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Chapter 7

Flashback

Everyone froze trying to figure out what was happening and a moment later that felt like hours everyone scrambled at once.

Plates clanged to the floor, tabled and benches were flipped as everyone rushed to the exits. I didn’t understand what we were running from or running towards.

I felt rooted to the ground, all of my extensive training left me, and I couldn’t remember anything or feel anything besides blank panic.

“Simone, with me.” One of my friend's moms grabbed my hand and whisked me out, we fought through a throng of people the air suffocating until we reached outside. I took a deep breath of the cool air, but it did nothing to stop the fear that felt fiery coursing through me.

Mom, Dad - I tried to link them both, but I couldn’t reach them.

They might still be in my dad's office.

Screams sounded from all around us and my friend's mom dropped my hand as her daughter was dragged through the crowd by a wolf. Her scream was like nothing I’d heard before, anger and undiluted sorrow pierced the sky with her voice.

I felt sick, my stomach rolled, my heartbeat pounded in my chest, and my ears were ringing blocking out all the screams, so many screams.

I fought a sob, I had to get to my parents. An ache consumed me, and I thought of nothing else but seeing them again.

I would be safe with them.

Amongst the chaos I fled along with the others that were still - that were still alive.

I rushed through the closest door that was thrown off the handle and ran to my dad's office.

My brain couldn’t comprehend the snarls, the pleas, the screams, and the sounds of the dying that were loud even back inside the packhouse.

Nothing made sense, I couldn’t process anything that was happening. I couldn’t feel anything but sharp consuming fear and the yearning to get to my parents.

My lungs were protesting at my speed, but I didn’t stop, I couldn’t stop until I found them until I was safe in their arms, and this was all over.

I halted and grasped the wall next to me, a silent sob choking out as I took in my dad's Gamma Drew lying in his own blood outside the office. His hand was outstretched to his mate, reaching for her even in his last moments of life.

She lay near him, her wide-open eyes staring at the ceiling, as blood still trickled from the wound in her neck.

I stepped over Drew on shaky legs, forcing myself to not look, and pushed open the door that was already ajar. I knew what I would find, I felt it in me before I saw it.

Blackness consumed me.

When I awoke, I was thrown into a cold, drafty room, a dungeon probably.

A light flickered on, no a fire. I could barely tilt my head in the direction of the soft light that crackled and popped, angering me for a reason I couldn’t place.

Someone said something, and it didn’t register. I swayed again, craving the blackness but my back hit something hard, wooden.

The door was shut behind me, and I don’t know how long I sat there. Eventually, I must have forced myself up and turned to the bed behind me.

I found myself tumbling into or onto it. I wasn’t sure, my feet stopped doing what I willed them. My beautiful blue dress was blood-stained, along with the rest of me.

I prayed to anything left out there, anything that cared, that I could fall asleep and never wake up.

PRESENT DAY

I forced myself to keep my eyes closed even as the memories swirled behind my shut lids. I evened my breathing which felt unnatural against the adrenaline pumping through me. I adjusted myself in bed, so I was lying on my back, but faced the door.

Soft footsteps sounded outside my door, a pause, and then my door creaked open, letting in a soft light that flickered across my shut lids. Another pause and then a few footsteps toward my bed before they turned and closed the door behind them.

A small smile played on my lips; someone was checking on me, making sure that I was safe from the threat.

What they didn’t know was that I had been the one behind the disappearances, that I was behind that Alpha son’s murder.

And that one day, very soon, I would kill them all.

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