"Please," I said again, and tears were streaming down my face now, hot and shameful, cutting tracks through the dust and debris that still clung to my skin. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I broke the bird. I'm sorry I destroyed the books. Just please, please don't?—"
"Save your apologies," Mason said from the doorway, his voice hard as stone, his honey-brown eyes cold and distant. "We'll hear them when you mean them. Right now, you're just scared."
"Of course I'm scared!" I screamed, my voice cracking, my whole body shaking. "You're locking me in a concrete box!"
"Yes," Ethan agreed calmly, moving toward the door with measured steps. "We are. Because you need to understand, Ava, that there is nowhere to run. No tantrum you can throw, no destruction you can cause, that will make us give up on you. You are ours. And we will do whatever it takes to help you accept that."
Leo stepped aside to let Ethan pass, his gray eyes dark and unreadable, his usual playful smirk nowhere in evidence. Caleb lingered a moment longer, his ice-blue eyes fixed on my huddledform, something like anguish written across his scarred face. Then he turned and followed the others.
"Twelve hours," Ethan repeated, pausing at the threshold to look back at me. "Use them wisely. Think about what you did. Think about why you did it. And think about whether you want to spend more time in this room, or whether you're ready to start participating in your own life instead of destroying it."
"I hate you," I whispered, my voice raw with tears and fury, my whole body trembling against the cold concrete. "I hate all of you."
"I know," Ethan replied, his voice soft and almost sad. Then he closed the door. The lock engaged with a solid, final click that echoed through the small space like a death knell. I lunged for the door, pounding my fists against the cold steel, screaming until my throat burned.
"Let me out! Let me out, you bastards! You can't do this! Let me out!" Nothing. No response. No footsteps returning. Just silence, thick and absolute, swallowing my screams like they meant nothing.
Because to them, they meant nothing. I pounded until my hands ached, until my knuckles split and bled, leaving red smears on the gray steel. I kicked the door, threw my shoulder against it, tried the handle again and again even though I knew it was useless.
Useless. I was useless. Trapped in a box like an animal, screaming into the void while they watched on cameras I was sure existed somewhere.
Eventually, I stopped. I slid down the door, my back against the cold steel, my knees drawn to my chest. The harsh light buzzed overhead, too bright, making my eyes ache. The concrete floor was hard beneath me, seeping cold through my thin clothes.
One hour, Ethan had said. Then the light would go out.
I tried to prepare myself. Tried to steel my nerves, to find some reserve of strength that would carry me through. But my hands wouldn't stop shaking, and my breath kept catching in my throat, and through the bond I could feel them up there—warm, together, connected—while I sat alone in the cold.
The light went out.
Darkness crashed over me like a physical weight, so complete and absolute that I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. I screamed, scrambling toward where the light switch should be, finding only smooth wall. I pounded on the door again, my bloody knuckles shrieking in protest.
"Please!" I sobbed, my voice echoing off the concrete. "Please, I'm sorry, please let me out!" Nothing. Nothing but darkness and silence and the growing cold.
I retreated to the mattress, curling into a ball, making myself as small as possible. The thin fabric offered almost no cushion against the hard floor, and the cold was seeping in now, creeping through my clothes, raising goosebumps on my skin.
Fifty-five degrees, Ethan had said. Not cold enough to cause hypothermia. It felt cold enough to kill me. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to conserve warmth. The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating, and I squeezed my eyes shut even though it made no difference. At least with my eyes closed, I was choosing not to see.
Time lost all meaning in the dark.
Minutes felt like hours. Hours might have been minutes. I had no way to tell, nothing to mark the passage except the steady deepening of the cold and the ache in my empty stomach. I tried to sleep, but every time I started to drift off, the shivering woke me. My body wouldn't let me rest, too busy fighting the chill, too alert to the danger of the darkness.
Through the bond, I could feel them. Mason's warmth, distant but present. Ethan's cool focus. Leo's restless energy.Caleb felt like an ache, like something reaching for me through the void, unable to cross the distance. I hated that I could feel them. Hated that even now, even locked in this concrete hell, I couldn't escape their presence in my head. The bonds tied me to them whether I wanted them or not, constant reminders that I belonged to them in ways I couldn't control.
As the hours crawled by, the hatred started to fade, replaced by something worse. Longing.
My body began to betray me in new ways. The cold should have been numbing, should have slowed everything down, but instead I felt hot beneath my skin, feverish despite the chill. My clothes felt too tight, too rough against sensitized skin. Every shift on the thin mattress sent sparks of sensation through me that had nothing to do with comfort.
I knew what was happening. Had felt it before, in the days leading up to my heat. The restlessness. The hypersensitivity. The growing ache low in my belly that demanded something I refused to name.
Not now. Please, not now.
My body didn't care about my pleas. Didn't care that I was locked in a box, alone and cold and terrified. The stress was doing something to me, accelerating something that should have been weeks away, and I could feel my control slipping with each passing hour.
I needed them.
A low whine left me at the horrifying thought. I needed Mason's warmth, Ethan's steadiness, Leo's chaos, Caleb's strength. I needed their hands on my skin, their scents surrounding me, their presence filling the void that was growing larger with every breath.
I needed my pack.
