Breathing on the wall again, I wrote the word‘hours.’
“Why did they take us? What is their plan?” Peregrine asked, her face pale.
For a moment, I wished I could reach through the plastic wall and throttle her. Even I, as sheltered as I was, could see the proverbial writing on the wall.
But apparently, I needed to spell it out for her.
Writing out the three letters that sent a shiver of fear through me was hard. What was even harder was watching Peregrine’s expression shift to one of terror.
‘W-A-R’
The word clung to the wall much longer than any of the others had, as if the universe wanted us both to stare at it and understand exactly what was going on.
I’d had a lot of time to think about it over the past few days, knowing deep in my soul that they were trying to manufacture chaos that I, and now Peregrine, had been caught up in.
Last I’d heard about the omega on the other side of the wall, she was perfectly happy in her new marriage to Edison Keane, a man who was as formidable as he was handsome. Now she was stuck here in this cage with me.
Maybe I wasn’t the only unlucky soul in all of this, and as shitty as it made me sound, I was kind of glad to have company.
Peregrine seemed to be lost in thought, her auburn eyebrows drawing together. Then, she lifted her head and frowned, looking over her shoulder.
I tapped on the glass, curious what it was she had heard.
“Someone is singing,” she explained, pointing down the long, dimly lit hallway. “Down that way.”
I frowned. I hadn’t seen much of the other prisoners that were being kept down here since most of them chose to huddle under their blankets for most of the day. I also hadn’t seen anyone get taken out the same way I had.
Peregrine followed my gaze to the prisoner in the cell on the other side of her before she turned to talk to me again. “Do you know how many prisoners there are?”
I shook my head and wrote:‘Only seen them.’
It was Peregrine’s turn to frown. “Them? Who’s them?”
As she spoke, a vibrating sensation came up from the floor. They were coming back, breaking free of their usual schedule—probably thanks to the appearance of Peregrine.
I ducked down underneath my blanket like the coward I was and abandoned her to them.
Underneath the blanket it was almost peaceful, I couldn’t hear anything or see anything. It was like I was tricking my mind into relaxing as I sent another prayer up into the sky that they would find me, and hopefully soon.
The next time I woke up, I was back in the surgery room and the man was injecting pure fire into my veins, then I remembered nothing at all.
Two
“This is bullshit,” Ranieri said as we sat around the living room of the place our pack called home. “He won’t even tell us where she is and is acting as if this is all business as usual!”
Two days ago, we had been barred from the Amante mansion until further notice and yesterday we were told not to worry about Cini.
Not that we had frequented the mansion much these days—only Elio ever went to get missives from the boss—but even that had come to a screeching halt as chatter from our sources inside told us that not all was right in paradise.
Cini hadn’t been seen in days and Amante Sr. claimed it was because she was ill and recuperating in her rooms.
But the man had never cared before whether or not his only daughter had a cold. In fact, he rarely spoke of her at all outside of insults about her designation or her deafness like the asshole he was.
“What if we just went in?” Ranieri asked, continuing to pace. The man was usually unrufflable, but now he seemed antsy at the realization that our dead packmate’s sister was unaccounted for.
I was used to not being able to access Cini, though. The last time it had happened the three other members of my pack had been in prison when I was barred entry into the estate on the grounds that I was of no use by myself.
I should have insisted they let me in to see her, but I was scared.
