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I slipped the damned cell phone into my bra and dressed in fresh leggings and a black hoodie of Brennan's. I checked the time once more. I had to get us out of here before Cole took his post outside my door, watching over me. Karissa would assume we’d gone to sleep, or at least that I was hiding in my room because I didn’t want to see Stone, and she would tell the others.
It was time to run.
The horrible memories of the time I’d run from Nathan rose in my mind like ghosts, whispering panic into my blood. The way I’d fastened Dylan’s car seat straps with shaking hands. Nathan’s headlights blinding me the second before he accelerated into the back of our car. The look on his face before he sideswiped me. Dylan screaming in terror.
I made myself smile. “Time to turn off Bluey and play our game!”
I convinced Dylan to sneak out of the house with me. I turned the lock before I pulled the door shut quietly between us, sealing us out. It would be hard to explain what we were doing now.
The two of us made our way quietly out, slipping down the back stairs while I heard Karissa talking in the entryway with Cole. We made it out the back door, leaving behind the bright lights of the house for the darkness of the yard. The creek’s cheerful noises felt jarring and wrong as we hurried over the little bridge and into the depth of the forest.
Dylan clung to my hand. “When does the game start?”
“It’s already starting. We have to make it to the bridge before anyone else. Listen to me, let me tell you how to get there so you can win even if we get separated!” I tried to tell him how to get to the bridge, but it was impossible to tell how well Dylan was listening at the best of times. Four-year-olds are impossible. It made me want to shake him, but if things went wrong…
“I love you so much honey,” I told him, my vision blurring. I’d done this before, before I got into that car with Nathan, before the King pack kidnapped us. I’d told him messages I hoped he’d remember forever.
“I love you too, Mommy. How much further to the bridge?”
Hope gripped my heart, and I repeated the instructions to him. Then I added, “But that’s just if we get separated! Hopefully we’ll be together the whole way.”
He didn’t answer this time, but his little fingers squeezed my hand tight, as if he were clinging to me. I’d tried to make this into a game, but he’d known too much fear for a four-year-old. I wasn’t sure if he entirely believed me.
Together, the two of us plunged into the darkness.
CHAPTER50
Stone
Karissa triedto block the door to my own damn house yet again.
“Where’s Amelia?” I demanded.
She crossed her arms and stared up at me belligerently. No one did belligerent like my sister.
“What are you thinking?” she demanded. “You couldn’t deal with Hunter quietly? You had to terrify her?”
“She has no reason to be terrified if she’s not guilty.”
“You are so—”
“Enough.” I let my alpha growl rise through the words, and Karissa flinched just for a second before she raised her accusatory pointer finger once again. “Amelia isn’t the helpless little lost wolf you think she is. She’s a strong, clever woman, and she’s manipulating you.”
“Stone,” she began, but I wasn’t listening. I slipped past her and headed up the stairs.
Brennan’s door was closed.
I tried the knob. It was locked.
“She went to bed,” Karissa said. “She’s traumatized by seeing what you did. I mean, she just escaped this alpha—”
“The Longroad pack was finding out all the details about her life here, about where she might be vulnerable,” I cut in. “There’s something going on. Something Shaw and Tee didn’t uncover.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded.
I pulled Hunter’s phone in its baggie out of my pocket and passed it to her.
Karissa opened the text messages, her fingers clumsy through the plastic. “Tell me what I’m looking for?”
