Chapter 12 #2
"And what the fuck does this have to do with us?" I demand. "What do you mean, won't let her send the stupid letters?"
Sage's jaw tightens.
"New rules. Apparently Omegas without packs can no longer send letters, participate in recitals..." He pauses, something flickering across his face. "She's a dancer. Ballet, I'm assuming. Everything is being canceled because she's packless."
Ballet.
The word echoes in my memory.
The Omega in the forest—the one who moved like violence was choreography, who killed with the precision and grace of someone who understood their body on a fundamental level—
She fought like an assassin but moved like a dancer…
"I don't know the details or why it's being hastily put into effect," Sage continues, "but..."
He trails off, and I watch something shift in his expression. His eyes go distant, unfocused, like he's looking back at something that still hurts to examine.
"All the letters," he says quietly. "She wrote them in dual. One to send, one to keep. And well... someone at the post office leaked the letters. Hung them around where she was supposed to audition."
My stomach drops.
I don't want it to.
Don't want to feel anything about this stranger's pain.
But I remember the forest. Remember the bodies. Remember the way she walked away like nothing mattered anymore—like she'd already decided that caring was a luxury she couldn't afford.
"They got ruined in the rain," Sage finishes, his voice rough. "And well..."
"Well?" I snap, harsher than necessary. "You thought pity sex was the answer?"
He shakes his head.
"It wasn't pity."
The words are quiet.
Certain.
The voice of someone who's thought about this carefully and arrived at a conclusion he can't escape.
"It was because the look in her eyes made me feel like if I let her walk off... she'd cease to exist."
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
None of us speaks.
Not even me.
Because despite everything—despite the heir I've become, the weapon I've been forged into, the cold and ruthless leader who does what needs to be done regardless of the cost—
I remember.
I remember being seventeen years old, standing on the roof of my family's compound, looking down at the ground forty stories below, and thinking this would be easier.
I remember the emptiness.
The certainty that nothing would ever matter again.
The moment before Jett found me—before he grabbed my arm and hauled me back from the edge with a grip so tight it left bruises for weeks.
I remember what it feels like to be so thoroughly destroyed that ceasing to exist seems like the kindest option available.
And I can't—
Won't—
Judge Sage for recognizing that same emptiness in someone else and deciding to fight for her.
Blaze breaks the silence.
"Why haven't you opened that?"
He nods toward the envelope still clutched in Sage's hand.
Sage frowns, looking down at it like he'd forgotten it was there.
"Been busy since." A hint of his usual smirk surfaces. "But I guess..."
He tears the seal with deliberate care—those four blood droplets breaking apart under his fingers—and pulls out the letter inside.
The paper is cream-colored.
Covered in handwriting I can see even from here—neat, precise, the kind of penmanship that suggests discipline and practice.
"I guess it's normal for us as a pack to see," Sage says, unfolding the pages. "I did enjoy opening those letters."
He's not wrong.
For years, these letters have been a shared experience—something we all witnessed even if we pretended not to care. Sage would open them in the common area, and we'd all find excuses to be nearby. To watch his expression as he read. To see the tension drain from his shoulders with each word.
To me, it always felt like a hindrance.
A distraction from the mission, from the violence, from the reality of what we are.
But I can't deny that every time Sage opened one of those letters, it gave him some sense of purpose I never quite understood.
Until now.
Maybe.
Sage clears his throat and begins reading aloud:
"Dear S.W.,
It's been a while since your last letter. Longer than usual. I try not to worry—I know you have a life beyond writing to crazy girls—but the silence has been... heavy.
Things here are strange. More rules, more restrictions, more ways for them to remind us that packless Omegas are worth less than the dirt they make us walk on.
The rumors say it's going to get worse. That they're going to start punishing us for not having packs, like we chose to be alone, like we wouldn't give anything to have someone choose us. "
He pauses.
I watch his throat work as he swallows.
"Everything is repetitive now. The classes.
The violence. The endless cycle of surviving just to survive another day.
It's becoming meaningless, S.W. Like I'm running on a hamster wheel, getting nowhere, watching the same scenery pass by over and over until I can't remember why I started running in the first place. "
Another pause.
His grip on the letter tightens.
"This will probably be the last letter from me."
The words land like a punch to the gut.
I see Sage's hands start to tremble.
"I don't know... I've been gloomy. My life.
.. my life is a pitiful merry-go-round, and maybe I'm tired of the disappointment all around.
The rumors are beginning to circulate, that Omegas are going to get punished for not having a pack, and I've been here for years.
.. there's no set of Alphas crazed enough to be with me. .. even temporarily."
Blaze has gone still.
Jett's jaw is tight.
And I—
I'm trying very hard not to feel anything.
And failing miserably...
"Maybe this is my hope that you'll become my knight in shining armor, but let's be for real... fairytales... they're just hopeful dreams from princesses who wished for their happy endings when the reality set out for them is filled with dread and misery."
Sage's voice is rough now.
Breaking on the edges.
"I don't have much. My apartment only has the very few essentials, and I no longer keep them there. It's just me... and Aphrodite... my robot companion. No friends. My family gone... my brother is happy and away from this plague of death... and I guess... that's it, really."
The trembling in his hands is visible now.
"So... thank you, S.W. Thank you for keeping me going, despite my insanity. Thank you for reading the words of a broken girl who never expected anyone to care. Thank you for being my ghost, my pen pal, my only proof that the world outside these walls still exists."
He stops reading.
Can't continue.
The silence that follows is deafening.
