Page 144 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

Pigeon.

He went and brought home a new child, a tiny baby, less than half my height. She’s all delicate bones and the sweetest voice. He named her pigeon. Pigeon. She’s just a baby. I can’t stop looking at her out of the corner of my eye.

No, he can’t do it again. I won’t let him. Do what again? My mind asks, and I slide away from that painful question.

“There’s an intruder, Father.” One of his guards pants as he braces himself against the wall.

I perk up, this is my moment.

“Back to your rooms!” he bellows.

Like I predicted, Father runs. He is a coward at heart. A coward who is terrified of his own death or a cage.

The ghost flies past, and I have a moment of curiosity before I shove it away. Focus.

I’m going to make sure Father ends up dead. But not today, not yet. I ignore the others as I follow, obediently going to my room to wait.

Except I don’t get that far.

I turn back, and Raven vanishes into the dark. There’s a policeman in front of us, one Dove recognises. He sees us, and his expression clears.

He lifts his gun and shoots.

I expect to die. When I open my eyes, I hear someone drop behind me.

He takes a step and screams when Father stabs a knife into him. He collapses.

Everything in me breaks. I am frozen, screaming as I watch him die. He is a scent match. That alpha is ours.

“Run!”

I shake my head.

“RUN!” he commands, giving me no choice.

We turn, forced to obey the alpha, and Raven comes back. She doesn’t know to look behind her. I don’t tell her.

Merle is screaming still, but we shove her into the dark.

I hold the others back and hold them in place. It takes it out of me, but I slam that door between us so no one can see, no one can remember.

Raven grabs the children's hands, gathering them up. The smallest on her hip.

“Fly, Korax. This is your chance,” she says coldly when she opens the door to his room. “Don’t let him catch you.”

He hesitates only for a second, and then he’s gone, disappearing into the dark that he knows so well.

Outside, the contacts Raven made are waiting in cars hidden on a disused road. We lead the children, stealing the masks and tossing them into the bushes to be forgotten by time. Each child is delivered into a car.

We wait in the dark, watching the red lights vanish, then I pull out a phone one of them handed me.

“Roseland?” she whispers. “Where are you?”

“Raven?” His voice is weak. I hear sirens. “Raven, wait! Where are you? I’ll come to you! Wait for me.”

“Why do you sound so weird?”

Raven’s forgetting the plan, forgetting everything. She’s going to go back.