Jenny gently touches her shoulder. “Why didn’t you take the second?”
Alana blinks slowly. “I was in the back seat. Car on autopilot. I was trying to hold myself together. Took the first shot. Then the car hit a bump. I dropped the case. Before I could grab the second”—she exhales shakily—“my body went numb. I couldn’t move. It’s taken everything to get here.”
Jenny nods, lips pressed into a line. “How long have you been having a heart attack?”
“I don’t know,” Alana breathes.
“What the fuck?” Lance is by her side before I can even register what she’s saying.
Alana blinks and water leaks from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to her best friend. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
Lance scoops her in one quick motion and holds her to his chest as he runs down toward the med bay.
Alana’s bloody handprint is on the wall, but whose blood is it? Hers or Markus’s.
My cousin is barking orders on a headset in full crisis mode, and Katya runs down the hall after Lance to provide any support she can.
Now the hall is filled with sounds, and I’d take the eerie silence over this.
Jenny. She wraps her arms around her waist, looking lost and staring down at the body. Mellisa’s body. Mellisa’s probably the one who wounded Alana, and now I’m wishing her death was longer.
“We need a tarp,” Jenny whispers.
“What?”
“Maybe our friend can incinerate another body.”
She takes my hand, and we go back into the break room. Kingston is hiding under a chair, his tail unfurled and his ears flat against his head. It takes a few minutes of coaxing, but he finally comes out.
Uri and Dimitri haven’t returned, but Katya sprints past the door. Shortly after, we hear the sound of a plastic tarp unwrapping. Donny isn’t in the room. I guess he got stuck with body duty again.
The whole night doesn’t feel real. It’s a hyper-realistic nightmare I can’t escape. A second stampede rushes past the door. Followed by screeches and sobs.
No.
I don’t want to move and witness it, but Jenny is already out the door. I never wanted her to be part of this world, to see the ugly side, the painful darkness.
Lance leans against the wall and slides to the ground, his knees pulled into his chest as he weeps. Big ugly sobs that make my stomach twist and turn. Donny cries when he’s having a panic attack. Dimitri cries when he’s watching a movie. Thiago cried when Maria was born. But Lance? Never.
Izzy rushes over to him and throws her arms around him, sitting awkwardly on the floor. Her face is red, her chest heaving as she tries to comfort the unconsolable.
It’s Alana. My heart squeezes and rips apart at the same time.
We lost the war.
The Deviant won.
The Four Families is over—a half century legacy gone in minutes.
Hopeless, I’ve got to get Jenny out of here. We need to run. Find someplace safe. Start over. It will be the three of us—me, Jenny, and Kingston—because they’re all I have left.
A woman with blazing eyes, a shiny green dress, and hair that has perfect wavy curls, steps into the hallway. She’s out of place here visually—bright and beautiful against the stark whiteness of the business and corporate hallways. Her face contorts as she wails and cries.
Her eyes lock with mine.
“I knew your fucking family would get her killed.” This tiny woman runs at me and there’s explosion of pain on my cheek. Did she punch me, or slap me? Is this my fault, or am I the easiest target? Donny grabs her, ripping her off me, and she kicks and twists in his arms. “I will never forgive you, any of you.”
She squirms and flails around, all emotion and energy, dangerous and reckless. Donny yelps as she digs her elbow into his ribs. She is a honey badger in human skin, and she’s livid at me. The woman’s face—wait, I recognize her from Jenny’s power point. “Holy shit, is that Lena Lovegood?”
