“My home is your home,” Carmine says.
“Good, because I may need to ask another favor of you.”
“Anything,” Carmine says, lowering his head.
“At the start of next summer, before the next blue moon, there will be a party. I need you to help my wolves gain access.”
“Easy.” Carmine’s grin makes my stomach churn. “I have Jasper and Jericho eating out of my palm. But why wait?”
“The lunar energy from the next blue moon will bolster the strength of my allied wolves. With the power of the moon behind us the Elite Pack will be no match.”
Carmine tilts his head in respect. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“That’s my job,” Walter says, turning back to the mirror, and for a second, I could swear he looks at me, not just at his own reflection but atmeme, like somehow he knows I’m here listening in. “There isn’t one part of this plan I’ve not thought through.”
Before I know what’s happening, he’s pulled a knife from some unseen place—was it sheathed in his belt this whole time?—and stabbed the glass.
The mirror shatters, shards flying at me.
I’m flung back, arms and legs flailing wildly.
Does Walter know I’m here in his mind? Does he want me to know? And if so, Is he showing me things on purpose? But why, why that memory?
I need to get my shit together, I can’t be led through anymore of Walter’s memories, I need to do what I came here for.
“Max?”Jasper’s voice reverberates around me.“Max, is everything all right?”
He must be mind-linking.
“Jasp, is that really you?”
I float through blackness, shards of shattered mirror drifting like stars all around me.
“Something happened to you here, you went all tense. It looked like you were in pain. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,”I say.“But I think Walter knows I’m here. He showed me a memory ... Carmine, he’s been working with Walter since the start.”
“Must be why he betrayed us. Should we pull you out?”he asks, sounding worried.
“No, I can’t leave yet. Just ... if you can boost my power a little more.”
“I’m on it,”Jasper says.“Omar too.”
“Okay.”
“Be careful, Max.”
His voice ripples and fades and I gather myself, tensing my limbs. I spot a shard of mirror floating by with an image shining in it, but this image isn’t a reflection, it’s someplace new, a dark place. It looks like a basement, or some dusty office in a rundown building. There’s a desk and exposed cinder-block walls, power cables run to caged lights that hang from the ceiling. Curious, I move myself toward the image.
I pluck the shard from where it’s suspended in space and hold it closer to my face.
Walter is sitting on the other side of what I assume is a mirror, the remnants of what looks like makeup cases in piles around him, balled-up dirty towels and used tissues cover the surface of the table. Dead flowers lie still wrapped in their paper in front of him.
Is he in some kind of dressing room? What is this place?
I let myself move closer, let the shard expand until I feel as if I’m on the other side of a rectangular mirror about the size of a farmhouse window.
I notice a tingle starting at the tips of my fingers and feel the familiar presence of Jasper’s and Omar’s energies flowing through me, just as it did when we combined strength in the elevator while breaking Omar out of the pack prison. They must be sending it to me. The energy fizzes up my arms and through my chest. I feel bigger, stronger, more alive, and in this state, I find myself able to expand the mirror further, until the boundary between me and the room Walter sits in is gone. The void transforms seamlessly into Walter’s location.
