Raphael's chest felt like it was on fire. Water rushed around him on all sides. The soup kitchen groaned beneath the endless pressure. Outside, Marcos stood on deck of the rescue boat with a hand stretched towards him. Yet the boat was almost a greater source of fear than the water itself. Trusting his fate entirely to a floating vessel that he had no control over sent alarm bells clanging in his brain.

It was an irrational fear. He knew that. Logically he understood that he would be safer if he just trusted Marcos and went to his friends. But logic had no place in a fear such as this. All he could hear was the water rushing, the building groaning, and the blood pounding in his ears. He knew that Marcos was talking to him and he muttered something back, though he wasn't quite sure what.

He had tried to get on the last three rescue boats. Dominic and Miguel had refused to leave him behind when his fear got the better of him. Guilt over making them wait so long had almost been enough to get him on the last boat, but it had filled up at the last second. Now they were all that was left. There was no more waiting. He couldn't put this off any longer.

To wait meant death. He knew that, but that didn't chance the panic that welled within him at the thought of setting foot on that boat.

Before he knew what was happening, Marcos was beside him. The feeling of the alpha's hands closing around his own was enough to coax him back reality.

"I need you to trust me." Marcos' words echoed through Raphael's head.

"I do trust you." Raphael heard himself say. It was so simple, but the moment those words left his mouth he knew them to be true. He trusted Marcos more than he trusted himself right now.

"Then I need you to climb through that window. You'll be safe, I swear." Marcos laid a hand on Raphael's back and gently pushed him towards the window.

In that moment the sounds of the water and the groans of the struggling building died away. Raphael allowed himself to concentrate only on Marcos' touch, and the outstretched hands of his friends on the boat. He would be safe. He would be safe. He would be safe. He repeated the thought over and over again as he stepped through the window.

Miguel and Logan caught his hands and helped him balance. The pulled him fully to safety and wrapped him in their arms once he'd reached the boat deck. Raphael turned to look back towards Marcos. His heart hammered in his chest. He was safe here. They weren't going to let him go.

A sickening crack echoed through the darkness and the soup kitchen shuddered visibly.

"We need to go!" shouted the alpha who was standing at the wheel.

Marcos was halfway through the window when the sound dropped out of the world and time slowed to a crawl.

The building lurched. Marcos lost his footing and fell. He caught hold of the window sill and struggled to hold on. The building shook again before breaking free of its foundation.

As reality caught up to itself, Raphael realized they were speeding away from the soup kitchen. "What are you doing!?" he screamed as he lunged towards the edge of the boat. Lupita caught hold of him and refused to let go.

Marcos had disappeared from sight and the massive two story building was now nothing more than another piece of debris being carried along by the storm.

Raphael screamed and strained against Lupita's grasp. Her strong, muscular, arms held fast and kept him firmly in place as the boat withdrew and headed towards safety. His throat was raw by the time he finally sank against her solid frame in defeat.

"We can't just leave him, we have to go back." Raphael repeated over and over as he sank to the floor of the boat. Tears were streaming freely down his face. His fear of the water had caused this. If he'd just gotten on the damn boat none of this would have happened. He was the reason his alpha was gone.

He didn't become aware of his surroundings again until he was on solid ground once more. The gentle slope leading up to the familiar high school, seemed like a foreign land to him now. People were hugging and seemed grateful to be alive. Others seemed distraught at having lost contact with loved ones. None of them seemed to quite reach the same level of pain that wracked through Raphael's body in that moment. After all, none of them had taken part in killing the father of their child.

"He could still be alive," Logan was saying as he draped a blanket around Raphael's shoulders. "You shouldn't give up so easily."

"Logan..." the alpha that Raphael assumed was Ramos, had laid a restraining hand on Logan's shoulder. He didn't seem to share his omega's optimism.

Logan didn't seem to care. "Listen," he laid one hand on each of Raphael's shoulders and peered into his face with a determined smile, "it might not make a lot of sense or even be logical, but you've got to keep hope alive for as long as possible. I don't know how long I would've lasted on the streets if I had let myself lose hope. You can't give up."

Raphael's chest hurt. That much hope seemed like it carried the risk of an equal amount of pain and disappointment.

"Besides," continued Logan, "You're not the only one affected by this. There's more than one of you that needs him to come back, right?"

Raphael pressed a hand against his abdomen and nodded numbly.

It hurt. Every single part of him ached with the knowledge that Marcos was likely gone. Yet he couldn't afford to give up hope just yet. He needed to tell Marcos what he had decided. He needed his alpha to help him raise their child together. He wasn't sure he could do any of this on his own.

"We need to look for him," Raphael said, turning back towards the boat. To his surprise, Ramos and Dominic had already rounded up several of the other volunteers and seemed to be preparing to head out.

"You need to stay here," said Lupita, catching hold of his arm. "They've trained for this sort of thing. If any of us go we'll just be in the way."

"He's my alpha," Raphael protested with such ferocity that he surprised himself. "I can't just sit here and wait." He clenched his fists watched helplessly as the boat powered away from the high school and slipped back into the darkness.

"No, but you can help." Lupita jerked her head towards the high school. It was only now that Raphael realized many of the refugees from the soup kitchen were still huddled together on the lawn. The high school had already been near capacity before the storm, so they would doubtlessly be overcrowded.

Raphael ground his teeth so hard his jaw ached. He wanted to be out there looking for Marcos. If he was going to keep hope alive then he wanted to at least be part of the search. Yet that didn't seem to be an option anymore. He could either sit and wallow in frustration and misery, or help.

