Page 111 of The World Undone

If I were a council member, I wouldn’t bother answering such a question.

Which was why it was shocking as hell when she did.

“Now Atlas,” she made a tsking noise that crackled through the speakers above us, her pedantic disdain raining down on us all, “you didn’t really believe that we’d keep the thing you could use to control us somewhere you’d think to look, did you? The thing you want most? Tarren had his faults, but I thought he taught you boys better than that.”

Wade stiffened at my side. A careful glance down revealed his fingers clutching the handle of his blade with far more force than would be useful in a fight.

He was just as on edge as I was, and I wasn’t sure if it was because there really was something in the air—something that messed with our minds, or just because she was fucking with us. An entirely different kind of psychological warfare.

“And you.” Rebecca’s eyes narrowed as she studied Bishop. “Your face, it’s familiar. I’ve seen you in reports.” She tilted her head to the side, considering. “Not as dead as we thought, are you?” Her lips spread into a gummy smile that looked uncannily like a wolf preparing to snap. “We’ll rectify that today.” Then, turning to a man at her side, she added, “The girl’s not here, I’m done with this. Release them so we can finish up our work for the day. I’m famished.”

For a moment, I thought she meant to release us, which didn’t make sense. We weren’t trapped here. She was the one who’d need releasing.

But just as quickly as the confusion arrived, it dispersed.

The tandem puffs of airlocks released in cadence around us, followed by the heavy click of bolts I couldn’t see.

And then, the thick glass windows separating us from the locked-up demons surrounding us were gone.

“Fuck.” Wade shifted so that he was at my back as the demons poured into what was now very clearly going to be used as an arena for the sick fucks on the other side of the observation deck. The room filled with snarls and screams as the creatures fought for their freedom, for resources—most of them probably so drugged they had no conception of what they were doing. Tex was across the room locked in a fight with another wolf, and Bishop was fending off attacks left and right as he struggled to get closer to him. “We need to kill her and then get the fuck out of here.”

But we couldn’t leave Tex and we couldn’t leave Bishop. I wouldn’t return to The Lodge without them.

“Kill her, quickly,” I muttered from the side of my mouth, hoping she wouldn’t hear me, “she won’t expect you shifting to her while the rest of us are fighting. Attack her from behind, go straight for the heart. I’ll get them,” I bit out.

Wade cursed, then nodded. “Don’t die.”

I didn’t wait for him to dematerialize, instead I took off at a run towards the far end of the room, where Tex was locked in a fight against two wolves now.

One of the prisoners latched onto me, claws digging through the muscle of my shoulder, but I shoved them off without too much effort.

Bishop reached them almost as soon as I did.

In tandem we raised our blades, ready to join in the fray, but then I froze.

The larger of the two wolves, with fur a shade of black that looked almost blue, caught the attention of my wolf. It took me a second to realize why, but my stomach dropped when I did.

“Mavis.”

Bishop froze. “The kid who used to hang around you guys all the time?”

I nodded.

I knew from Sarah that Mavis had turned, that he was feral, and that The Guild had been torturing him with their experiments. Neither of us had been in a position to find him when Max and Darius broke us out of that place, and by the time I’d come to, it was clear that he hadn’t made the trip with us to Bishop and Charlie’s set up. He must have been transferred before that night, to this facility. That, or he’d run, as had several other captive demons, and found himself in Guild control again somewhere down the line.

His yellow eyes snagged on mine briefly as he sank his teeth into Tex’s shoulder, but there was no recognition there.

“Fuck.” Bishop ran a hand through his hair in frustration, then fell to the side as a battle between what looked like two vampires shoved too close. “We can’t kill him, Atlas. I can’t kill him.”

I nodded, frozen with indecision for a moment, but then I grabbed the other wolf attacking Tex—the one I had no connection with—and threw him a few feet away.

He snapped and snarled, then crouched low in preparation to attack again. This time I had no doubt I would be on the receiving end of his temper, but another creature jostled him, drawing his ire instead.

Bishop wrestled with Mavis, trying like hell to get between him and Tex. It was a dangerous, reckless thing to do. If Mavis didn’t attack him, it was entirely possible Tex would.

Before I could intervene, I went crashing into the nearest wall, across from the observation deck..I strained my eyes through the throng of demons, trying to get a look at Wade.

Rebeccca was dead, her body collapsed like a doll in a chair, a hole in her chest where her heart used to be, and Wade was fighting the only four protectors who remained in the booth. The rest had either fled at his dramatic arrival or were dead.

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