get this dirt off you.

You look like you rolled down a hill five times.”

* The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close. It’s progress.

The clothes we came here in are fit for nothing but the bin. Thankfully, someone from the Midnight pack dropped off a care package for Jax this morning… spare clothes, a few bath toys, clean towels, even a few games and snacks.

I’m rinsing the soap from Jaxon’s back when Parker appears in the doorway, leaning a shoulder against the frame. He looks tired, more than usual, but he still manages a soft smile when his eyes land on us.

“You need help in here?” he asks.

“I’ve got him,” I smile. “Thank you.”

He nods and stays by the door, not hovering or intruding,just watching like he needs to keep us in his sight. As stepping away would physically hurt him. He’s been like that all morning. They all have.

The uneasiness in the bond thrums beneath my skin. It’s subtle but constant. There’s a quiet ripple of tension, and

-now and then a flare of something close to fear, quickly smothered before I can react. They don’t realise how obvious it feels. How loud silence can be.

I know they’re hiding something from me. None of them has said it out loud, but it’s there. In their eyes, in their forced calm. In the way Ryder held me too long before Leaving for his meeting, his fingers trembling slightly against my back. In how Callen lingered near the door before slipping out after him.

Something’s wrong. Something they think I can’t handle.

Parker clears his throat and steps further into the room. ”

You’re glowing less today.”

I blink up at him. “Was I glowing a lot?”

He gives me a sheepish smile. “Not… visibly. More like… the air around you. Yesterday it felt like you were made of static.”

I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be comforting or concerning, but I don’t comment. Because the truth is…I feel different today. More settled. Like the thing inside me, the power, the light, the heat, whatever name we’re giving it, isn’t thrashing wildly and trying to break freeanymore. It’s still there, coiled and ready, but it’s… calmer.

Like it’s listening, waiting until it’s needed.

“Maybe I’m getting control of it,” I shrug.

Parker’s expression softens with relief, pride, and the faintest flicker of awe. “Yeah. Maybe you are.”

I rinse the last of the soap from Jaxon and tet the water drain. As he steps out, Parker holds up the towel, wrapping it around him before I even move. Jaxon leans his forehead against Parker’s stomach, arms tucked tightly around him. Parker closes his eyes, just for a moment, with a hand on Jaxon’s back. No one speaks, but I feel the bond soften.

Half an hour later, Jaxon is curled up in a nest of blankets on the sofa, half-watching a cartoon on a tiny old TV.

There’s a bowl of cut fruit in his lap that he hasn’t touched. Parker sits on the other end of the sofa, quiet, gaze fixed on the door like he’s expecting someone to burst in any second.

I’m pacing.

I don’t mean to. But the walls feel too thin, the air too tight. My skin buzzes with something restless, the same kind of restless I’d felt before everything went wrong yesterday. The kind that tells me danger is close. That something is coming, and I think my mates feel it too.

They just aren’t saying anything.

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