This is my pack.
I have a proper role here both to help raise Millie but also, as a full-time worker in the resistance.
I always wanted an important role in life.
Now, I have one.
Millie takes the opportunity to snuggle closer to Lark. She’s seated on his lap at the central kitchen island next to me. Lark and I perch on red, vinyl stools.
There are three calendars of the Omega band, Empty Cage, stuck with magnets on the fridge, which belong to Lark.
He truly is a calendar-holic.
The counters are crimson, and the walls are a beautiful iridescent blue. The room is filled with the delicious, sweet smell of chocolate from the muffins that Kai has been baking.
The muffins are displayed on a wire rack on the side, cooling down.
I lick my lips.
He’s always making chocolate treats, since he knows that I’m a chocoholic.
Not that the chocolate ice cream ever lasts long around me.
But then, I did warn Lark about that.
I’ve got used to the fact that even when Kai bakes, he wears his brown, designer suits with stag cuff links.
Perhaps, it breaks royal etiquette to dress in jeans.
He’s been relaxed and contented over these last months, however, baking and cooking for all of us.
I’ve never felt so cared for.
Kai loves Gabriel.
In fact, their love for each other burns bright.
It’s scorching.
Yet it’s also founded on a strong desire for social justice and a searing intelligence. They’ve both started training Lark and me in different sides of their missions.
Antonio is like a wild whirlwind. He has more of a skill for disruption, than calm planning.
Yet he has a serious skill set from hacker to martial arts. He hadn’t been lying about that.
He’s a devastatingly powerful player in this battle of ours.
In the end, this will be a war, one way or another.
It’s not going to be a short one because already Raylan and his cronies are rebuilding. They’ve adjusted the chokers and the bracelets, so that once again, they can’t be removed.
We’ll take the victories as they come, however, and keep on fighting.
Fletcher has disappeared.
Has he been killed? Sent to the Alpha Center for a taste of his own conditioning medicine?
My heart clenches at that thought because I don’t want anyone to suffer that.