Does Teddie have any more medicine?
Is he bed-ridden?
Has there been blood in his vomit?
Has he seen a doctor?
“Where are you?” I ask instead, forcing my voice to stay level. The other questions can wait until I can look him in the eye and gauge the truth. “You’re not at the safe house.”
Silence.
Then a heavy sigh that sounds older than we are.
“No. I’m…at the castle. With Mom and Dad.”
Ice floods my veins so quickly I almost sway.
The castle.
Fuck.
“But why?” My pulse pounds in my throat. “You shouldn’t be…” I can’t untangle the thousand fears crashing together in my head, so I settle for, “You should be home.”
Safe.
In bed.
Resting.
“Mom and Dad called me in.” His voice drops lower, threaded now with something worse than weakness.
Fear.
“Things are bad here, Bry. Really bad.” Another pause. I can practically see him glancing over his shoulder, checking the corridor beyond his door. “They’re launching attacks. On Noth towns. They’re calling it a ‘strategic offensive,’ but I saw the maps. They’re targeting civilian centers.”
The world tilts.
Noth towns.
Families.
Children.
Innocents.
Fragments of my battle strategy classes at Eros flicker through my mind—charts, simulations, clean lines drawn between military targets and civilian zones. Strike supply chains. Disable command centers. Neutralize trained alphas.
Not this.
Not homes.
Horror slices through me, cold and merciless. I see it instantly: flames devouring rooftops. Smoke clawing at the sky. Mothers clutching children as sirens wail. Streets running red.
And then another memory rises, violent and suffocating.
Canvas scraping against my face. The suffocating stink of damp earth and gasoline. The cramped darkness of a trunk. My wrists bound. My heart pounding so loud I thought it would burst.
Pedro’s mocking voice.
