I started to shake my head but stopped. “About what?”
“What he would do. What he was capable of.” She winced, her body tensing suddenly before relaxing again. “What he would bring upon my pack.”
Ezra.
Robert Livingstone.
I hung my head, unable to look at her any longer. “No, Alpha. I didn’t know.”
“Because he took that from you.”
“Yes.”
“We’re almost the same. He took everything from you. And he took everything from me. But you’re lucky. Because you got yours back. Why can’t I have mine?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t know why.”
She nodded as if that was the answer she expected. “I heard him. I don’t know how he found us, but he did. He was in the walls. In the ceiling. He was everywhere, and he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t laughing. He sounded sad, Robbie. Like he didn’t want to be doing what he was doing. But he did it anyway. I heard his voice. He said that all this pain, all this suffering wasn’t something he wanted, but it was necessary. And I believed him. I believed him when he said he didn’t want this, but he did it anyway. What kind of person does that make him?”
“A beast,” I whispered.
She said, “Malik died protecting John and Jimmy. I told them to stay back, but it was too much because I couldn’t… I couldn’t hurt them. I couldn’t stop them because I couldn’t hurt them.”
“Who?”
She turned her head slowly to look at me. Her skin was sallow and stretched tight, like she was made of wax. I thought I heard her neck creak. “The children. Brodie. He… something changed in him. Something flipped. He turned on us. But it wasn’t just him. We were in the middle of nowhere. Nebraska. Waiting until we received word that we were safe. We never heard. We never heard.”
Joe growled as he shook his head, lips in a thin line.
Shannon only had eyes for me.
She said, “They came through the fields. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first. I thought there’d been an accident. A bus, maybe. But they didn’t answer me when I asked what was wrong, and there were so many of them. Their eyes were empty, and I had time to shout for my pack. Time to tell them to run, please, just run, but they swarmed. They fell upon me, and I tried to fight back, I tried to stop them, but they were kids.”
Her words were like ghosts dragging their chains as they haunted me. “He’s using the children?”
“Yes. And I begged for them to stop, I pleaded with them to listen, to just listen, that I could help them, that I could keep them safe, but they didn’t hear me. They couldn’t shift, not all the way. But they had their claws. They had their fangs. Just like Brodie.” She moaned, and it sent a chill down my spine. “Brodie. Malik… he was shouting inside the house. I heard him even as they tore into me. Even as his voice came from the fields, telling me this was a warning to all who would stand against him. We weren’t the first. I could feel it when their mouths were on me, biting and tearing. Transference. Like memory. We weren’t their first, and we weren’t going to be their last.”
Oh no. Oh please no. “He’s killing packs?”
Ox swore as he took a step back from the bed. His eyes were fiery, and it looked as if he was barely hanging on.
“Yes,” Shannon whispered. “The ones that took in Omegas. We defied him, and he is making us suffer for it.” Her hand tightened in mine. “I couldn’t hurt them. You have to believe me. I couldn’t hurt them. I couldn’t hurt them because they were only kids. They didn’t know what they were doing. I wish I had. I wish I’d slaughtered them all. Maybe then… maybe my pack would be….” She turned her face toward the ceiling again. “Malik died. John died. Jimmy died. He liked you. Even if you don’t remember him. He talked about you for days. You liked monster movies. It was simple. But it was enough for him.”
Kelly’s hands settled on my shoulders. His presence was soothing.
“I shifted,” Shannon said in a dead voice. “And ran. I left my pack behind and ran because I didn’t know what else to do. He let me go. He knew where I was running to. He knew where I’d go. And he gave me a message. For you. For all of you.”
“Tell me,” Ox said hoarsely.
“He wants what belongs to him,” Shannon whispered. “You’ve taken that which is his, and he wants it back. He won’t stop until this is done. And everything that has happened or will happen… it’ll be on you until you give him what is his. You can’t beat him, Alphas. Not as he is now. Not with all that he has. He has a hold on them, all the little cubs. They aren’t feral. They aren’t hunters. They’re children. And he is using them as weapons. You have to help them. You have to save them. Promise me.”
Spin me! they’d cried as they’d surrounded me in Caswell. Spin me! It’s my turn, Robbie! Spin me!
Was Tony one of them? The little boy with wide eyes and question after question, the little boy who had told me that he didn’t like it when I was sad, that he didn’t like it when I was blue, that he wanted me to be happy. Was I happier when I’d been there before? He’d asked me that behind the house after we’d run together. A secret just between us.
“Ease up,” Kelly whispered harshly in my ear. “You’re going to hurt her more.”
I looked down in horror to see I was squeezing Shannon’s hand so tightly, it was a wonder her bones weren’t splintering. I let her go and fell back, bumping into Kelly’s legs.