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I reach the gates and wrap my fingers around the cold metal, puling as hard as I can. Rattling them frantically as my heart hammer and my lungs swell and my body screams with desperation.

I try to climb but there is nothing to hold onto.

I move to the wall and try there. I manage to find a foot hold but it’s not enough.

The dogs are louder now. Closer.

Above, thunder cracks and seconds later a fork of lightning illuminates the night sky. It has been weeks since we had rain. Of course, it would choose to arrive tonight.

I return to the gates. I lift my arms higher so they’re straining, and my shoulders hurt and use every ounce of strength I possess to pull myself up high enough so that I can slot my feet onto the metal bar that sits a couple of feet above the ground. There is another to my right. Too far out of reach to be easy, but I have no other option.

This. This is why I should have tried harder in gym classes at school. This is why I hate my body; I always knew I wouldn’t survive a zombie apocalypse, but it didn’t occur to me that being able to escape vampires was a necessary skill.

I have just managed to move my feet to the next metal bar when it starts to rain. The gates become instantly slick and slippery. My bare feet struggle to keep hold, and my fingers can’t get enough purchase to pull me up any higher.

I am stuck.

I look down at the ground. It is not a big jump. Maybe five feet. But just when I’m contemplating letting myself drop, they appear as if from nowhere – the dogs. Four of them.

They gather at the bottom of the gate, jaws snapping, barking, shining black fur wet from the rain. A fifth appears. Different from the rest. Grey with bright blue eyes.

Why does that dog look familiar?

I turn away and try to adjust my grasp on the gate. I have to keep going. I can’t go back. But the second I reach for the next metal bar, I lose my hold.

And I fall.

My body meets the ground with a force that knocks the breath clean out of my chest. Rain pummels my face. Pain ricochets through me, scraping down my bones, clawing my insides, making my muscles constrict and twist and throb.

I try to move and realize my shoulder is sticking out at a strange angle. Panic rises in my stomach. My vision blurs. Everything is going black. Like it did when I was sitting in my upturned car with my parents’ dead bodies.

The sound of the car radio echoes in my ears. I hear glass breaking, and my parents screaming, and the darkness keeps closing in.

“Do you need a hand?”

I open my eyes. The dogs are quiet, and Trent – Lucien’s security guard – is standing above me smiling.

I blink up at him and I’m about to cry with gratitude when I realize his eyes are bright blue. Like the dog’s.

I turn my head. Now there are only four.

I look back at him. “You’re a werewolf?”

He nods and folds his arms in front of his chest. “You’re injured,” he says, nodding at my shoulder. “You really shouldn’t have tried to escape.”

I try to scramble back, away from him, but he clicks his fingers at the dogs, and they crowd together behind me. “Did you unlock my door?”

Trent tilts his head. “Why would I do that?”

“So, you could be the one to rescue me?” Fury flares in my gut. Is he that desperate for Lucien’s approval? Is he that pathetic?

With a dry laugh, Trent sweeps some rain from his eyes and shakes his head. “I didn’t let you go so I could rescue you, Luna.” He licks his lips.

My bare feet are now covered in mud. My body screams in pain. My shoulder… my shoulder.

“I let you go so I could chase you.”

Chapter 28