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“Hey, Annie, I wanted to see you before you went on your delivery run.”
She looks up, and her face falls. “No.”
“It’s time. I’m going to miss you.”
She rushes around and hugs me. “Can’t you stay? Have dinner with us?”
“No, I need to be back in the city by dark.”
“But…but…”
I hug her back and lean my lips close to her ear. “Don't tell them I’m leaving. Let’s make this as easy as possible.”
She sniffles and nods. I know she’ll be on the road to the manor to shout at them before I even get two minutes up the road.
Now, I just need to sit back and see if the bait I’m jiggling brings in the big one.
I park my car off the road on one of the emergency slip lanes, hiding it in the bushes, and then hike my way back around. My eyes track Annie as she drives into the manor, and I wait. I put my hand in my pocket and finger the cold steel. It’s been in a lockbox in a hidden compartment in my car since I left the city. Bought it when I was twenty. It’s as comfortable in my hand as my favourite pen. My fingers work to screw the silencer on as I watch Annie wave her arms around and shout at the pack.
I don’t even feel sorry for them. It’s nice having someone on my side. I just wish I could hear what she’s saying.
Taylor appears in my mind. “I’m betting on you.” What did he mean by that? The words have haunted me. What sounded like a plea when he said it has transformed in my head, become a challenge, a dare.
One that I’ve risen to answer.
I smile grimly and hope the crazy bastard of an alpha is right.
Because this gamble could get very scary.
Be the wolf, Scarlet.
thirty
Jet
I watch from the treeline as she packs her car. All her belongings are in that vehicle. She’s leaving us. I don’t blame her. It’s been three weeks. Excruciatingly painful, awful weeks. She’s finally leaving.
Nothing’s the same without her.
But we haven’t given up. Every day, we search. Every day, we try to find an answer that will rid our lives of that evil omega.
We haven’t seen her. Not a glimpse. But we find the notes. We catch her scent. We close in around Barren. We hear her in the house. Her laughter on the first floor at midnight. Her perfume in the nest. Her words written on mirrors in private bathrooms. The fire has scared the ever living fuck out of me.
We’re going insane. Taylor has reached a dangerous level of scary. He’s all but stopped sleeping and just patrols endlessly. Gold needs to be peeled from Barren’s side just to give our poor omega some space. Barren has shut down. When I do catch the bond, it’s so full of pain and longing that it brings me to my knees where I wait until it doesn’t feel like my chest is an open wound and I can’t breathe. Acton has retreated deep inside of himself, another patrolling insomniac, and I’ve stopped trying. I have no words to make this better, nothing to ease the ache.
I want her back.
I’m in love with Scarlet. I think I fell the moment I saw her. But our entire pack has fallen head over heels. If I doubted it before, these three weeks have cemented it. She is the cure to our broken selves. Our light, our happy, our safe. We need her, far more than she needs us.
Scarlet pauses, looking around as if she can feel me, and I duck behind a tree, my heart pounding. Don’t see me, I’ll break. I don’t have the ability to lie to you anymore, beautiful Scarlet.
I’m glad she’s going. The further away she is, the safer she’s going to be. Merry is insane, and Art is devoted to her. The obscene letters we’ve received explaining exactly what she’s going to do to Scarlet made me throw up. Detailed, violet, gory depictions of rape, mutilation, and murder.
Thank God, she’s finally leaving.
And still, I almost call out, I almost stop her. It would be so easy. I could make us all happy again. Metallic taste fills my mouth, but I don’t let my mouth open, I don’t dare.
Then I remember Merry’s eyes and see Barren covered in blood. His breathing broken by gasps as he struggled to suck in air, as he drowned in his own blood. Hooked up to a machine in the hospital in an induced coma. I see Gold, with those self-inflicted wounds on his throat and wrists as he tried to break free to save his omega. The screaming through the bond and then in the air. Gold screaming, over and over. I can’t get those sounds out of my ears.