Exhaling forcefully, Raphael turned and followed Lupita towards the high school.

They were put to work handing out water and food to the refugees gathered on the lawn. As they worked, Raphael caught himself watching Lupita. He knew from Logan that the soup kitchen hadn't just been a building to her. It had been her home as well. In just a few short minutes, she had lost everything. Yet now here she was, helping others without a second thought. He couldn't help but admire her a little bit.

Yet, despite the fact that he tried to lose himself in his work, none of it seemed to be enough to keep his mind off of what he had lost. He caught himself desperately wishing he could go back to that night in his bedroom. If he could do it over again, he wouldn't have chased Marcos away so brutally. He would have given almost anything for just a few more minutes at Marcos' side.

Exhaustion finally forced him to stop. He had been going non-stop for nearly twenty-four hours straight. The pain and adrenaline had faded and he found himself struggling to stay upright.

The smaller boats had been ferrying people to other shelters for the past several hours. The number of people remaining at the high school could now fit entirely within its walls. The big exterior flood lights had been shut down. Everyone was preparing to settle in for a few hours of rest before daylight forced them to face their new reality.

The search party hadn't returned or sent word.

As Raphael settled down in a corner of the gymnasium near Logan and Miguel, he was keenly aware of the fact that they were separated from their alphas because of him. His actions had affected more than just himself. All he wanted to do now was crawl into the deepest hole he could find and never come out. He hugged the blanket tightly around his shoulders and sank to the floor.

"I managed to grab you a pillow," said Miguel as he sat down beside Raphael. "I noticed you didn't have one yet."

"What about you?" Raphael glanced towards Miguel and Logan. They both already had pillows and blankets and were preparing their sleeping spots. "You could use it for the baby."

Valentina hadn't made much of a fuss at all during their escape from the doomed soup kitchen. She seemed innately aware of the fact that she was safe as long as she could hear her father's heartbeat. Even now, she was fast asleep in her sling across his chest.

"Don't worry. Lupita is going to try and grab a playpen from the teacher's nursery. She'll be fine in that." Miguel smiled as he gently rubbed his sleeping daughter's back.

"Thank you." Raphael took the pillow and tried to push past his confusion. He couldn't imagine why Miguel was still being so nice to him. His fear and stubbornness had put them all in harm’s way tonight. Valentina included.

"It's not your fault you know," said Logan, rolling over on his side and propping himself up on one elbow. "You can't keep blaming yourself for what happened."

"Of course I can. Who else would I blame?" Raphael flopped back onto his pillow and stared up through the darkness at the ceiling high above them.

"How about no one?" Logan shook his head. "You don't just 'get over' a fear of water like that. No one thought the flooding would be this bad. It should never have reached the soup kitchen let alone ripped it off of its foundation like that." He sighed. "All of it is just a shitty turn of events and nothing else."

"If I hadn—"

"Raph, you've just got to accept that sometimes stuff happens and there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. You can't know the future and you can't keep dwelling on things you can't change. If you do you'll drive yourself insane." Logan laid back on his pillow as well.

"Do you really think there's a chance he's still alive?" asked Raphael. He wanted to believe Logan, he really did. Yet somehow he doubted that he would be that lucky.

"Until you find his body, then there's always a chance," said Miguel with more confidence than Raphael felt.

"Hell yeah," said Logan with a chuckle. "There was this guy I knew when I was living on the street. His name was Lenny and he ran with the same group of kids I did. He was always getting into trouble and the rest of us would have to bail him out. It was a pain in the neck, but we all looked out for one another. So anyway, one day Lenny goes missing. We have no idea where he is. Weeks go by and we can't find him anywhere. After a while we all start to come to terms with the fact that he's probably dead. I mean, street kids like us didn't exactly have the best chances anyway so it wouldn't be that far of a stretch." He paused as if trying to let the gravity of the situation sink in.

Raphael couldn't help but wonder if the story was meant to cheer him up or make him feel worse. Because if it was the former, it was doing a terrible job thus far.

"Right, so Lenny is missing," Logan continues, "and we're all sure he's dead. So we split up his stuff and try to move on. About a month after he goes missing, someone spots him at one of the rich vacation homes along the beachfront. You know the ones I'm talking about. So we all go charging over there but he has no idea who we are. Of course, we all think he's just pretending or something. At least, until the people that own the place explain that they accidentally hit him with their car. When he finally woke up in the clinic he had amnesia and didn't remember a thing. So they took him in and looked after him. They had wanted to adopt him, but adopting someone with amnesia is apparently pretty difficult.

"Long story short, Lenny's memory eventually came back but he decided to stay with his new family. He thought it was hilarious that we thought he'd died. We'd had a little memorial service for him and everything. Ever since then, when someone went missing, we'd remind each other about Lenny and refuse to give up hope until we had irrefutable evidence that they really were gone."

"I'm not going to give up on him," said Raphael after a moment of silence. He clenched his blanket with white knuckled intensity. "I just don't understand why you two are still being so nice to me. What happened back there could have cost you both and even now your alphas are still out there."

"Raphael, our alphas are doing something they volunteered to do. They would be out there searching for survivors regardless of your actions," said Miguel. "Beyond that, we weren't about to leave a friend who clearly needed us."

"Seriously," agreed Logan. "What kind of jackass leaves a friend who's clearly in the middle of their worst nightmare?"

"This is going to sound cliche and stupid," said Raphael, turning back on his side to face them, "but I don't think I've ever had friends like that before."

Miguel smiled softly. "Well you do now. Whatever happens next, you're not alone."