Page 74 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
“We’ll go back,” Rae says before I can give in.
Blake gapes at her, incredulous. “We willnot!”
“We’re going,” she growls. “They’ll find them for us.”
Blake looks at me then, for once as though he wants my opinion, though I know he just wants me to agree.
“We should go up there,” I say, and Blake growls, turning away.
“It’s going to be your fault if Dane or Autumn end up dead,” he growls and storms off in the direction of the church.
Mason squeezes my arm. “We’ll be back tonight. Sal will go with you now. Stay downstairs, where it’s safest.”
I flatten my lips into a line but nod. “Okay.”
“I promise you’ll be safe, little lamb.”
“It’s not me that I’m worried about.”
He smiles—he likes when I worry, he said that—and squeezes my arm one more time before he lets go. “Go on,” Mason says, voice gentle. “I’ll be back with them before you know it.”
I trail Blake, Sal, and Rae back up to the church. Rae drops back after a while, walking alongside me. We’re all alert even through our frustration; whoever took them could be anywhere, and this is when we’re at our most vulnerable.
“Do you think they’ll find them?” Rae whispers.
I swallow. “I think they’ll try.”
She’s silent for a moment before she nods. “Yeah, me too.”
Nia is already waiting when we arrive. Sal pulls her aside to explain. Blake paces before the altar and I watch him walk back and forth, trying to work things out.
It makes no sense that anyone would take them like that. No, it makes sense that someone in this town would, but I can’t pick out a suspect among the handful of people here, and I trust Mason when he says it wasn’t one of them.
That leaves… who? Dane went missing first. Even if he left, even if for some reasonhewas picking us off one by one, how would he do that without us noticing?
Otto was bitten and healed. And killed. He can’t be responsible for any of this, and Dane might dislike Autumn, but I think he hardly cares about her at all, except to believe she’s beneath him. Why would he take her over the rest of us?
I sigh. Blake’s too broken up about Dane, and he was right there when Otto was taken. Same for Rae. Same for me.
“You’re to go below,” Nia says. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”
“You’re all leaving us here?” Rae asks, incredulous.
“You’ll be safe in the church. Just stick to the areas you were in last night, and everything should be fine.” She’s short, dismissive. She doesn’t have the time to baby us. “Go now.”
Blake opens his mouth, presumably to argue, but Rae shakes her head and ushers him over to the door. I linger only for a moment before I follow.
My boots sound heavy on the stone stairs as we descend beneath the church. It’s silent with no one else here, oppressively so. I debate for a second heading directly to Mason’s room and spending time alone, but one look at Rae’s face dissuades me from that notion.
We should stick together. What if Mason’s wrong about the church being safe? What if someone comes and takes them when I’m not looking?
What if they take me?
The rest of the team’s packs are in a small room that I think is fairly close to Nia’s office. We leave the door open, and I lean back against the wall as Rae rummages through her things, then Autumn’s.
“I promised myself she’d make it back,” she mutters.
Blake stills where he’s taken his hammers out. He’s cleaning them, something of a compulsion, I think, considering he hasn’t had to use them yet.
