Page 62 of A Pack of Pumpkins
Clara
Istareupatthe abandoned asylum. Screams echo from within, raw, guttural, laced with a kind of terror that doesn’t sound staged. Goosebumps crawl up my arms just looking at the place, and it’s still daylight. For now. The sunset throws streaks of crimson and gold across the sky, painting the hulking building in colors too pretty for how wrong it feels. Above the entrance, a tattered banner reads: Shellwood Asylum.
People are lined up outside, paying twenty bucks a head to get in.
Bram, Dagan, and Jack’s scents are sharp with excitement. Victor’s scent, though, is all rotten pumpkin and burnt black. He’d tried talking us all out of it until I said I wanted to, and then he shut his mouth. Part of me definitely agreed just to push him after Dagan told me how much his brother hates scary movies and scary stuff. To see how far his remorse would stretch before it snapped. It’s mean. It’s petty. And I’m not ready to regret it yet.
Hands shove deep in his pockets, Victor stands slightly apart from the group, just like he has since our tentative truce. The distance feeds my petty little flare of triumph, but a much stronger part of me, my omega, hates it. A pack shouldn’t be fractured like this. Not in body. Not in heart.
Jack catches my hand, giving me a smile warm enough to thaw nerves. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promises. One look at his hulking biceps and broad chest, and I believe him. We get in line.
Inside is worse. Way worse. Flickering lights. The constant drip of water. Nothing has jumped out yet, and that might be the most unnerving part. Every shadow feels like it’saboutto move. My omega keeps surging, convinced the danger is real with every little noise and shift in the dark.
Victor looks just as on edge. His hand keeps dipping into the jacket pocket that used to hold his cigarettes, only to come up empty. He clenches his fists instead.
The rooms grow more and more wrecked until we hit a dead end. Two open doorways split the hall. Bram goes first, followed by Jack and Dagan, some unspoken agreement that the ones without fear lead the way. Victor and I are about to follow when the door slams shut between us and the others.
Banging echoes on the other side, but the heavy metal door with its reinforced bolts doesn’t budge. Whoever designed this clearly knew how to trap even an alpha’s strength.
I turn to Victor, expecting him to be checking the door, but he’s staring down the hallway we just came from. His expression is all hard edges, but his scent is pure fear.
A metallic clink behind me makes me look.
At the far end of the hall, a woman stands in a filthy, torn patient gown. Her grin is too wide, her eyes two black pits. Stringy brown hair hangs in greasy curtains over her face.
I instinctively reach back for my alpha, and immediately second-guess it. Yes, he’s tried to atone for the way he treated me. Every day he's been going above and beyond. But the memory of those rejections is still fresh. Him leaving the room when I walked in. Refusing to touch me during my heat spike. The way he’d avoided even sitting near me.
I almost pull my hand back, until his fingers close around mine.
Nohesitation. No distance. He pulls me fully behind him, placing his body between me and the patient. His grip on my hand is firm, anchoring me. It is all pretend but damn, it feels so real.
The patient tilts her head in an unnatural, jerking angle that makes her neck look broken. The lights flicker, slow at first, then faster. With each blink, she’s closer. And closer again. My heart slams in my throat.
She’s running.
Straight at us.
Victor
“Run!”IgrabClara’shand and we bolt through the open door of the nearest room. I know, logically, that this is all a show. Fake. But my instincts and my alpha aren’t getting that message at all.
I slam the door behind us and throw the lock just as thethingfrom the hallway slams into it from the other side, scratching, moaning and clawing.
Clara’s gone from holding my hand to clinging to my arm, fingers tight enough that I know I’ll have bruise marks tomorrow. I won’t do anything to discourage her. This is the first contact she’s allowed since the asthma attack.
Tentatively, I lay my hand over hers on my bicep. She doesn’t pull away, and that fragile connection terrifies me more than any of the insane “patients” in this place. At least until the same woman from the hallwayblinksinto existence in the far corner of the room. My heart stops. How the hell can she even see through all that makeup?
“Shit!” I haul Clara with me through another door.
This room’s worse. Too clean. Sterile. It looks like a regular doctor’s office. Except for the man behind the desk. The one in the white coat. The one with the perfect hair… and the deep, bleeding slit across his throat.
The lights flicker. The whole officeshudders. Darkness swallows everything before a black light clicks on, painting the walls in a sickly glow. Thick rivulets of black blood ooze from the ceiling, dripping in slow, obscene lines.
A deep, gong-like sound reverberates through the room. The doctor’s lolling headsnapsupright, making that wet, squelching noise that crawls under my skin. More blood gushes from the slit in his neck.
Clara whines a small, instinctive omega sound and my alpha takes over. I pull her tight against my side, shocked when she doesn’t resist. Her arms wrap around my middle, her body molding to mine. Her warmth and scent are enough to make me forget, just for a moment, where we are. Then the room blackens.
Absolute darkness.
