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I open my mouth to call her out on her bullshit, but the sound of sirens filters through to me in the night air. Jackson whips his head toward Mrs. Benson. “You called the cops?”
She shrugs. “I warned you what would happen if you set foot in this house without my consent.” One pale, wrinkled hand waves in the air between us. “And here you all are.”
Topher moves closer to the door, shifting from foot to foot. “We need to go.”
Swearing, I spin back to the bed, scooping up the clothing, pictures and her promise ring, before following everyone down the stairs and out the front door. We run around the house and into the woods, taking the path that we’ve worn through the years, until we reach the little cabin. Our little cabin. Sylvie’s.
We slam through the front door, all of us breathing heavily from exertion. The run itself was not all that taxing, but discovering Vee’s been gone for a week? Yeah, that’s enough to make all our hearts pound a little harder, our breaths come faster.
There’s silence when the door clicks behind us. None of us are sure what to do. Jackson stands by the unlit fireplace, his gaze blank. He looks as lost as I feel.
Davis paces nearby, running his hands through his hair, tugging the strands and muttering to himself. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but then I’m not trying all that hard.
Asher collapses on the couch, elbows braced on his knees, silky black hair falling forward to cover his face as he tips his head toward the floor.
Topher moves to the bar, pours drinks for all of us, then seems to second guess the move, brown eyes flicking up to all of us, a furrow between his brows.
And I’m just standing here. Clutching a bundle of clothes and photos, Vee’s promise ring in my clenched fist.
Davis spins, looking frantic and feral. “We need to find her. We need…” He lunges toward the bedroom and returns a moment later with his laptop in his hands. “I’ll track her phone. We can find her that way.”
A moment of hope bubbles in my stomach, before Jackson’s rough voice shatters it. “Her phone was on the bedside table in her bedroom.”
The laptop clatters to the ground.
“Fuck,” Topher mutters, tossing back one of the drinks he poured.
“What do we do?” Asher asks, head still tilted toward the floor. “How do we find her?”
The rest of us look at Jackson, still staring blankly at the empty fireplace. He’s our prime even if we haven’t formally formed a pack. He’s our leader, the oldest of us, the strongest. He’s supposed to have a plan.
“Jackson,” I bark at him, arms squeezing around the clothes that smell faintly of us, faintly of Vee. “What the fuck do we do?”
He shakes his head, one hand coming up to brace on the mantel, head dipping down just like Asher’s. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”
I stare at him. Anger bubbling up again. “How can you not fucking know? This was your plan. Your idea. You have to know what we do next.”
His head snaps up. “Well, I fucking don’t,” he snarls. “She wasn’t supposed to run. She was supposed to trust us. To wait for us.”
Asher lets out a humorless laugh. “Put yourself in her shoes, Jacks. She’s grown up being told she’s not good enough by her only remaining family member and everyone else but us. She knew we were keeping something from her. Fuck. She kept asking about it.”
I frown at him. I don’t recall Vee asking about that, but then she knows I’m not really one to keep secrets from her and I’m not a schemer. Not like Jackson. So maybe it didn’t occur to her I would know.
Jackson twists his head to look at him. “She did?”
Asher all but rolls his eyes. “I told you she was. I also told you we needed to give her some kind of heads up. You didn’t listen.”
Our prime’s eyes narrow, his anger thick in the air, but then it disappears in a slump of his shoulders. “I didn’t want her to worry. It’s my job to protect her from shit like this. That’s what prime alphas do.” We’d known something like this was coming for a while, but Jackson was sure he could sway his father from demanding we pick an omega.
Especially since most packs don’t start looking for an omega until they’re older, settled. But Maxim’s reasoning is that Jackson and Davis will inherit enough money to provide a lavish life for their omega, so there’s no reason not to settle down now.
And he’s never liked Vee.
Something about her mother. But he’s never told us.
I drop the clothes and the pictures onto the couch before approaching Jackson. I hold out my fisted hand. He eyes it uncertainly, before hesitantly holding his palm under mine. It takes every ounce of self control I have to uncurl my fingers. But I do it. The promise ring drops into his hand, and he damn near flinches back when he realizes what I gave him.
“If she doesn’t come back,” I growl out, a low rumble that I’m sure Topher struggles to make out. “It’s your fault. And I won’t ever forgive you.”
