A woman hauled me out of the car and carried me to the elevator. It wasn’t Sutton. This woman was taller and stronger.
Elise.
The elevator arrived.
She carried me down a hallway. Some part of me recognized the tile.
Someone typed a code. The door on the silver cage swung open, and the woman set me down carefully on a pile of pillows and blankets in the center of the same cell I’d occupied the first time I was in the Alpha’s prison.
They didn’t smell like vanilla.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Maybe it was, in some way.
Whoever I’d been that day was long gone.
I pulled the hood of Maverick’s sweatshirt over my head and curled in on myself, trying to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks.
Elise closed the door with her foot.I didn’t ask her where Maverick was, but she told me anyway.
“The Beta asked us not to tell the Alpha what’s going on until after the challenges. If he leaves the estate now, whatever pack tried to kill you will likely make another move.”
“Don’t let him drive here. He’s in bad shape after the fights.” I didn’t recognize my voice. The hoarse whisper was too neutral. Too numb.
The woman didn’t reply immediately. When she did, she said quietly, “You and Rhone are the only ones who can stop him from doing anything he puts his mind to.”
I didn’t respond.
I didn’t have the energy or the strength to put any more words together. I’d spent the last few days in complete control for Harper and Maverick, and it was gone now.
I’d lost them both anyway.
A door slammed.
“What the fuck were you thinking, keeping this from us?” Rhone snarled as he stepped into the room.
I wondered vaguely if the cage was for the wolves’ protection, or mine.
“You guys kill turned vampires, and I was trying to save her.” My voice sounded as hollow as my chest felt. “She didn’t want this. No one wanted this.”
I registered the smell of burning skin. His hands, on the bars.
“We wouldn’t have killed your best friend, Bloom.”
I didn’t believe him.
It didn’t matter anyway, because she was already gone.
Tears kept coming.
I kept shaking.
At some point, he left the room.
I hoped my body would shut down completely to give me a break, but it didn’t.
So I just.
