Epilogue Two
ROGUE
The morning after Thistle had fixed up the ‘Knox-spelling-issue’, I woke up in her nest, surrounded by the slightly dulled scent of moonflower, which meant she was already up and out for the day. Sunlight filtered beneath the curtains, and I checked my phone to see it was early afternoon.
I needed to sort out a schedule, but I was binging a decade’s worth of video games into the early hours of the morning, and I wouldn’t apologise to anyone for it.
Thistle quite liked it, telling me it meant she had Alphas to cuddle whenever she pleased.
She’d creep into my room in the early evening (or if she woke in the middle of the night), often with Poptarts, and would curl up on my lap and watch me play.
She already had a list of the ones she wanted to try herself.
After the video gaming binge, I’d have to figure out unnerving stuff like my future, and what I wanted to do with my time, but I wasn’t thinking about that yet.
Knox had finally split the accounts so I had my fucking money back, and even Ace’s Mansion was under his name again.
He’d received a letter in the mail with the deed, signed to him by Roman, and an offer of his services for anything we might need.
Enough to be spared? I’d wondered that until those services really had come in handy.
Carrion was a prolific figure in politics, which might have posed a problem, but his connections to the Ring meant he kept his affairs deeply private.
Roman, however, was in with a lot of well-off art collectors, many of whom crossed into political circles, so he was able to redirect the trail.
Between him and Knox’s connections in law enforcement, we were able to fabricate a story of a car accident to explain his death.
Knox had finally taken down the ridiculous number of cameras set up around the north wing, too. Though the Ring weren’t all dead yet, they weren’t an active threat. I knew the cameras weren’t just about Knox’s paranoia with the Ring—they’d been to make sure I couldn’t undermine him.
To be honest—valid concern.
I stretched before exiting Thistle’s nest to see a small package outside my room. I picked it up, opening it to see a handwritten scrawl:
Don’t tell him I said this, but thank you for protecting Vance. We wouldn’t be the same without him.
-Petal
Ps: One of us might have filed down all the suture tips in your old one.
Sorry…
At the bottom was an upside-down smiley face.
I opened the package to find a fresh suture kit that looked similar to the one I had downstairs. I snorted, tugging my shirt up to get a look at the job I’d done on the gunshot wound on my side. It did look gnarly, but I’d attributed that to my knowledge extending to online videos—and the angle.
Skill was probably still mostly to blame, to be honest.
It didn’t matter if they resented me—I had grown up as everything they feared and hated. But as I re-read the letter, I felt a little warmth bloom in my chest.
They did seem to be settling properly now, and perhaps it was because there weren’t likely to be many new additions to the Misfits’ family on the horizon. Doyle’s team had managed to get out as many survivors as possible.
There were still more branches of the Ring across state lines, but maybe we’d get to them eventually—Ace would need something to keep him occupied in the future.
We were supposed to be a functional pack now, so there was also no need for the Misfits to help over in our wing. It meant we acted a lot more like neighbours.
I had taken to making pack-sized meals—often with Thistle’s help. That meant Knox didn’t have to rely on the Misfits to avoid starving when he got hyperfixated on a task—which he and Ace really were when it came to the Ring hunts.
After dressing and getting a coffee, the absence of Thistle became… concerning.
Silence was abnormal—especially when I found only Ace in the ballroom armchair, laptop on his lap.
But the last time she’d vanished, I’d caught her trying to roast Poptarts by the fire outside with Bambi. The problem was we were in the middle of a fire advisory, and they’d been at serious risk of starting a wildfire across the state of Nevada.
Finally, I caught the faint sound of music blasting from the west wing, and I followed it.
When I turned the corner, I almost ran into Bambi, who was squelching her way up the hallway. She was covered head to toe in paint so colourful she might have been vomited on by a neon rainbow, and was now tracking it down the whole wing.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Jesus , this would take an age to clean.
I spotted her pink bunny peeking out from one of those cat backpacks with the clear bubble-shaped window. The plushie was clean, though the backpack was as messy as her.
Bambi signed Sorry , and then something I didn’t recognise. I was keeping up with their signing—barely—but all of us had realised pretty quick we were in trouble if we didn’t. The two of them crafted insane plans together that needed definite intervention.
When I frowned, Bambi spelled the word out for me.
“Sorry unc ?” I asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
She just giggled and hurried off with her backpack, trailing neon paint prints behind her.
Bambi was a real oddball. I don’t know how Thistle had identified it in the midst of Bella’s party, but it had dawned on us all over the last few weeks just how much sense the claim made. They were eerily compatible.
I followed the footprints and crescendoing sound of rock music down the west wing hall until I got to the art room.
Ah.
Before me was chaos: buckets, spatters, and spills of the brightest paint I’d ever seen.
Thistle was facing a wall—which was now a mural—and she was covered— absolutely covered—in neon paint.
She wore goggles, sweatpants, and a hoodie with rolled-up sleeves—none of which were black anymore—as she wiped a streak of bright green across the wall.
Bunny was in his own bubble-window cat backpack on one of the tables—all of which had been shoved to the edge of the room—and Knox was nodding his head to the music as he poured bright powder into a bucket. “More pink on the way—!” He cut off as he straightened, catching sight of me.
“A normal canvas just wasn’t cutting it?” I asked.
Thistle folded her arms. “Too small.”
I snorted. “What are you painting?” The shapes were possibly figures splashed across the wall.
“My family!” she said. “We’re doing the lines after. Right now, everyone gets to be colours!”
“I see that.”
I shot a glance at Knox, who’d sauntered over, looking pleased with himself. “I’m keeping our Omega distracted. Take note, since me and Ace are going to be gone for a while—or do you want her to burn down half of the state?”
I rolled my eyes. They’d caught a real lead when it came to the trafficking ring hunts.
That meant I was going to be on Thistle duty for the next little while: great for sex, terrifying for everything else—especially the tinderbox brushlands of Nevada.
“Wait—what the fuck is that?” I asked. I’d spotted a collection of photos pinned in the corner, and I saw myself staring back at me.
“This?” Thistle glanced at the paper, then tugged a strand of pink-painted hair from where it was sticking to her lip. “Oh! Bunny took me to the mall and they had pictures of you! I’m using them as references.”
I stared at the mugshot. I looked angry as fuck, glaring into the camera. Beneath it was ‘Lifetime ban. Contact authorities if seen on premises’ .
“I told them I thought you were cute and asked if I could keep it. They gave it to me. Plus—they had loads there. You’re basically a celebrity.”
I looked at it, then back to her. “You know, I kind of am, aren’t I, Kitten?”
She flashed me the brightest smile before rushing to the bucket Knox had just finished mixing. She stuck her hands right into it, then smeared pink paint onto the wall with two bare hands—excitement hitting the bond like a lightning strike.
She giggled as she saw the effect, spinning back to us, hands dripping with neon pink. “Dead Dum Dan and his stupid pack would lose their fucking minds if they saw me!” she said. “I can paint whatever I want!”