Chapter 41 Mo
Mo
Two days.
Two days in this cell and I’ve memorized every crack in the stone, every rust spot on the bed frame. I know the guard rotation by the sound of their boots on the stairs. Heavy-set comes at dawn and dusk. The lighter one, the younger one, comes midday with food.
If you can call it food. A tin plate with whatever scraps the kitchen couldn’t be bothered to serve to anyone else. Cold rice. A heel of bread so stale I could hammer nails with it. A few bites of something grey and meaty that I don’t examine too closely.
I eat every bite. Every single crumb. My body needs fuel for what I’m about to do.
The bucket in the corner stinks. I’ve been pissing in it for two days, and nobody’s emptied it. The smell is rank and humiliating, and I hate it. But the bolt came free last night, the one that was drilled into the cement securing the bed frame.
Four inches of solid metal, heavy enough to do damage if I swing it right. My hands are raw from working it loose, the skin on my fingertips cracked and bleeding, but I’ve got it—my weapon and my way out.
I’ve been watching the midday guard. He’s young.
Careless. He slides the plate under with one hand and barely looks inside.
He’s bored with me already, this scrawny omega who hasn’t made a sound in twenty-four hours.
I stopped screaming and cursing yesterday morning.
On purpose. Let them think I’ve given up.
Let them think the cell has done what it’s supposed to do.
The old me would have kept screaming. The old me would have rattled the door and spat at whoever came near.
This new me is much, much more dangerous.
I hear the lighter set of boots on the stairs. It’s showtime.
I’m curled on the bed with my back to the door, the bolt hidden in my fist under the thin blanket.
I’ve smeared some of the bucket water on my face and neck so my skin looks clammy.
I’ve slowed my breathing down to something shallow and irregular.
I smell sick, willing my scent to turn sour, leaning into the fear and the distress and the dehydration until my body puts out exactly the scent a dying omega would.
The footsteps stop outside the door. The scrape of the plate being slid under.
I don’t move. I don’t reach for the food. I’ve been grabbing it the second it appears for two days. Today I leave it.
There’s a pause. I can hear him breathing on the other side of the door, trying to decide if he cares enough to check.
Come on. Take the bait, asshole.
The door unlocks and opens.
“Hey. Omega. Eat your food.”
I don’t respond. I make a small, weak sound and curl tighter, selling it.
He takes a step inside. One step. Then another. I hear him crouch beside the bed, and his hand reaches for my shoulder.
I roll toward him, not away, closing the distance before he can react. The bolt swings and connects with his temple. His eyes go wide, then blank, and he crumples sideways, hitting the stone floor with his full weight.
I’m on my feet and grab the keys from his belt, then check his pulse. He’s alive. I’m not a killer. Not yet, anyway.
I step over his body and lock him in the cell.
The stairs are at the end of the corridor, about twenty feet away.
I make it halfway before another guard appears at the top.
He sees me, sees the keys in my hand, and his face goes from bored to alert in half a second. He’s bigger than me by a hundred pounds, already reaching for the weapon at his hip.
But I’m faster than he thinks.
I charge up the stairs. He expects me to run, but he doesn’t expect me to run at him.
I duck under his arm as he grabs for me, pivot the way Archer taught me, drop low, and drive my shoulder into his knee.
He buckles, grabbing the stairwell wall for balance, and I bring the bolt down on his hand.
His fingers crack, and he howls and lets go.
I shove past him, scrambling up the last three stairs on my hands and knees.
He grabs my ankle. I kick back with my other foot, heel connecting with his nose. He grunts, his grip loosens, and I yank free and I’m up, through the door, locking it behind me.
My lungs are burning, and my pulse is slamming so hard I can feel it in my eyeballs.
The main hall is ahead. That’s where I last saw Sophie. I need to get to her before they lock everything down, before someone raises the alarm, before—
A howl rips through the air.
Then another. And another. Coming from the north side of the compound, overlapping, furious.
The sound of wolves in full attack. Gunfire cracks.
Once, twice, a rapid stutter. Then screaming.
Not the controlled shouts of guards responding to an escaped prisoner.
Real screaming. The kind that comes from a fight.
The compound explodes into chaos around me.
Alphas pour out of buildings, some shifting mid-stride, clothes shredding as wolves replace men.
Guards run for the north gate. Someone is bellowing orders, but his voice is drowned by the howls, more of them now, coming from multiple directions—a coordinated assault hitting from at least two sides.
I press myself against the wall of the hallway as bodies rush past.
Another howl cuts through the noise. This one I know. Deep and raw and commanding, the kind that doesn’t ask for compliance but demands it, the kind that makes every wolf in earshot want to bare their throat or run.
