“Dusty?” I echoed, disbelieving. “I amsogiving this place zero stars on Yell.”
His odd look grew odder. “You mean Yelp?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I don’t have the internet.”
“Okay,” he said, like he was humoring me. “Come on. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re tellingme,” I shot back, and let him herd me deeper into the house.
I couldn’t keep track of the route to get from downtown to this property, but I could at least pay attention to the way to the front door. Maybe in daylight, I’d find out that the house wasn’t in as remote an area as it seemed. At the very least, I wouldn’t end up getting lost before I even got outside.
The entryway led into a hall that seemed surprisingly narrow for a house this big. Or maybe it was totally normal. Who was I kidding? It wasn’t as though I had extensive experience with hundred-year-old mansions. Oranyexperience, really.
Unlike the outside, the inside looked modern. Wall sconces lit the way, but the hall was light and airy, not dark and creepy. A large room with sofas and the biggest TV I’d ever seen opened up to the right, and there were several closed doors on the left.
I jumped as one of them creaked open.
Gage paused. A young face peered out; a male omega, maybe twelve or thirteen, and so skinny that his collarbones jutted above the neck of his loose T-shirt.
Livid bruises decorated one side of his face.
Behind him, I could make out several other small figures—pressing forward, but not as bold as the child in front.
“Gage?” the kid asked in a sweet voice. It was the kind of voice that should be singing in a choir somewhere, not hidden away in an alpha sex trafficker’s mansion with a black eye and a swollen jaw. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not anything you need to worry about,” Gage said. “Promise. Try to get some sleep, okay? The van’ll be here in the morning.”
My gorge rose as the boy frowned.The van. Once again, the memory of metal walls trapping me with other small, helpless bodies washed across the reality of the house around me, blocking it out. My breathing went ragged.
“You... you have to run!” I told the child. “All of you! You have to get out of here! Don’t let them put you in the van! Hide in the woods—make for the nearest busy road!”
The burning chill of bare feet in snow made me shudder, the past elbowing its way into the present like a waking nightmare. In the doorway, the boy’s unbruised eye went wide and frightened. He took a hasty step back. The door slammed shut, cutting him and the others off from my view.
Leaving me alone with the alpha.
Gage’s grip on my arm tightened convulsively. For the first time, real anger sparked in his gaze.
“Don’t scare them like that,” he growled. “What the fuck iswrongwith you?”
FOUR
Jez
“WHAT’S WRONG WITHME?” I echoed, disbelieving. “What’s wrong withyou, you sick fucker! Why the hell do you have kids with bruises all over their faces locked up in your creepy mega-mansion?”
