Page 80 of Pretty Little Assassin

I grunt. Some interactions aren’t worth my engagement.

As soon as she presses her boot to the pedal, the car lurches forward.

I wrap my hand around the omega’s head and brace her against my chest.

She lets out a small, almost imperceptible sigh, as if she’s trying to stay conscious but can’t.

“I don’t know what they did to you, but you’re safe now.” My voice is low and quiet.

The omega settles in.

One. At least we got one out safely. Hopefully the other VEIL teams are finding success. The Primacy sure as fuck is not making it easy. I don’t know if they are doing the list in the same order we are. Donnie designed some convoluted program that he insists has the shortest driving routes.

“What? What are you looking at?” I notice Alley Cat peering over the seat at me.

“You, obviously.”

I look back at her with the stare that has made people shit themselves.

“I thought you were supposed to be some big mean ogre. Some super scary, violent wraith.”

She wiggles her fingers in the air and makes a ghost-like sound.

“Watch yourself, crazy kitten. I am exactly what you’ve heard me to be.”

“Then how come you’re being so tender with the omega in your lap back there?”

Her eyes dart down to the omega.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” I grumble.

“Nope,” she giggles as she flips back around in her seat. “You don’t.”

25

VALENTINA

This entire estate is like a horror movie set. Everything so perfectly preserved. Untouched.

Like the budget ran out on a B-movie mid-set and everyone walked away. Everything left in the middle of a paranormal crime scene, with a jump scare ready to pop out at any moment.

That’s what made the burner phone so easy to see in my bedroom. It was the only thing in the room that wasn’t exactly where I left it the night that I walked out at sixteen.

I search the rest of the house, hoping that Viktor and the others are having better luck tracking down the omegas. There’s no one here. The place is a morgue.

Wait—

A sound. Coming from the drawing room. The room my mother used to like to hole up in with her gin bottle and a book she never read. The book was for my benefit. To make it look like simply “reading with a cocktail,” a normal recreational adult activity. More passable than drinking yourself into a grief-stricken stupor.

It’s one of my least favourite places in the house. Second only to that fucking hallway.

My hand touches Mercy’s cool steel. Just in case.

No getting trigger happy. I don’t want to accidentally hurt an omega, and I wouldn’t put it past my stepfather to rig some sort of sick trick inside this funhouse.

The door is open, and someone is in there. I hear them tapping their finger softly against a surface. Not advertising their presence, but not masking it either.

Interesting.