"How is he doing?"

"Not any better than he was yesterday or any of the days before," Taylor says, joining me next to the patch of wild blackberries Jesse had found a couple of days ago on his patrol. Standing up from where I have been crouched for the last hour or so, I stretch my back, hearing my bones crack and feeling my muscles unwind.

"Is he still not talking?" Looking over at Taylor, I see him nod his head, a frown on his face and a furrow in his brow. Knowing how upset he is about Micah and his unresponsiveness, I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him against my chest. Taylor lets out a heavy sigh, resting his head above my heart and relaxing against me.

"I don't know what to do anymore. He won't even let anyone in the room, except for Meeka. All he does is lay in there with her and refuse to talk to us. I'm honestly starting to worry about him." Taylor looks up at me, resting his chin on my chest so that he is able to meet my eyes.

Every time I see him, my heart skips a beat. A week ago, I almost lost him, almost lost everyone. Whenever my mind wanders to how close I was to being alone again, my chest tightens so much that it is difficult to breathe.

Looking at Taylor, I take in his tawny colored eyes and how they are framed by dark lashes, his mahogany colored hair streaked with strands of blonde, lightened by his time outside in the sun. His beard, despite his displeasure with it, is one of the many things about him that gets my heart pounding. Even when he is complaining about how itchy it is, I can't help but admire how well it suits him, despite it being a couple shades darker than his hair.

"-ate?" A hand is waving in front of my face, and blinking my eyes, I am able to focus on what is in front of me. "Are you okay? You kind of just spaced out there for a second."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Smiling, hopefully reassuringly, I give Taylor a kiss on his pouting lips.

"Hey, don't distract me," he murmurs against my lips, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, he deepens the kiss, his tongue sweeping against my own. His hands find their way into my hair, fingers twining in my curls as he holds me close to him. Just when I think I may collapse from a lack of oxygen, he breaks the kiss, nipping my bottom lip with his teeth before pulling away completely.

"What do you think we should do?" I ask, giving Taylor one last squeeze before unwrapping my arms from around his waist. Taylor joins me where I have started to pick some more of the ripe blackberries.

He lets out a long sigh, hands joining mine where they are picking the berries from the mass of thorns guarding them. "I honestly don't think there is anything more we can do. He is going to have to learn how to overcome his grief in his own way. He knows we are all here for him, and I know it is driving Jesse crazy to hear Micah cry and not talk to us, but as long as he doesn't want to let us in, there is nothing else we can do for him but to show him that we care."

Nodding my head, I go back to my task of stripping the bushes of their berries with my one good hand. A silence falls between us, the sounds of the animals in the forests making it a calm period of quietness. Looking up, I see that the sun is starting to set, meaning that it is time for us to walk back to the house.

"Looks like it is time to get back," I say, dumping the last of the berries I had picked into the now completely full bowl I had brought with me from the house.

"Oh, thank god. I don't know how you were out here for so long picking these berries. I feel like my hands have been sliced apart." Taylor holds up his purple stained hands, a fake pout on his lips.

Laughing, I grab his hand with mine, twining our fingers together before raising the back of his hand up to my lips in order to press a kiss there. "All better."

"Good god, Tate, I'm not a toddler," he says, trying to give me a scolding look, but the edges of his lips are turning up into a smile.

"You could have fooled me."

Taylor punches me in the arm, sending me into a fit of laughter, something that hasn't happened for a while. He just looks at me, his own smile spreading across his face as we walk back to the house, me holding the bowl of berries in the crook of my arm and him swinging our arms in time with our steps.

We reach the house just as the sun is setting, and the wonderful scent of dinner greets us as we walk through the front door.

"There you guys are," Liam says from where he is stirring a pot of something on the stove. Luckily, this place has a gas stove, meaning that all we have to do is turn on the gas and light it with a match in order to use it. "I was getting worried when you guys didn't return before the sun started to set."

"We're fine, Liam," Taylor says, walking over to the other omega and bumping him with his hip. Liam gives him a smile before letting Taylor take his place in front of the stove.