We all stand there—four men who've killed more people than we can count, who've survived things that should have destroyed us, who've built our lives around violence and loyalty and the cold comfort of duty—
And we're all thinking the same thing.
She was saying goodbye.
That letter wasn't just an update.
It wasn't just correspondence between pen pals.
It was a goodbye.
The last words of someone who'd decided she was done fighting.
"Her place?"
Jett's whisper cuts through the silence.
He's already moving—that eerie, liquid grace that makes him impossible to track when he doesn't want to be seen.
Sage nods.
They start running.
I watch them go—Sage with his pink hair streaming behind him, Jett a shadow at his heels—and something in my chest cracks.
Blaze is beside me, golden-brown eyes bright with something I don't want to name.
"We going or what?"
I don't want to go.
Don't want to get involved in whatever disaster Sage has created.
Don't want to care about some random Omega whose name I don't even know.
But Blaze is already running after them.
And I—
Fuck it.
I groan and take off after my pack.
The rain returns as we run—light sprinkle at first, then heavier, soaking through my coat and plastering my hair to my forehead. We tear through Ruthless Academy's streets like men possessed, dodging crowds, vaulting obstacles, following Sage's lead through a maze of buildings I don't recognize.
The residential sector.
The townhomes are reserved for Omegas who've earned the right to exist outside the dormitories.
The exclusive housing that can only be claimed through survival, through violence, through proving you're too dangerous to cage with the general population.
She lives here.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it.
She earned a place here. Through killing. Through surviving. Through being exactly the kind of monster this academy was designed to create.
We're halfway there when I notice the sky.
Grey clouds.
Normal.
But underneath them—
Smoke.
Rising in a thick black column that shouldn't exist this time of evening, in this part of campus, unless something is very, very wrong.
"What the hell?" Blaze calls out, slowing slightly as he tracks the smoke to its source.
Sage doesn't slow down.
If anything, he runs faster.
"WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE LOOK LIKE?" Blaze shouts.
"PINK HAIR LIKE MINE!" Sage calls back, his voice tight with panic. "DOUBLE SWORDS! MISMATCHED EYES!"
Wait.
The description strikes recognition, making his eyes widen as he recalls each characteristic.
Pink hair.
Double swords.
Mismatched eyes.
The Omega from the forest.
The one who killed six men in under a minute.
The one who pressed a blade to my throat and told me she was going to kill Eastman before anyone else could.
That's her?
That's the pen pal?
That's the Omega Sage bonded with?
"She smells like cotton candy," Jett adds, and there's something in his voice that sounds almost reverent.
Blaze curses.
"WAIT! The dual-bladed Omega who saved Kai just now from the gang?"
We round the final corner—
And skid to a stop.
The crowd materializes first.
A mass of people gathered in front of a townhome complex, their faces illuminated by flickering orange light. Firefighters in heavy gear are rushing toward the building, hoses unfurling, water starting to spray against flames that have already consumed the lower floor.
The townhome is on fire.
Her townhome.
Number 13.
Sage has frozen in place, his body rigid with shock, that same stillness I've seen in trauma victims just before they shatter.
Through the bond—the one I've been trying to ignore, the one that's been feeding me emotional static all day—I feel his terror.
His guilt.
His desperate, agonizing hope that she's not inside.
I stomp toward the scene, grabbing the arm of the nearest firefighter.
"What happened?"
My voice carries the authority of someone who expects answers.
He flinches—recognizes something in my tone, maybe, or just responds to the dominance in my posture.
"Arson. Someone set the fire deliberately. We got here fast—station's just down the street—but the damage is significant."
Arson.
Not an accident.
Someone did this on purpose.
"Is anyone inside?"
"Don't know yet. We're working on it."
He pulls away, rushing toward his team, and I'm left standing in the crowd with smoke burning my eyes and rage burning in my chest.
A hand tugs at my sleeve.
I turn to find an Omega—young, terrified, clutching a piece of paper like it's the only thing keeping her grounded.
"Um, Officer?" She must think I'm law enforcement. Fair enough—the coat, the posture, the way I'm demanding answers like I have the right. "These notes are on all the Omegas' doors. Thankfully the fire department is only down the street for this part of Ruthless, but this is definitely criminal."
She presses the paper into my hand.
I look down at it.
The words are printed in official academy letterhead, neat and clinical and absolutely fucking devastating:
"The Omega living in this townhome complex is still packless as of 7pm today, therefore, the consequences are losing access to your home, which is now the default property of Ruthless Academy.
No Omega will be allowed to live in their earned housing unless in temporary pack placement or permanent pack placement with permission from their Alphas. "
They took her home.
Because she's packless.
Because she survived alone instead of finding Alphas to claim her.
Because the academy decided that unmated Omegas don't deserve the space they earned through violence and survival.
My blood runs cold.
Then I see the bottom of the notice.
Addressed Occupant:
My eyes travel down.
Down.
Down to the name printed in neat, official letters.
Seraphine Eastman.
The world stops.
Time freezes.
Everything—the fire, the smoke, the screaming crowd, the pack bond pulsing with Sage's anguish—falls away until there's nothing left but those two words burning into my retinas.
Seraphine Eastman.
The pen pal.
The cotton candy Omega.
The dual-wielding dancer who killed six men to save my life.
The girl Sage bonded with.
The heir to the Eastman legacy.
The target we were sent here to eliminate.
She's the same person.
The Omega and the heir.
The pen pal and the enemy.
The girl my pack member just bonded us all to—permanently, irrevocably, in a way that can't be undone—is the exact person my family sent us here to kill.
Fuck.