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Her bold silver hues met mine, and a tempered smile rose to her lips. Even in the midst of all that had happened, further away from her pride of smilodon than ever before, she remained a refreshing light in all this darkness, one I could only hope didn’t flicker out.
Jacinda may have been full supe, but the circumstance of her birth, the constant raping by the vilest of beasts and copious amounts of drugs her mother ingested, had stunted her severely.
Born a runt, the only thing that saved her from immediate execution was her uncle being the sovereign of Equinox, the fall region. His coming to her aide once learning of her existence spared her life.
Sadly, all the title and status in the world couldn’t mend her inability to shift, her small stature, or the fact that she was almost entirely mute.
His close friendship with my father had him sending the shy girl to us for better protection until she was of age.
I’d been compelled to befriend her even with the seven-year gap between us. That was four years ago now, and she had come so far just for sickness to lay claim upon her like a thief in the middle of the night.
“Are we ready?” Scarlett’s voice poured in through the open door.
Taking one last glance around the shack, with its warped walls and sunken floor, I nodded. There wasn’t anything left for us in this place.
~2~
The short journey was an extraneous one.
Having to avoid all main roads meant taking seldom traveled paths full of overgrowth and uneven terrain.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I questioned Toby, tone laced with suspicion.
“It’s just over the hill, I promise. We had to choose a road the rig could travel down.”
“Wha—?” I reached for the nearest tree to stop myself from falling.
A thin, toned arm slipped around my middle before I could grasp bark, keeping me upright.
“Thank you,” I said to him on a heavy breath.
“That’s why I stay close; to always catch you if you fall.”
An awkward silence engulfed our group after that statement. Had he been his usual playful self, I’d have thought nothing of it, but he’d been saying painfully cliché things like this since we left the shack.
Lifting my braid from the back of my sticky neck, I breathed in the smell of dirty lycan, musk, and chilled air, taking a step away from him.
“What rig?” I asked after a clearing of my throat.
“The one that’s going to take you to Purgatory.”
“Oh.”
Just as he claimed, when we reached the top of the hill, I could already make out the massive truck used to transport prisoners and demis. It was a large vehicle, about seventy to eighty feet long.
Where the driver sat was enclosed, but the rest of the rig consisted of a trailer, small spaces between boxes making it completely open.
“Will she be okay back there?” I asked, concerned the air would be too much coupled with Jacinda’s ongoing health issue.
“I’ll be fine,” she signed to me before he could answer.
“I’ve got some burlap to help,” Keith said, helping her make her way down the steep hill.
With a frown, I surveyed our lack of belongings.
“Well, unless you’re hiding it in a certain cavity, where is it?” Scarlett inquired.
He didn’t respond until we were at the rig. I looked the large vehicle up and down, noting it was covered in a thin layer of frost as if it had been sitting here empty for some time, lacking any sign of life or activity, not excluding a driver.
I searched for Toby, who had disappeared to the other side of the rig. “Where is the transporter?”
“Right here,” he answered, appearing in a khaki uniform, muffler, and worn hat that he’d been without just minutes ago.
“You…what have you done?” I glared at him, now making sense of all his strange phrases on our way here.
“Did you think I would let you go into that region alone and remain trapped outside? I needed a way in, and this was an easy solution.”
I drew in a breath, releasing it before speaking. “What happened to the supe this truck belongs to, Toby?”
“Come on, Duvessa. It’s not as if anyone will miss him. He was a scum demi who drove the rest of your kind straight to hell.”
I clenched my jaw and turned away.
I was far from a saint, and I had my share of immoral faults, but I couldn’t condone cold-blooded murder of one of my own, no matter how despicable they were.
“So you have a plan?” Scarlett asked him.
“Course I do. I made him explain the process three times.”
Shoving aside my personal feelings, I turned back to where he stood, questioning him with my eyes.
Understanding, he bent down and reached for something secured beneath the rig, standing again with a chain in his hands.