"You know I worry, Taylor, no matter what you say." Liam walks over to me, taking the bowl of blackberries from my hand and attempting to shoo me out of the room. "I can't believe Taylor let you pick these with your broken wrist. Now get out of here and go check on the little ones. They have been driving me up the walls the last few hours."

"Well, we all know how they love to test your patience," Taylor says from the stove. Liam swats him in the back of the head before taking the blackberries over to a bowl of clean water and washing them off.

Rolling my eyes, I walk out of the kitchen and over towards the living room where the little ones' voices are coming from. I hear a playfully mumbled, "I swear to god, sometimes I question whether or not we are truly friends," from Liam, and an indignant scoff from Taylor.

Whenever those two are together, they love to push each other's buttons, waiting for one to snap so that the other can laugh. This has been the first time they have really bantered, though, since Allie was killed over a week ago. Everything has been tense, all of us too afraid to say something that could break the tentative calm in the house.

The only ones who have been slightly alright since the ordeal are Elliot, Olive, and Grace, but even they have seemed to be feeding off the nervous energy around them. Just the other day, Elliot had a complete meltdown over Grace throwing a toy car at his tower of blocks and knocking it over. He wouldn't calm down for over twenty minutes, eventually falling asleep from exhaustion.

Even Matty has been extra fussy lately, wanting to nurse or be held constantly, and I can tell that Liam is overwhelmed by the sudden clinginess of the baby. Liam took to just carrying Matty around in one of those baby wraps with his shirt off, not seeming to care what anyone thinks, not that any of us are bothered by that, anyway.

A loud cry draws my attention back to the scene in front of me. Somehow, I had managed to walk to the living room without even remembering the process of doing so. Elliot is standing over the twins, his arms crossed and a pout on his lips. Olive has large tears rolling down her face while Grace is yelling something unintelligible at my little brother.

"Hey now, what is going on in here," I say, walking over to where they are having their tantrum. As soon as Elliot sees me, his lip starts to wobble and he bursts into full on tears, running over to me and raising his arms up so that I will pick him up.

"Tate," he wails, drawing out my name on a loud cry. "They too' Blue!" He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my neck, his tears making my skin damp. Looking over at Grace, I see her holding Elliot's favorite stuffed bear, ingeniously named Blue, for the blue bow tied around his neck.

"Come here, you two," I say, sitting down on the ground and rubbing a soothing hand up and down Elliot's back. Grace has her dark brows furrowed and her tiny arms crossed but shuffles her feet over to where I am sitting. Olive eventually comes over, the loudness of her wails battling with Elliot's. My ears ring with every high note their cries reach, and I am forever grateful that I can't go deaf because of werewolf healing. "Tell me what happened."

Grace tells me about how they wanted Blue, but Elliot wasn't sharing. Elliot pipes in to mention how Grace ripped it from his arms and gave it to Olive, and when Elliot tried to pull it back, Olive had fallen into tears. With a sigh, I take Blue and put him on top of the fireplace, where none of them can reach.

"If you guys can't share, then no one gets to play with him for a while," I say, wincing a little bit at the combined pain of Elliot letting out a loud cry into my ear and my healing wrist bending in a painful way when I try to comfort a sobbing Olive.

Eventually, I end up on the couch with Elliot tucked between me and the cushions, Olive on my chest, and Grace laying between my legs with her head on my stomach. All of us are exhausted from the loud crying, but now Elliot is completely silent, and Olive is only letting out tiny sniffles every once in a while.

"Oh wow, looks like you tired them out," a voice says from the doorway. Tilting my head back, I am able to catch the sight of Liam's smiling face. He walks into the room, holding Matty in his arms as he makes his way over to his favorite armchair.

"All I did was walk into the room and these three had major meltdowns. I feel like my eardrums are still trying to recover from all the loud crying," I say, readjusting a little bit so that I am laying in a more comfortable position. Olive lets out a small cry of protest but quiets down once I start rubbing her back again.

"Now you see what they have been putting me through for the last few days." Liam has a look of exasperation on his face but shakes it off to give me a tired smile. "Everyone has been feeling the effects of Allie's death."

"That's too true," I say, turning my head away when Liam shucks his shirt and guides a whining Matty to his nipple. The baby quiets down instantly as soon as he is latched, the soft grunts of him nursing filling the room.

