Warden shoves a small bag at me, breaking me from my thoughts. It’s labeled with my inmate number, and I suddenly realize that they’re not even going to let me get my belongings from my cell because someone already did.
“Am I going to get to say goodbye to…” I trail off to keep from letting Rook’s name slip out of my stunned lips.
The Warden gives a humorless snort. “Anyone you think cares about you in there will have forgotten you in a month,” he declares callously as he opens his door. “The logs say you came in wearing jail-issued clothes. You can leave wearing what you have on now. Consider it my parting gift.”
Oh, gee. Thanks.
“Follow me, inmate,” he barks, and I jerk at his yell and robotically fall into place right behind him.
How is this happening? I just came up with a new plan, and it was going to work...but now this. Why is the universe fucking with me? How can they just shove me out of the gates without warning?
I’m terrified, irritated, and hoping somehow that Rook will round a corner and see what’s going on. What will he do when I’m just suddenly not here? I shake those thoughts away and square my shoulders. I have bigger things to worry about than Rook. We were always doomed, and my leaving doesn’t change that.
All too soon, I’m outside the prison. It’s just as gloomy and creepy as I remember. I have to practically jog to keep up with the Warden’s steps, and my bag bounces against my thigh as the cuff he forced on me starts to chafe my ankle. My bag definitely isn’t heavy enough to contain what’s left of my rock collection, so I know they didn’t give me all my stuff. I’m going to have to add the pretty stones to the list of things I’ll mourn when I’m gone from here.
It seems like it takes way less time to cross the familiar creepy yard than when I came in, but the gates look just as daunting and foreboding on this side as they did when I first arrived and stared at them from the other side.
When they open on a loud creak, I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t want to walk through them yet. Reality and everything I have to face—everything I’ve been running from—is now slamming into me.
I look behind me, like somehow Rook will hear my thoughts and come running out, but I remind myself that he’s not the knight in shining armor type, and I turn to face forward. I’m on my own.
Before I can even take a step, the Warden shoves me. Hard. I stumble forward and struggle to keep my feet under me.
“Get the fuck out,” he snarls and slams the gates behind me, cutting me off from the safety and security I worked so hard to acquire in the first place. My plans crumble all around me, and I’m left alone and vulnerable.
I look around, noting the missing element here. “Wait, where’s my portal to get me out of here?”
“What makes you think you deserve a portal?” he grins.
I blink at him, worry dragging up my spine at the ominous landscape around me. “But...I don’t even know where the fuck I am. Can’t I even get a phone call?” I beg from the other side, but the Warden’s eyes just gleam with sick satisfaction as he stares into my pleading eyes.
“Good luck out there, Miss Denali,” he taunts. “Oh, and I forgot to mention, a condition of your parole is that you can’t shift.” He gives my anklet a pointed look, and ice-cold panic explodes inside of me with his words.
My wide eyes shoot from my anklet and back to his cruel face. “You can’t do that!” I exclaim, his words like a kick to the gut.
How the fuck am I supposed to defend myself without being able to shift? How am I supposed to challenge my mat and claim my lounge? I can’t survive in the outside world without my beast—it’s too cutthroat and brutal. I can’t even make it out of...wherever the hell I am right now without my ability to shift and fly away from here. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.
I stare at the Warden and the twinkle in his eyes. He just signed my death certificate and he knows it.
I drop my bag and rush up at the gate. I’m not dumb enough to touch it, not with the