Chapter 26 Mona
I’m afraid if I cling too hard to Ghost’s instructions, the dream might slip away. So I try to relax, opening my senses to whatever surrounds me.
The scene fills in slowly, like a watercolor coming to life.
A woman, again. A delta. But she’s not my strawberry friend.
This woman is tiny, barely five feet tall, with wiry arms corded with muscle.
She’s chopping wood alone in the forest, her axe whizzing through the air before landing with a satisfying crack into the stump.
The trees are reedy, thin and high, and when I look up, I notice the sun is melting into the horizon.
Present time? I’m on the East Coast, it was dark when I fell asleep. California maybe? Where are we?
She smells like clean cotton. That warm, fresh laundry scent, with hints of grapefruit. I take a step closer, but I step on a stick, and it cracks like a gunshot into the quiet forest air. She gasps and looks up.
The second I realize she can see me, her pink bow-shaped mouth dropping open, eyes wide like saucers, the scene tears apart.
It’s more jarring this time, and I land in someone’s kitchen.
It’s dark, the glow of the kitchen light contrasts against the blackness outside the windows.
A new woman sits at her kitchen table, sipping tea, her fingers wrapped around a ceramic mug painted with daisies.
I shout, “Can you see me?” before I lose her. Her eyes dart up from the steaming cup in shock, tea sloshing over the rim, but then the vision dissolves.
A new scene. A new woman.
Deltas, every one of them.
Cross-legged on the floor, a young woman cradles an open book. Her gentle delta scent mingles with the older couple—likely her parents—nestled together on the nearby couch, each absorbed in their own book.
I’m torn away too quickly, plunged into what looks like a basement—concrete walls, air thick with mildew. Not a basement… a bunker of some sort. It feels oppressive, and the walls curve inward, forming a perfect cylinder that stretches upward into darkness. A silo?
My heart hammers against my ribs. Frantically, I scan the space, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing before the vision tears away.
The floor is made of metal grates, mottled with rust, red and black.
My footsteps clang against the catwalk spanning the circular walls.
Peering over the railing, I see nothing but blackness below, even with my shifter vision.
Each sound—my breath, every step—reverberates through the vast chamber, distorted and strange.
The rusted railing traces the curved walls.
Rectangular doorways cut into the concrete at regular intervals.
Sprinting across the catwalk, then down some creaky stairs, the metal groans beneath my weight, my fingers trailing along the cold rail.
The air grows thicker, more foul as I approach the nearest doorway, where a faint whimpering sound escapes from the dark room.
As I reach the threshold, my breath catches in my throat.
“Oh my god.” I lunge forward. Her head jerks up, but her eyes pass right through me. I reach for the silver chains that bite into her flesh, but it’s like trying to catch smoke. “Please,” I beg, desperation clawing at my chest. “Tell me, where are we? What is this place?”
Tears streak down her cheeks, leaving glistening trails in the dim light.
She looks through me as if I’m a ghost, but I know she can hear me.
A metallic sound clangs distantly—a door swinging open, catching our attention.
We’re not alone down here. Concrete surrounds us, creating that same suffocating heaviness I felt while standing on the grate above—the unmistakable weight of being beneath the earth.
Rising to my feet, I search the room for a way out of here, but before I reach the door, a torrent of furious shouts blends with the sound of feet pounding and silver chains dragging along the metal gates outside the room.
“Help me,” the voice behind me cries softly. I turn.
I memorize her features, knowing I’m going to lose her.
I can already feel the pull, I can’t believe I lasted even this long.
Her golden-brown skin is sallow in the light, from the abuse of the chains.
Huge brown eyes plead with me, deep wells full of terror.
Thick black hair falls straight past her shoulders.
It looks clean. She can’t have been down here too long.
“What is your name?” I ask.
Her eyes dart back and forth. “Who’s there?”
“My name is Mona. I’m trying to help you, but I need to know where we are.”
The shouting from outside the room grows louder. They’re getting closer. An icy wave of dread trickles through me, my stomach twisting violently. I’m going to lose her. Soon.
“Diya. I’m Diya. I’m from the Quest Loop clan, near Yosemite.”
“Diya, Quest Loop. Okay. Where are we now?” I ask.
Her head shakes, eyes still searching the empty space in front of her.
“I-I,” she stutters, another head shake. On instinct, I reach out, channeling every fiber of my omega energy into her. She gasps and takes a deep inhale. A visible ripple passes through her as her trembling settles into calm stillness. “You’re an omeg—” she starts, in awe, but I cut her off.
“We don’t have time! Tell me where you are!”
“I don’t know! They knocked me out for—I don’t know how long. At least a day, I think. I woke up down here.”
The voices outside this little prison cell enter the room. I rear back, trying to protect Diya.
And my heart fucking sinks.
Her strawberry scent is like a punch to the gut.
Andrea’s mate staggers in, face slick with tears, her temple split and bleeding.
Silver chains tie her wrists, searing angry welts into her flesh as she drops to her knees before the witch whose boot lands on her back, knocking her forward, closer to me and Diya.
Her voice is raw from begging through guttural sobs.
The witch snarls and uses his magic, a flick of the wrist, to hurl her across the cell like a rag doll, her body crumpling against the far wall with a sickening thud. The witch tromps over and hooks her chains through a loop dug into the wall, beside her new cellmate.
The edges of the frame are fading, and I let out a sharp cry.
In a panic, I chase after the witch. I try to smash his head. I scream and roar. My arms pass right through him.
Just as the edges of my vision fade to black, I see them—three alphas.
Their massive forms thrash against the restraints, muscles straining, skin slick with blood and sweat, sizzling and smoking as the poisonous silver sears their flesh.
Twelve witches surround the three in a tight circle, and they chant.
Between the witches and silver chains, they subdue the alphas easily.
And now I understand.
Deidre knew exactly what unholy power she’d unleashed when she turned Lily.
Two deltas in the cell, three alphas chained to the wall. How many other deltas did I see tonight?
Just as the bile churns in my stomach, I fall to my knees in the dream. I barely make it off the bed before landing on the floor and vomiting.