my chest and slowly spread outwards. Empty. That’s how I felt inside. I stared at the tiny mark on the underside of my arm, then turned my head to the small, empty house I’d once known.
Lenny was dead.
Walker was in trouble.
My Wolves were in hiding.
Those pains cut deeper across my chest, and that deep Unseelie green flared to life. I rubbed the ache in my chest and glanced at the movement in the rear-view mirror as it caught my eye. A van, white, unmarked. My stomach sank. I knew who it was.
“Just can’t leave me alone, can you?” I clenched my grip around the steering wheel as more movement came from the other side of the street.
I jerked my gaze toward it as a Wolf slunk out from the shadows beside the neat colonial’s fence, the silver shine of his eyes glinting as he glared at me.
“Sonofabitch,” I growled as another stepped out on the other side of the house.
In the space of a heartbeat, more stepped out, silver eyes gleaming as they watched me from across the street, their black lips curled and their white teeth exposed. My hands trembled as I yanked the door open and stepped out.
One jerk of my gaze behind me, and the white van still sat there. There was no way he didn’t see them. No way this outright call to war hadn’t gone unnoticed. There had to be at least five of them, stepping out from between the houses before they all lifted their gazes to the house behind me.
My blood ran cold. Heather. It was a threat…a goddamn threat.
“Fuck you!” I screamed and stumbled across the street. “Fuck you…you pieces of shit!”
The door opened behind me. “Carina?” Heather called.
I whipped my gaze over my shoulder, to find her standing in the doorway. “Get back inside, Heather!”
Her brow furrowed as concerned filled her gaze. “Honey, is everything alright?”
I jerked my gaze back to where the Wolves stood on the other side of the street. But they were gone…all of them. A tortured sound tore free as I lunged across the street, only to find the Wolves gone.
It was a threat. A warning.
They were coming for me…and everyone I loved. I swiveled and crossed back to the driver’s door of my car.
“Carina,” Heather called as I yanked open the door, my thoughts a chaotic storm.
“You need to leave this place, Heather. Leave, go somewhere safe. I’m sorry I led them to you…I’m so sorry.”
I was shaking as I slipped back behind the steering wheel and started the engine. My fingers danced on the wheel until I clenched them tightly around it. My phone started again, the constant vibration rattling against the door and further fraying my nerves.
I had to get out of here.
Had to find somewhere safe.
Somewhere I wasn’t backed into a corner.
Somewhere I wasn’t a goddamn liability to everyone around me.
“Gotta get out of here,” I whimpered and glanced again at the mark on my arm, then I shoved the car into gear and swung the wheel, turning around, back the way I’d come.
The white van followed, just as I knew it would. I tracked the movement in the mirror, replaying the outright threat of the Wolves as they’d watched Heather’s home. “I can’t let this happen…not again.”
I lifted my gaze to the setting sun and slammed my fist against the wheel. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you.”
I glanced at the rear-view mirror, watching the van make turn after turn behind me. An ache flared across my chest, like a knife carving deep. I was coming apart at the seams, unraveling, desperately searching for a way out of this mess.
I didn’t know where I was driving…until I came to the shopping center down from the warehouse. The same place I’d given Arran the slip. Desperation made me turn the wheel and pull into the parking lot. I nosed into a parking space and reached across the seat, snatching Lenny’s letter before I was out the door, hitting the lock as I went.
Costello…did this.
The words resounded in my head as I rushed toward the entrance to the shopping center. I caught a glimpse of the van, but I was already gone, sinking into the crowd with Lenny’s words ringing inside my head. Costello…Costello…Costello…did this.
You should’ve let me take care of her, Chaos whispered low and dangerous in my head.
I winced at the sinister sound and closed my eyes, trying not to let her claws sink in deep.
But Ruth had played me for a goddamn