Chapter One
Em watched her phonelike it was a snake.She looked up, saw the group in front of her, and smiled.“Okay.Ready for this?”
The ladies grinned and nodded, all dressed as the new character they wanted to introduce toRiot Magic.The opal-coloured mage was a neat design and easy to cosplay as.She was also easy to dance as.
Tiffany looked at her urgently.“You can still join us.We can get you dressed.”
Em smiled.“No, I can’t be recorded.Augusta wouldn’t like it.”
Tiff sighed.“Right.And her alphas would give you hell if she so much as wrinkled her nose.”
“Yup.So, I wrote the choreography and get to see twenty of my buddies dance.This is going to be fun.”
They watched the previous team doing their thing in the open air, and they sighed.Every dance so far was to the theme song of the game.Em had chosen the song from the cut scenes on level one hundred.
She stood, waiting for her friends to get the call, and when they walked onto the stage, her phone started to vibrate wildly.For the first time in years, she ignored it.This was more important than Augusta’s eyeliner.
She watched the choreography, the dance, the crowd that pressed toward the ladies and gentlemen in demure tunics edged with amazing embroidery.Em was pleased with that.Inside her pocket, her phone buzzed nearly constantly, but she was making a choice, putting her foot down.Her sister and her pack couldn’t take the joy of this moment from her.She had built this.This was art.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Em listened to her breathing rattling in her lungs as the person who had found her spoke in a softly concerned tone, holding one unbruised part of Em’s wrist.
She was held in that one spot as sirens and lights appeared, and her family poured out of the house.At the same time the police arrived, she heard her sister and the alphas exclaiming that she must have fallen.
She heard someone, saw a flashlight, and they traced her blood trail back to the house, the open tiny window, marks of the beating in the room, the blood spatter on the walls, and everything else.She smiled.It was a grim smile.
A medic was next to her, and he asked.“Are you smiling?”
She whispered in his ear, and he made notes.Photographs were being taken, and the neighbours who had heard the shouting and screams were all out.
Em was stabilized, they found a place to put a line in, and she was lifted into the ambulance on a stretcher.The medic asked her to stay awake, and she nodded as the vehicle shrieked and whined as it drove away, sounding like a goose going to war.
She smiled slightly and stayed awake.She always did what was asked of her.It was her thing.
They asked her about allergies, asked if they knew who had done this, and she had whispered the response.“The pack.It was pack discipline.”
“You are a pack member?”
“No.My sister is their omega.She’s crazy and makes them crazy.”
“What happened?”
“My sister messed up her makeup.She needed me to fix it.I delayed answering her call.She got mad, so they got mad.”She was mumbling, but the EMT seemed to understand because he repeated everything back to her.
They kept hold of that one spot on her wrist, and she whispered one thing as they started to slow.“Can someone notify the book club?They have been waiting for this.”
The medic nodded.“I will make that call.You are about to make a lot of friends.”
She chuckled.“That would be a change.”
He smiled and nodded.The door was opened, and the driver got out to unlatch the gurney and haul her out of there.Lights stung her eyes, and she felt tears seeping while her nerves screamed in pain.
The nurses and doctors were getting information from the guys who had brought her in, and she started to relax.When people started shouting and moving her faster, Em began to think she may have over-relaxed.Things went dark again, but it was a relief from the lights.
Waking up again was hard.Pain radiated through her chest, and there was something in her throat.She started clawing at it, and nurses came in, held her down, and removed the tube from her mouth as she coughed and gagged.
When she had been checked, her vitals confirmed, and her pupil response verified, she was left for a moment with the doctor on the way.
