I'm Garnet, and I got one night in that attic before the Alpha of Tallowridge decided it was too good for me.
Or not good enough. With Rhett I can never tell which one is the insult.
Rhett: Attic rail's loose over the stair. She moves.
Hedda: Moves where? Your bed?
Rhett: Above the feed shed. Where I can hear the damn door.
Hedda: The feed shed! Perfect. Put the bitch up where the rats can talk to her.
The yard laughs with her, and every bit of it lands right on my face.
Rhett: Walk. Don't look at them.
Garnet: Let go of my arm.
Rhett: When we're inside.
Rhett: You sleep up there. Ladder comes down at night.
Garnet: You're locking me in a feed shed.
Rhett: I'm putting you where I can hear the door open. It's not the same fucking thing.
Rhett: If that bastard sends a man up my road, I want one door between him and you. Not an attic and a stairwell I can't hear.
Garnet: You say his name like you've met him.
Rhett: I've met the type. They all wear a ring and a smile.
Rhett: Marn stays at the bottom of this ladder. Nobody up. Not Hedda. Not Cobb. Nobody.
Marn: Yes, Alpha.
He calls it a wall around me. It is one. It just happens to have his hand on the outside of it.
Cobb: Brought you water. Dorrit sent a biscuit too, but I ate it, so it's just water.
Garnet: You're a saint, Cobb.
Cobb: I'm a man with one biscuit and no willpower.
Rhett: What do you think you're doing.
Cobb: Water. She's been on the pens since sunup.
Rhett: She's got a canteen.
Cobb: It's empty, Alpha. I checked.
Rhett: Nobody goes up that ladder. She's not a stray dog you feed behind my back.
Cobb: That's a hell of a way to talk about the woman who sewed your wolf's leg.
Rhett: Careful. You want to keep that smart mouth, keep it out of my feed shed.
Hedda: Look at that. Alpha's guard dog and a water boy, fighting over the hired help.
Garnet: I'm not a bone. I'm standing right the fuck here.
Cobb goes, and the yard goes back to work, and every one of them is still watching me out of the corner of an eye.
Then Rhett picks up the canteen Cobb left in the mud and climbs the ladder with it, and I don't know whether to thank him or spit on him.
Rhett: Drink.
Garnet: I don't need you to bring me water.
Rhett: Then don't need me. Drink it anyway.
The canteen handle is between us and his knuckles are white on the rail, like holding still is the only job he trusts his hands with.
Rhett: Slow down. You'll choke.
Garnet: Would that be a problem for you?
Rhett: Everything about you is a problem.
Garnet: Then send me down the road. You said you wouldn't lose sleep over it.
Rhett: No.
Garnet: Why not?
Rhett: Because I said so, and I'm the Alpha, and that's the whole reason.
It isn't the whole reason. His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there a beat too long, and we both know it.
His hand comes up near my face and hangs there, close enough that I can feel the heat off his palm, and then he pulls it back.
Rhett: Door stays shut at night. You need something, bang on the floor. Marn hears it.
Garnet: And if it's you I need?
Rhett: Don't.
He climbs down, and the ladder rattles up behind him, and the little room over the feed shed gets very small and very quiet.
I sit there with the canteen on my knees and my heart going like a bird in a sack.
He didn't say no. He said don't. There's a difference, and I'm the only one up here who has to live inside it.