Page 1 of Reign

1

Callie

Chase and I sprint down the pathway, keeping to the pedestrian trails so our footsteps can’t be tracked. Somehow, Chase managed to snag my coat as he struggled to get me out of the building and throws it over my shoulders as we escape.

A sodden piece of the coat hits my cheek.

Ivy’s spilled blood is still warm.

My tears are frozen, turning into salted ice that stiffen my cheeks as we fight through the winter chill, but Chase doesn’t leave my side. He’s so close, I feel his hot breath on my neck every time he exhales, his steady hand landing between my shoulders and coaxing me forward every time a fresh image of a dying Ivy hits the backs of my eyes and I buckle between sprints.

“Almost there,” he says, his breaths heavy. “Keep going.”

My exhale hitches on a sob.

“Don’t fall apart yet. I promise, baby, as soon as we get to your room, you can fall apart in my arms. I’m right here. I’m not leaving.”

I grip his arm as we run, the hard sinew of muscle bulging against my fingers as he uses every ounce of energy he possesses to get us out of here.

There’s a tickle of realization as I hold onto his arm. Chase doesn’t have a jacket. The thin material of his white button-up Briarcliff shirt is all that separates him from the December winter moon.

He must be freezing.

I think this fact, but it doesn’t register past the surface of my brain. The only worry I can come up with has to do with Ivy. The only anxiety I’m concerned about has to do with my friend.

My former friend.

My dead friend.

“Oh, God,” I moan, and Chase takes my weight for his own.

He half-carries me the last few feet to Thorne House and hauls me against his side as we sneak through the back. Chase props me up just inside the door, then exits briefly to use a fallen tree branch to obscure our footsteps in the snow.

He brings the cold with him when he shuts the door and carries me up three flights. I grip his neck like a lifeline, breathing in his familiar scent laced with snowflakes, and work to calm my broken heart.

“Almost there,” he says into my ear.

I bury my face into his neck, but hear when the lock turns at my apartment door and register the blanket of warmth as soon as he steps out of the hallway.

“What happened?”

Emma’s soft voice floats in my periphery, but I’ve yet to lift my hanging head.

In fact, I’ve yet to register Chase depositing me on a kitchen stool as he goes to talk to his sister.

“Thank fuck you’re here,” Chase says, and my eyes lift from the floorboards enough to see him embrace his sister in a hard, emotional hug. “Are you all right?”

“It was the strangest thing,” Emma says once they pull apart. “I got a text from Ivy to meet her at the lobster shack in town, but when I went, it was Falyn and Willow waiting for me.”

“Goddammit.” Chase scrapes a hand down his face. “We thought she had you. That Sabine had taken you.”

“Hell no. Just a couple of bitches thinking they could dangle my re-entry into the Virtues like it’d be something I’d desire. Why? What’s going on?”

It’s here I see the cracks in Chase’s glacial demeanor, the stricken lines around his eyes and mouth as he speaks close to Emma’s ear.

Emma gasps and rips from his hold. She’s immediately at my side, pushing my hair back and eclipsing my vision.

“Callie? Callie, can you hear me?”

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