Walker opens the drawer and pulls out the book. He flips it open and looks down at the photos of us. It’s violating. I don’t want him looking at my alphas.
“There’s only two,” he murmurs.
“So what!” I snap at him. Cadel is my alpha. I don’t care what anyone says.
He lifts his head and looks at me. “Why did you do it? I need to know why you did it.” His voice is urgent, desperate.
“What do you mean, why?” I shout at him. “What a stupid question.”
“It’s not stupid,” he shouts back, finally showing some emotion. “I need to know why you bartered for all our lives.”
“Because, you absolute idiot, you were my family, and I loved you. You were my brother, if not in blood, in soul. You were my best friend, my confidant, the person who got me, who I could tell all my secrets to. Walker, don’t you understand? You made the world safe and better.”
He stares at me, and, for a moment, he looks almost stricken, but then the expression fades behind his usual mask.
“That was stupid,” he says, but he’s shaking. I can see it.
“Yeah, I guess it was,” I say bitterly. “It never occurred to me that you, you of all people, would be the one to do that. I trusted you!” I say in an agonised cry. “My mother trusted you, Aunt Rae trusted you.”
Walker turns and looks out the window. I know I should run and leave, but I need to have this conversation. It’s five years coming. Besides, there’s a butterfly on the window.
“Why are you still in the city? Why didn’t you run away with everyone else? Do you enjoy making this harder for everyone?” he says savagely. “Why didn’t you run, Kaida?”
I stare at him. “Careful, Walker, it almost sounds like you care.”
“Moonbeam, if I cared, I wouldn’t be hunting you all over the city.”
“Yeah, but I would have been dead already,” I snap back, and the truth of that statement hits both of us. Why hasn’t he killed me?
“I have plenty of time to rectify that,” he says, but it lacks heat.
He turns back to me with a crooked smile that I can’t help but return because it’s like nothing has passed between us. We’re still just the same.
“We should have been friends for the rest of our lives. You and me together forever,” I whisper.
“The world is a trash pile. It would never have allowed us to be friends. We would have had to have gone our separate ways at some point.”
“You aren’t supposed to be my enemy.”
“Yet here I am.”
“Are you going to kill me, Walker?”
“No, I’m not allowed. I want to so I can save you from the horrible things they want to do to you, but I can’t. So, I’m to capture you and take you back.”
I swallow hard, nodding. “I see. Is the Fang really mad?”
“Oh, exceptionally. He’s now been embarrassed by you twice. It’s a bad look for him. I think it would be best if you died before he ever even lays eyes on you.” He pauses and shakes his head, his shoulders slumping. “Don’t get caught. Get out, disappear. Run.”
“Does it occur to you that I’m trying? That I want to live and be happy, that I want to go back to how things were.”
“Of course, it has, but we don’t get the things we want. Oh, and a word of warning, moonbeam. If they find out those alphas are your mates, crawling won’t be the worst that happens to you. The worst will be watching what they do to your alphas.”
I stare at him. “Don’t threaten them.”
He holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Not me. I’m not trying to hurt them. I don’t care about them.”
“Who do you care about?” I shout and shift. I see a butterfly on its side, the symbol my mother used for exit in the bedroom.
