Chapter 13
Nicole’s POV
When the path ahead felt like standing at the edge of something with no bottom, I went to Parkville.
I had been doing this for years – arriving at his door with some version of the same weight, and leaving lighter than I came. He never asked me to explain myself before I was ready. He simply opened the door, and the room was always warm, and somehow that was enough to start with.
He was at his desk when I knocked, his reading glasses pushed up his forehead the way he always forgot them, and he looked at my face for exactly one second before reaching for the kettle.
“Sit down, Nicole,” he said, and I sat.
The tea was the same blend he had always kept, something with cardamom that his wife had liked. I wrapped both hands around the mug and let the warmth work its way in. The afternoon light moved slowly across his bookshelves. Neither of us spoke for a moment and I was grateful for that.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” he said finally.
“I slept.”
“Poorly,” he said, without judgment.
I didn’t argue with that. He didn’t push me to explain. He never did, he simply sat across from me with the patience of someone who had learned that people said what they needed to say when they were ready and not a moment before.
I had loved that about him from the beginning. In the early days when I had arrived at the institute with nothing, his office had been the one place I could sit without having to pretend.
Today I was carrying the decision I had made, the one I already knew was right and was still not fully at peace with. Tracy Caesar’s intake paperwork was sitting on my desk. Tate had been inside these walls for days, I had danced with him in a mask and he had said a piece of music felt familiar,
I hadn’t told Parkville any of it yet. I just needed to sit in a warm room first.
After a while he reached for the photo album on the table, I recognized it. I had seen it there a dozen times over the years.
“My wife insisted on documenting everything,” he said, opening the first page. “I used to tease her about it.” There were photos of the two of them in the institute’s lecture hall, younger, both of them laughing at something just outside the frame. Wedding photos slightly faded at the edges. A series of smaller ones from what looked like a research trip somewhere with too much sun and not enough shade, both of them squinting and smiling.
“She looks like she laughed a lot,” I said.
“Constantly,” he said. “At everything. Including me, frequently.”
I turned another page and stopped. Four people in a photograph. Parkville and his wife on one side. On the other, a couple I didn’t recognize. The man was tall and broad shouldered with dark hair. Something about his jaw pulled at me, something I couldn’t immediately name. The woman beside him was laughing with her whole face, one hand resting on his arm.
“Who are these?” I asked.
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Parkville leaned over. His expression shifted into something quiet. “Old friends. Alpha Luca and his Luna, Viola. My wife travelled with them often. They were very dear to us.”
“The accident,” I said.
“The same one.” He closed the album gently, his hand resting on the cover. “She wasn’t supposed to be in that car. She had planned to stay behind. But Viola asked her to come at the last minute and she said yes because she always said yes to Viola.” He was quiet for a moment. “I spent a long time being angry at that. I’m not anymore. That was just who she was.”
I looked at the closed album. Alpha Luca’s face sat behind my eyes. The jaw, the dark hair, the particular set of his shoulders. Something about it pulled at a thread I couldn’t locate. The feeling of recognizing a face without being able to place where you had seen it.
I had never met Alpha Luca, so why did his face feel like something I already knew? I couldn’t find the answer and after a moment I let it go.
I
“Nicole.” Parkville’s voice drew me back. “Whatever is weighing on you. Whatever decision is in front of you. want you to do what you know is right, not what is safe, not what is small.” He folded his hands on the table. “You have spent too long letting other people’s sins determine the size of your life.”
My throat tightened. “Parkville”
“You are the most capable researcher I have ever trained,” he said plainly. “I don’t say that to comfort you. I say it because it is true and you should know it.” He looked at me steadily. “Whatever comes next, you are ready for it.”
I didn’t trust myself to answer that properly so I nodded.
My phone rang.
I looked at the screen, the nanny.
I picked it up. “Hello”
“Dr. Carter.” Her voice was carefully controlled. “I’m so sorry, we were in the library and I turned around for just a minute and I couldn’t find Rosy and Maple. I’ve checked the reading room and the lower floor and I”
I was already standing.
“Stay where you are,” I said. “I’m coming.”
“Nicole” Parkville began.
“I have to go,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Go,” he said, waving me toward the door. “Go. We’ll finish this another time.”
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