“Okay, okay, breathe with me,” Cooper said, trying to calm down himself. It wasn’t like Park to be so...vulnerable. “Does any of it feel life threatening?”

“No,” he said. He sounded a little more settled after matching his breaths to Cooper’s. “Nothing that bad. It all just feels sort of the same level of...unpleasant. And I feel really weak. Drained.”

Cooper maneuvered his hands a little so he could grasp a couple of Park’s fingers. He squeezed them comfortingly, and Park jerked away. “What’s wrong?” Cooper asked.

“I think I have a bunch of glass in my fingers,” Park hissed. “My whole hand just feels packed with it.”

What the fuck had happened to Park while they were unconscious?

“Okay, it’s going to be okay. Eli, are you hurt?” Cooper called out, and felt Park jerk behind him and try to turn his head.

“Eli’s here?”

The pure shock in Park’s voice chilled Cooper to the bone. “Yes,” he said softly. “He’s in the neighboring cage. Can’t you—you didn’t scent him?”

Park didn’t answer. He just sat very still.

“Eli?” Cooper tried again when Park stayed quiet. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Eli said so quietly Cooper barely caught it. “In a way.”

“What happened? What’s going on?” Cooper asked.

Eli’s eyes slid shut, and he pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to lie to you. But I had to, I had to, and it’s my fault. Again, again, it’s always my fault.” He dropped his head to his knees and rocked slightly.

Cooper couldn’t help but feel like he was the worst possible person to be sandwiched between two wolves having full-blown mental crises. He tried to think of what Dr. Ripodi would say.

“We’re running out of time,” Cooper said. “Just start with why you’re here.”

“I—” Eli started, and his voice cracked. He picked his head up with a deep breath and looked Cooper right in the eye, seeming to steel himself. “I wasn’t actually being blackmailed. I just told you that so you’d help me find the phone.”

Cooper blinked, not expecting that. “So it was a lie? Everything you told me about what happened to you with the rebel pack?”

“No,” Eli said firmly. “That was all true. Ollie—Oliver can confirm.” Park shifted behind Cooper, the first movement he’d made in a while. “But—but what he doesn’t know, what I didn’t tell anyone, was I... I didn’t join the rebels alone.”

“You do have a sister,” Park said wonderingly. “How could you never tell me?”

“My twin sister,” Eli confessed. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think I would ever see her again, and it was painful. And...made me feel guilty.”

“Why guilty?” Park asked.