Page 55 of Shattered Omega: Part Three

“Uncle.” I took a breath, hugging my bag close to my chest. This was it. The last shot I had at answers—answers no one else could give. “I need your help.”

TWENTY

UMBRA

A note.

A fucking note was all she’d left.

A note and her goddamned boots with the tracker Dusk had set up.

Without the note, I think I would have lost my mind. Shatter had been planning way too well for this, though, because Decebal couldn’t trace her phone, either, which meant it was switched off.

Instead, I scoured the campus until I got Mord in my sights at least once, and that was the only thing that settled my nerves. That, and the solution I knew I needed to commit to today.

Dusk was planning protection from the Lincoln pack and Mord, and Ransom was helping to keep them at bay. Shatter had studied her books, trying to come up with any answers to free us of the Lincoln pack.

But I knew there was another answer, and when we got her back today, I wouldn’t risk losing her again.

I didn’t need to plan or study. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I’d ever catch up on Arkology enough to be useful in that. I could join Dusk and Ransom on the layers and layers of plans, but I didn’t have to.

My answer was clear as day.

Shatter was so incredible, I believed in her—I truly did. With time, she would come up with the most amazing solution. Something to save us all. But the truth was, I don’t think she had the time we hoped for, because I could feel this sickness worsening, faster and faster with every day. Jaws, slowly closing shut.

I sat on the side of my bed, opening my drawer and pulling out the knife, setting it on the side table. Then, for luck, I added the other things from within.

It was a strange assortment of things that made up who I was, and I couldn’t remember the origins of two of the three.

Two double-sided coins. Double heads and double tails.

A trick deck.

My knife.

The knife, strangely enough, was the most personal because I knew why it was here. I remembered the first time I’d picked it up, drawing it across flesh to discover a source of relief. The only one I’d ever found until Shatter.

I pictured her sitting beside me. In my head, she curled her cute, delicate fingers around my wrist, holding me steady as I picked my knife up from my bedside table.

Carefully, I turned it in my hand as I reached out within my pack bond. This time not toward my brothers or even Shatter.

Instead, I reached in a different direction. In the darkness, I brushed up against something. Something I should not be able to touch. It was deadly, and upon my contact, I felt it tug at me, drawing me in like a black hole.

My fingers gripped the knife like a safety, my stomach churning violently. It shook in my grip as I lifted it, ready to use it if I needed to return.

“Umbra,” Shatter whispered.

She was here, remember?

She wasn’t, but she was. She would be if I asked, and because of that, I could imagine just what she’d say. She’d tug me to face her with those golden eyes holding mine, nightshade scent stilling my fear. “Come back to me.”

My omega.

My wife.

I lowered the knife, holding those beautiful eyes in my mind’s eye, and let her be the lantern that led me back. With her, I managed to withdraw, already feeling the edges of my aura and sanity unravelling just from proximity. I had the confirmation I needed, but if I ever did this again, she couldn’t be there.

There would be no lantern. No turning back.

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