There’s a beat of silence, and I look up to find everyone else exchanging meaningful glances, a silent conversation I’m not privy to. But it doesn’t take long for Cross to look at me with a soft smile.
“Not tonight, honey. I’ve got this. You should go get some rest. It’s been a long day,” he says warmly.
My eyes go wide and I look to Bones automatically, my heart kicking hard in my chest. But, as a second surprise in the last hour, Bones locks eyes with me over his mask and nods.
“Go sleep. You look exhausted,” he says simply, not a command but definitely more than a suggestion.
“Yes, Alpha,” I mutter, dropping my gaze and scurrying out of the med bay back toward the house.
I don’t stop to figure out if anyone follows me, heading right down the hallway toward the spare room, my room. I don’t turn on the lights after I close the door,preferring the darkness. I navigate the carefully arranged path toward the back of the room before I curl up in my pathetic attempt at a nest and pull the thin blanket up over my head. The way I have everything arranged allows me to fully blend in with the rest of the scraps and rags I’ve managed to gather, something that’s allowed me to hide from this team more than once since I came to be here. And when I close my eyes, I’m pulled under into unconsciousness almost immediately.
The smell of cedar and my pack fills my nose as I fold the laundry, still warm in my hands. A breeze brings in the sound of Isaac’s radio through the open kitchen window from the driveway, along with the occasional cuss word. He’s working on his latest pet project while we wait for Roman and Alex to come home from work for the weekend. It’s going to be a rare two days where we’re all together with nothing else to interrupt.
Car tires in the driveway pull my head up, a small smile lifting the corners of my lips. I set the towel back in the basket before getting to my feet to check the front window. But before I can get there, I hear shouting from the driveway.
“We told you not to come here unannounced—”
A sharp, phantom pain cuts through my head, distracting me from whatever Isaac said. I hiss and stumble backward, landing hard on my ass in front of the door. There’s another voice, but it’s like I’m hearing it from the other end of a pipe full of water.
“After the stunt you pulled, you’re damn lucky we don’t call the cops,” Isaac shouts, voice closer this time.
A response from the other person outside, just as undecipherable as before. My head pounds, my heart races. Something is wrong, desperately wrong. I need to get out there. To stop…something? Why can’t I remember?
But, before I can figure it out, the door bursts open.
I lookup from the floor to a face I’ve only seen in my worst nightmares, one pulled from the depths of my subconscious against my will.Hisface.
My throat refuses to work as I scramble backward, but my hands slip on something warm and sticky. When I pull my hand up, it’s covered in blood. I’m sitting in a pool of blood, still warm as it soaks through my clothes.
“I told you to forget my face, little rabbit. But you were always the brat, weren’t you?”
The voice is clear now, a tenor rasp that makes my blood freeze in my veins. I can’t move as he stalks toward me, pulling up his dark jeans as he crouches to be eye level with me.
“I’m gonna have to teach you a lesson again, aren’t I? And we’ll make sure this one sticks for good.”
My voice finally comes loose, and I let out a blood-curdling scream of pure terror, not stopping until my voice fails me.
Chapter thirty-seven
Theotherschatteraroundme, trying to figure out ways around the encryption set up in Delilah’s chip. My stomach roils, and I rub the scar on my forearm, trying not to fall back into my memories. But something in my gut isn’t sitting right, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.
“All I’m saying is that you couldn’t possibly put an explosive powerful enough to do lasting damage into something that small,” Joker is saying when I tune back into the conversation.
“And I said no. It’s pressed right against the brain stem. A BB gun pellet fired at that spot could kill someone,” Cross answers back, a slight growl to the edgeof his voice.
“So what? We’re just gonna leave that thing in Lilah’s neck? What if the fucker shows up again?” Joker asks, nearly shouting in his indignation.
“Until we get the tracker’s data, yes,” Phantom says before Cross can answer.
I turn on my heel, unable to stay still any longer and head back toward the house. My instincts are going haywire, and they don’t care how many cameras and security measures we’ve got set up around this base. I need to secure the perimeter myself.
I walk around the outside of the house, checking for anything that the intruder might have left behind. A trace of a scent, a scrap of his clothes, anything that could help us find who this fucker is and teach him the lesson he deserves. But of course, it’s been hours since he was here, and whatever traces he might have left are long gone. But I check the digital tripwire system, finding it functional but offline. I curse under my breath, following the line around toward the house, checking all the connections. Nothing looks disturbed or tampered with, which means we just forgot to turn it on when we returned from the mission.
Sloppy. I was sloppy and it could have gotten us killed.
I enter the house through the front door, taking a few steps toward the stairs to the loft, ready to check the system for anything else that’s been turned off, but stop dead when a soft whimper reaches my ears. I straighten and whip my head around toward the bedroom hallway, sniffing the air. Everything is so clean that hardly any scents linger in the air, which would normally bother me. But right now, it lets Delilah’s scent drift untainted down the hallway.
Ash, burning flowers, soured, rotted fruits. Something’s wrong.