We sit there in silence for a good five minutes, listening to the sounds of the others in the house. I can hear Taylor in the kitchen, shuffling around and opening the cupboard doors. The upstairs is pretty silent, though, the only sounds coming from Liam's bedroom, where Ethan is supposed to be resting. A couple of nights ago, we decided to move Zalo into the sitting room in the back of the house that never gets used. We had pushed the table and chairs that were in there to the side and placed an air mattress in there for him to lay on. It allowed him to have someplace quiet to heal and got him out of the way of the rest of the occupants in the house.

Footsteps on the stairs rouse me from the half sleep I had fallen into while laying on the couch. Soon enough, Ethan is walking into the room, sitting on the loveseat to the left of the couch and making it so that I can only see half of him. Liam gives him a small smile as if trying to placate the alpha, and I find out why soon enough.

"Are we ever going to talk about what happened and what we are going to do?" he says in a low voice. From his tone and the hard set of his jaw, it is easy to see how frustrated he is right now. Honestly, we are all a little frustrated and confused as to what happened and what we should do next. Allie's death was a huge blow to us, plus adding another member to the pack that we know nothing about is taking its toll on both of the alphas.

"Ethan," Liam says, his voice gentle, but Ethan just shakes his head.

"Liam, this is something serious, and everyone refuses to talk. When Erik gets back, we are having the discussion everyone has been holding back on, and that is final." With that, he slumps back in his chair, the frustrated look he was wearing slipping from his face, exposing how truly exhausted he must be.

When Matty is done eating, Liam hands him to Ethan to burp. The alpha takes him with a hint of a smile on his face before settling the baby on his chest to burp him. Liam walks over to me, grabbing his half asleep sisters and walking over to where the dinner table and chairs are set up. Sliding off the couch, I coax Elliot into my arms before following after the omega.

"Can you watch them for a little bit while I help Taylor bring everything in here?" Liam looks over at me from the other side of the table and I nod my head in confirmation. He shoots me a grateful smile before walking into the kitchen to join Taylor.

"You hungry, peanut?" I ask, looking down at where Elliot is slumped against the table. He and the girls are still half asleep, but they will perk up as soon as dinner is brought in.

"Yeah," mumbles Elliot into his arms, peeking up at me through sleep droopy eyes. Rubbing my hand through his curls, I leave his side to help Olive and Grace get situated before taking my own seat.

It isn't long before the food is brought in, even Erik and Jesse make it back from their patrol when everyone is taking their seats. It's a relatively silent dinner, the only sounds coming from the scraping of silverware across the plates. The tense atmosphere is broken, though, when Ethan clears his throat, catching everyone's attention.

"I know that no one wants to talk about what happened a week ago," he pauses to look around the table, meeting everyone's gaze, "but we can't hold off any longer. It is becoming too dangerous for us to stay living here in our blissful ignorance."

"Ethan," Erik says, his voice deep in dread and a little bit of frustration.

"No, Erik!" the alpha says, slamming the flat of his palms against the table. "What happened to Allie was horrible, we all know that and we have all been feeling her loss, but we can't not talk about what happened. How the hell did they find us? Why were there so many? What are we supposed to do about the claiste? It seems like everything is circling around us, and we're just living here in blissful ignorance." He stops, taking a deep breath before continuing. "We can't stay here any longer."

Everyone is silent, slightly shocked at the alpha's outburst. It's Erik who speaks first, but he lets out a heavy sigh and rubs a hand down his face first. "Okay, fine. Can we at least wait until they are down for bed before having this discussion?" Erik gestures at Elliot, Matty, and the twins, all of whom are watching the twin alphas with wide eyes.

Ethan nods his assent, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes hard. Liam reaches an arm over to rub soothingly at his fisted hand, but Ethan pulls away, refusing to meet his mate's eyes. The worry and hurt shine brightly in Liam's eyes, but he stays silent like the rest of us. The dinner is tense, but by the time the little ones are put down for bed and everyone who couldn't make it down to dinner is brought food, the tension has grown to an exorbitant amount.

We are all just settling in the living room when a loud howl cuts through the air. Jesse does the honor of speaking what is all on our mind. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."