Chapter twenty-two
Alex
I last until the building goes quiet.
The reduced hum of it, corridors settled, doors stopped. I lie in my Gold House bed and feel the bonds pulling warm in every direction and the full moon doing what the full moon does to everything in me that is wolf.
Ten more minutes.
Then I get up.
Gray's door first. He's already awake — sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark, elbows on his knees. He takes me in when I push the door open.
"Pack run," I whisper.
He's on his feet before I finish.
We move through Gold House and out into the main corridor. The Orange House exterior code takes me two tries. Leo's door— no exterior lock in Orange House, just Leo asleep on his back with one arm thrown over his face and the moonlight coming through his window.
I put my hand over his mouth before I shake him.
His eyes open. Wild for half a second. Then he clocks me and Gray behind me and his whole face changes.
I lift one finger.
He nods so hard his hair moves. Dressed in twenty seconds.
Red House is the problem. The exterior lock is a real one and I crouch in front of it in the corridor while Gray and Leo stand behind me.
"Do you need help," Leo whispers.
"No," I whisper.
"Because I could—"
"Leo."
"I'm just saying—"
"Shh," Gray says.
The lock gives. We move fast — Jake's door, Jim's, RJ's. Jake looks at me. At Leo. Back at me.
"Finally," he says. Full volume.
"Shh," everyone says at once.
RJ's door. I push it open and he's already standing, the wolf close to the surface, his eyes catching the corridor light. His gaze moves past me — takes in the pack filling the corridor behind him — and something in his face opens.
He steps out and closes his own door quiet as anything.
Six of us moving through the building toward Dalton's room. Leo whispers a theory about the new residents the entire way. Gray tells him to be quiet twice. Torres's door stays closed as we pass and I make a mental note to feel guilty about that later.
Dalton opens his door before we knock.
He takes us all in — Leo still mid-whisper, Jake suppressing a grin, RJ with his hand already finding the back of my neck, Graycomposed, Jim trying not to laugh — and his expression does the thing where he's already run the calculation.
His keys are in his hand.
