Page 3 of Reckless Consequences

“Turn here!” Mona shouts against my shoulder, her voice barely audible over the engine and wind.

I lean into the curve, tires protesting as we leave the highway for a secondary road that winds through dense forest. My muscles remember this—Jinx’s parkour lessons translating to motorcycle control like they’ve always been there. The bike responds to my body the way code responds to precise commands.

A twinge in my side reminds me the virus touched me too—less than Finn, but enough. My scent’s shifted—citrus layered with something warmer. Not quite beta. Not quite omega. My nerves spark like a system glitch.

Mona’s grip around my waist has been steadily weakening, her fingers no longer digging into my ribs. We need to stop soon, but every second we’re exposed is another opportunity for Sterling’s goons to find us.

“Two more miles,” Mona directs, her usual manic energy subdued by blood loss and exhaustion. “Small motel. Left side. Very inconspicuous. Much discretion.”

The pack bond pulses beneath my sternum like a second heartbeat, stretched thin but unbroken. Finn’s presence feels fainter with each mile—a failing connection I’m terrified to lose. The booster medication in my pocket weighs nothing physically but everything emotionally.

The motel Mona directs me to is barely deserving of the name—a horseshoe-shaped relic from the 1950s with a flickering neon sign missing half its letters. VACA CY blinks in uneven rhythm, casting alternating shadows across Mona’s too-pale face.

“Here?” I kill the engine in the shadow of a vending machine. “This place looks like it rents rooms by the hour.”

“Exactly. High turnover. Cash only. No security.” Mona slides off the bike, wincing as the movement pulls at the bandage around her arm. Blood seeps through, creating a spreading crimson stain. “Also, we need to test something.”

My instincts immediately catalog the perimeter—two exit routes, minimal surveillance, vehicles in the lot that haven’t moved in days based on the dust patterns. My eyes track sight lines and camera angles while my nose analyzes for threats—an automatic security sweep that Ryker drilled into me during endless training sessions.

“Test what?” I help her stay upright, noticing how her usually precise movements have deteriorated to something almost human. “Mona, we need to get to the secondary extraction point. The pack?—”

“If I’m right, they’ll come for us,” she interrupts, eyes scanning the perimeter with sharp calculation rather than her usual chaotic energy. “Just us. Not the pack.”

“Alexander,” I realize, the name bitter on my tongue. My hand instinctively moves to the graze on my arm where his bullet passed through—a fraction of an inch difference and neither of us would be standing here. Yet I can’t shake the memory of his expression when I jumped in front of Mona. Not just surprise, but something else—a fragment of hesitation where none should exist.

“You think he’s tracking us specifically.”

“Obviously.” She starts toward the office, her gait uneven. “Familial genetic markers create distinctive tracking patterns.”

The vacancy sign casts sickly red light across her face, transforming her usual pallor into something almost ghostly. For a moment, I see what Alexander must see—another Sterling, brilliant and dangerous, but one who chose to fight rather than obey.

Just like me.

I support Mona to the front office, where a clerk with dead eyes barely glances up from his ancient TV. The flickering blue light hits nicotine-stained fingers as he flips a magazine.

“Room at the back,” I tell him, sliding cash across the counter. “Under the name Garcia.”

“Johnson,” Mona adds immediately. “Very unrelated. Much separate reservation.”

The clerk doesn’t even blink, just hands over two keys with peeling number stickers. I catch Mona’s eye, and for once, we’re thinking exactly the same thing: this guy has seen worse than two bloodstained women paying cash at 3 AM.

The air smells of pine and coming rain—a jarring contrast to blood and gunpowder. I search for pack scent, but there’s only absence. My body responds with a subtle drop in temperature—another trait I shouldn’t have.

“Check the room before entering,” Mona directs, leaning against the rusted railing. “Standard protocol.”

I sweep the room—vents, light fixtures, under the bed. Habit. Instinct. Nothing hidden here but peeling wallpaper and a bed that gave up in the ‘90s.

“Clear,” I announce, helping her to the bathroom. “Let me see your arm.”

Under the harsh fluorescent light, Mona looks younger somehow, vulnerability peeking through the cracks in her carefully constructed mask of chaos. I ease her onto the closed toilet lid and help her remove her jacket, revealing the blood-soaked bandage beneath.

“The bullet failed to hit any major arteries,” she observes clinically as I peel away the makeshift covering. “Approximately fourteen stitches required. Very inconvenient timing.”

The wound looks worse than I expected—a deep furrow carved through her bicep, edges ragged and still seeping blood with every beat of her heart. Alexander’s parting gift. Another family bonding experience written in Sterling blood.

His face flashes before me again—not as he fired, but the moment before. That split-second when his finger hesitated on the trigger. When his eyes met mine over the barrel of his gun, something flickering there that didn’t belong in Roman’s perfect weapon.

“This needs a hospital,” I mutter, digging through my pack for the emergency medical kit Finn insisted we all carry. The thought of him sends another pulse of pain through the stretched-thin pack bond. I flinch visibly as the connection flares, a physical reaction to the emotional tie—a biological reality I’m still adapting to.

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