Page 49 of Pack Ruin
One day, she’d found me crying behind a shed outside the schoolroom at lunchtime. I’d been starving hungry, as usual. That wouldn’t have been enough to bring me to tears, of course, but the teacher had given homemade cookies in honor of the Alpha’s birthday to everyone in the class that morning. Everyone except me.
Iris had snuck over to me, a rolled-up brown bag in one hand, and whispered, “Flor? You want some of my sandwich? I’m not hungry.”
It had been a lie, of course; the unranked kids like us were always hungry. She’d shared her sandwich, though, and I’d hoped she would be a friend. But she’d been pulled out of class later that day and hadn’t come back for a month. When she did, she didn’t talk to me, or even look at me.
Bad memories. That was all this place held for me now.
We passed another guard who leered at us, and I added him to the mental list I’d been making all the way here. When it came time to leave, I’d need to know how many to kill.
As we climbed the stairs, I checked in on my bonds. Glen was sending confident, on-a-mission vibes my way, which was exactly what I’d hoped he’d do. I sent some back, or tried to. If he could find Luke and get him out of the Pack House, I could handle the rest. I’d lived in this pisshole long enough to know every single potential weapon, bolthole, and exit, so I had no fear of being trapped here again.
I was closer to Luke and Grigor now, so the amorphous ache that had grown so constant I’d almost forgotten about it didn’t really hurt, and Brand was pouring strength down the solid bond between us.
Finnick had finally stopped sending pain down our connection for the moment, thank the moon. If he’d been fucking around again—or whatever had made me feel like our bond had turned to acid and my brain to jelly—I was going to rip him a brand-new asshole at the very first opportunity. My mind kept returning to that moment back at the lake again and again, trying to make sense of it.
Maybe we weren’t real mates yet; maybe our bond wasn’t fully formed. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with a problem he’d need tofuckhis way out of.
Though my wolf snarled when I even thought of him fucking someone else. And I had a feeling she was snarling atme. Maybe I had it all wrong.
Ah, well.No need to stew about Finnick. I had problems enough of my own.
Iris’s soft voice reminded me of that. “I’m taking you to my room. Your old one was trashed after you left. Holly was so pissed.” I’d bet she was.
“Why are you helping me?” I breathed the question.
“Because I can,” she said. I almost laughed. She hadn’t helped me—no one had—when I was a child being beaten and starved. No one had even spoken to me, not after that day outside the school. But I’d let myself be pissed about that later.
She knocked a short pattern on one of the doors, waited for the count of five, then opened it, half-pushing me inside. The room was dark, but my vision was so much better now, my wolf stronger.
I blinked, taking it all in. It was a standard dorm room, maybe a little nicer than the one I’d lived in for years, but not much. There was a single window, but it had been nailed shut. The two twin beds in the room were pushed against the walls, and the chest of drawers was missing. The bathroom was missing the door, and I could see figures crouched in there, staring out like frightened mice.
“Who is it?” one of them whispered.
“It’s me, Iris.” The girl nodded toward the bathroom, and I followed her inside, breathing through my mouth. The stench of fear, urine, blood, and vomit was almost overwhelming.
There were five girls in the room, two older ones wiping down a small, dark-haired younger girl in the shower, pink water dripping from her hairline, and one cradling another one on top of the closed toilet. In one corner of the room was a mop pail, with a mop and dirty rags stuffed inside, and some cleaner ones rolled up on the edge of the sink.
No, they were bandages. One of the girls on the toilet hopped down at a soft noise from the shower, handing a rolled-up bandage to one of the older shifters.
“Jeez, it’s Flor,” the girl croaked. “Look, it’s her.”
Every eye turned to me, staring so hard, I began to fidget. I knew their names, even if they had never spoken to me. “Hey, Tami. Hey, Deb. What’s up with… uh, is that…” The youngest girl, the one getting bandaged, dropped her gaze. In fact, all of them did.
“Delia,” Courtney said gently. “She’s just arrived tonight.”
“Arrived?” I almost couldn’t get the word out.
Courtney moved to the side, and I could see what had happened to the little girl. Her hands had been either cut or whipped enough times to make them a mass of bloody flesh. I saw bone through some of the gashes on the tops of her fingers, and at one wrist. She wasn’t crying, though, her expression almost resigned. Immature shifters, especially weak and starved ones, had the same ability to heal as a normal human, but the severity of the wounds she had made me wonder if she might lose her hands before she was old enough to shift.
“What did theydoto you?” I breathed.
Courtney answered for her. “Silver-edged knife. Council fucker. She was caught taking scraps from the cans behind the dining hall when she was supposed to be inside.” I swallowed bile. Those wounds wouldn’t heal until she’d shifted. She couldn’t have been more than eleven. She’d be maimed for years, and carry the scars in her psyche for her entire life.
I leaned close so only Courtney would hear my question. “They cut her up for eating outta the trash?”
She nodded. Delia whimpered as Tami wrapped the gauze, but she looked up at me. “I was just so hungry.”
I was pissed. “Those cocksucking, motherfucking sons of bitchfuckheads!You point me out who did it, and I’ll pull hisspleen out through his throat. I’ll take my knife and peel that toadfucker’s skin like I used to skin squirrels, one nice long piece so it’s useful to make something to wear when it’s cold.”
