Sin snorted as we watched her cram her heavy keyring into the pencil case, and force the zipper closed. I was surprisedshe’d managed to get through the process without having them confiscated, but apparently the presence of two omegas had sent all protocol out of the window.
“Do you need one?” Shatter asked, peering at Sin, who was beside me in the back row of seats. “I have extras.”
“I’m fine, but thank you,” he said. He returned to anxiously staring out of the back window, but I caught what I thought might be a pleased smile on his face.
He’d always kicked back at being too obviously associated with the title of ‘omega’ in Anarchy. Perhaps because he’d always known it wasn’t right, or maybe it was a matter of survival, but I wondered if out here, he might not be as rigid about the association.
“They can get you I.Ds and all that,” Shatter was saying. “They’re great at that.”
I forced myself to focus on that. “Wherever we end up, it’s got to be as far from the Institute as possible,” I said.
“Already getting it sorted,” Ransom said from beside her.
“Know all about that.” Dusk added. “They wanted usdead,dead for what we knew. We’re experts on keeping out of the Institute's sights.”
Umbra, up in the front passenger seat, nodded, eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “Did it foryears.”
This pack had been a Hail Mary—the most recent attachment any of us had to the outside, aside from Crescent—but they might just be exactly what we needed. They knew what it meant to be used by the Institute and then tossed aside.
Those experiments that haunted me had been one story, Anarchy another—but now I was ready for the next.
That warmth I’d seen radiating from Umbra—an alpha who was impossibly whole despite everything he’d gone through—that was my next story, too.
PHANTOM
The silence was the strangest part.
It was a quiet I had forgotten. Even in the van, I’d felt it like a blanket of snow, as if the absence of something was a presence in itself.
I hadn’t realized until now that the endless howls and screams, the sound of distress from other creatures just like me, were small scratches, constantly reopening a wound I’d had for so long that I didn’t even know it was there.
It felt impossible, though, that I would get used to this quiet.
We arrived at a cabin deep in the woods, a twenty minute drive from the nearest small town. We hadn’t stopped on the way except to grab some fast food, so it felt odd to walk up to the massive, beautiful, wooden A-frame cabin with nothing in my hands at all.
It felt like a vacation home—something you’d approach with a suitcase or bag…
A few errant drops of rain cascaded through the broad canopy of trees above.
“This is yours, if you want it.”
I turned, staring at Ransom with bleary eyes as if I must have misunderstood.
“Ours?” My voice cracked with fatigue.
“We have one not far away,” Umbra added from the van. “Shatter and Dusk are finishing their studies in the city, but we used to live out here full time. Might again soon. But no one comes out here—it’s safe from prying eyes.”
I just stared up at it in blood-stained prison clothes, with nothing to my name but a pack, as Ransom kept speaking, but I couldn’t process all of it.
“…Sort you some new IDs—they won’t take long… anything you need for her nest, there’s a room at the top, a nice sunroom—all good options… five bedrooms in all, and a trail out the back… don’t know if any of you can drive, so we might have to organize something… be around in the next few weeks if you need anything.”
I nodded, though I didn’t pick up much.
Ransom clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll write it down,” he chuckled, then went to help the others.
I still stood, staring blankly, until the scent of ocean storm filtered into my senses.
Karma had joined me. He looked… confused, as he, too, stared at the house.