Darius.
My wolf rises inside me, answering that howl before I can stop her, a whine building in my throat that I have to swallow down.
They came. They came for me.
I don’t have time to stand here. Sophie. I need to get to Sophie.
I run for the main hall. The door is unguarded now, and everyone is drawn to the fight at the perimeter. I push through it, and the room is empty. The alpha’s desk, the chairs, the shadows where Sophie stood. All empty.
No. No no no.
Where did they take her? Upstairs? Another building? If they’ve moved her during the attack, if they’re using her as a hostage—
Then I notice a door at the back. I didn’t see it last time because Sophie was standing in front of it. I try the handle. Locked. I still have the keys from the basement guard, and my fingers fumble through them, trying one, wrong, another, wrong, third—
Click.
The door opens into a small room. A cot, a blanket, a bucket. Sophie’s room is a cell too, just one with a door instead of bars.
She’s on the cot, curled into herself, hands over her ears, rocking. The sounds of the fight outside are muffled in here, but she can hear them, and she’s terrified. She doesn’t look up when the door opens. Just rocks and holds her ears and makes herself as small as possible.
“Sophie.” I drop to my knees beside the cot. “Soph, it’s me. It’s Mo. We’re leaving. Right now.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t respond. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and she’s somewhere far away, somewhere inside herself where the noise can’t reach her.
I put my hands on her face. Her skin is cold. Colder than it should be. The bones of her cheeks press sharply against my palms. “Sophie. Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Her eyes open. Slowly. Unfocused. They find my face, and for a second, there’s nothing, that same horrible emptiness from before. Then something flickers, deep down, faint, barely a spark.
“Mo?”
“Yeah, Soph. It’s me. I’m here, and I’m getting you out. But I need you to stand up. Can you do that for me?”
She stares at me. Her lips tremble. Then, slowly, she unfolds herself and puts her feet on the floor. Shaking so badly that she can barely stand, but upright. I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her up, taking her weight against my side.
“I’ve got you. Just stay with me.”
We make it out of the room, out of the office, and into the main hall.
The noise of the fight is louder now, crashing and snarling and the crack of wood splintering.
Through the windows, I can see wolves, dozens of them, tearing through the compound.
The guards are overwhelmed. The north fence is down.
Bodies on the ground, some wolf, some human, some in between.
I pull Sophie toward the back exit, the one that leads toward the eastern cottages and the tree line beyond. Then I hear heavy and fast footsteps behind me.
I shove Sophie behind me and spin around, the bolt raised, bloody and ready, teeth bared. Whatever’s coming through that door is going to eat four inches of metal before it gets anywhere near my sister.
The door bursts open.
I swing.
A hand catches my wrist. Stopping the bolt an inch from his face. I’m staring up into ice-blue eyes that I’d know anywhere, in any light, in any room in the world.
Darius.
He’s covered in blood. His shirt is torn, his knuckles shredded, and there’s a gash across his cheekbone bleeding freely down the side of his face. He’s breathing hard, and his eyes are wild and pale and barely human, the wolf right there at the surface, held back by nothing but will.
He looks at me. At the bolt in my fist. At the blood on my hands. Sophie cowering behind me.
“Blue,” he says, and his voice cracks on it.
I lower the bolt. My eyes blur, and I realize I’m crying, which is stupid, which is the worst possible time to cry, but I can’t stop it because he’s here. He came. He’s standing in front of me, covered in blood with his wolf barely leashed, and he came for me.
“You’re late,” I say. “I already saved myself.”
Darius does something I have never, in all the weeks I’ve known him, seen him do.
He smiles.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice rough. “You did.”
Behind him, the sounds of the fight are fading.
“I was going to tell you something,” I say. “Before I left. I was on my way to find you.”
His eyes hold mine.
“I forgive you,” I say. “For all of it. I forgive you, Darius.”
He closes his eyes and exhales.
Then opens them, nods. “We need to move. We need to get you both out before they regroup.”
“Sophie can’t run,” I say. “She can barely stand.”
Darius looks at Sophie. Then, slowly, carefully, the way you’d approach a bird with a broken wing, he crouches down to her eye level. He makes himself smaller. Less threatening. I’ve never seen him do that for anyone.
“I’m going to carry you,” he says to her. His voice is low and steady, and nothing like the alpha bark he usually uses. “Is that okay?”
Sophie looks at me, and I tell her it’s okay.
She looks back at Darius and gives the smallest nod I’ve ever seen.
He lifts her like she weighs nothing, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. She’s so thin she barely registers in his arms. Her head falls against his chest, and her eyes close, and she lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been trapped inside her for three years.
I grip the bolt in my fist and square my shoulders. “Let’s go.”