I also knew I had no choice.
I entered campus from the south side, avoiding the student center and the apartments, and any other building with lit windows. To my relief, the rest of campus seemed to be deserted, which was no surprise on the first Saturday night of the winter break. Anyone with family had gone home. Anyone who’d stayed at school was either working or partying.
Minutes after I stepped on campus, my dorm came into sight. All the rooms on the front side were dark, but I circled to the back, avoiding flood-and porch lights. From the edge of the parking lot, I counted up three floors and over four windows to find my room. My heart tried to claw its way up through my throat.
My bedside lamp was on, but the form silhouetted in the light did not belong to Robyn.
FIFTEEN
Jace
“These are some sick fuckers.” Mateo stepped from the bottom tread onto the basement floor, and his gaze immediately found Hargrove’s taxidermy table. He shrugged, and I knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth. “Can’t really blame Abby for reacting the way she did. Hargrove was part of the group that killed her friends, and she’d just seen her picture all over the second stalker board in two days.”
“She took the same oath you did.” I stared up at the photo-covered section of wall. We’d packed up everything but the table, the cage, the filing cabinet, and the pictures, but I hadn’t thought of a thing since Abby and Lucas left except how empty my bed was going to feel without her next to me. How empty my arms already felt.
Why had she worked so hard to make that happen?
“But the real mistake was mine,” I said. “She obviously isn’t ready to separate personal grudges from her duty as an enforcer. I should never have hired her.”
Not that she’d given me any choice in that, or in firing her either. Abby had an infuriating way of getting exactly what she wanted, consequences be damned, and in retrospect, it was clear that she’d been calling the shots the whole time.
Hell, maybe I should have promoted her. Maybe anyone who could manipulate an Alpha that well shouldn’t have been taking orders in the first place.
But that wasn’t how our system worked. We didn’t just hand out Alpha patches like badges for selling Girl Scout cookies. And we didn’t just kill people—even bad guys—against orders.
“Hargrove’s group killed one of our men too,” I said, thinking aloud. “And lots of Titus’s, from the looks of it. What Abby did was about more than those pictures. More than her dead friends.” We were missing something.
No, Abby was hiding something. She’d practically admitted that much.
Teo frowned. “What else could there be?”
“I don’t know. But she was desperate to get into this basement.” I ran one gloved hand over the edge of Hargrove’s work surface. “In fact, she was hell-bent on coming with us in the first place. I thought that was because she didn’t want to be left out, or…” Or because she didn’t want to be separated from me. In retrospect, I could see that my ego had gotten in the way of my duty. “…something. But what if it was more than that?”
“It was her idea to stop at Hargrove’s house on the way home from the airport yesterday, right?” Teo said. “Because she knew if you went to the lodge first, you’d leave her there?”
I nodded. He saw it too. Whatever Abby was up to was more important to her than her own career. More important than her own welfare, even. She’d killed Hargrove with full knowledge of the possible consequences. Hell, she’d seen Manx’s amputated fingertips up close—Manx had been declawed after the council found her guilty of murder—but Abby hadn’t even hesitated.
Teo held up his phone to recapture my attention, reminding me of the call I’d asked him to make.
“Any news?”
“Not yet.” He slid his phone into his jacket pocket. “Isaac said the lodge is on lockdown but they’ve seen nothing suspicious. No intruders. No threats. Not even a prank call. But just to be safe, they’ve called in backup from the Pride at large.”
The most capable non-enforcer members.
“And Titus is coming with three men of his own. They were near the border, hunting the remaining hunters, so they may actually beat us to the lodge.”
“Good.” That was unprecedented—a group of strays coming to the aid of a US Alpha. Titus knew what was at stake and he knew that his assistance, with adherence to the council’s standard rules of engagement, would help his chances in the vote.
Unfortunately, thanks to Abby’s crime, my backing would be less help to the cause than I’d hoped.