Page 137 of The World Undone

“I still don’t see why we needed to bring her,” Wade mumbled, quiet enough that only me and Atlas heard him. “Seems like an unnecessary liability in what is already a tense, risky situation.”

“She deserves revenge on the people who did this to us, who did this to her,” I said, keeping my voice even. I owed her this. We all did.

I held my breath as Nash unlocked her chains, unsure whether the odds were higher that she’d bolt out of here or attack her twin. Or me.

She did none of the above, thankfully, choosing instead to continue watching us all like hawks—a scavenger selecting its next meal with care.

I shrugged. It was the best-case scenario, though I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting, seeing her like this.

Growing up, she was the loudest, gentlest, happiest of us all. Now, she was a shell of the girl I knew, frightened and cornered into a wild violence that would have broken her heart.

It broke mine now. Fucking cruel what this world had done to her. What I’d done to her, however unintentionally.

“We’re meeting them at the site, it’ll take us a few minutes to walk there, can she make it?” Atlas asked, tone matter-of-fact. He was in mission-mode, as Max liked to call it.

Still, as collected as he sounded, I saw the threads of yellow in his eyes.

The wolf was at the surface. Good. We needed him.

Nash shot him a look, voice tense. “She’ll make it.”

He whispered something in her ear as Eli and Wade led us forward, blades hanging loose in their hands. Their steps were quiet and sure, like they walked these grounds in their sleep.

When Nika started to follow, I let go of the breath I’d been holding.

It was a risk, bringing her, but it felt right. Including her in this. She deserved revenge as much as we did for what The Guild had done to us all, for what they’d forced us to become.

When her dark eyes met mine, my stomach tightened at what I saw. It was brief, but it was there—a flash of my best friend.

That small flash disappeared quickly though, as she let loose a low, guttural growl, her teeth bared as she lunged towards me.

I didn’t flinch, didn’t back away. I let her fingers grip onto me, so tight that she’d have snapped bone if I were a human.

“Easy, Nik,” Nash cooed, calm and steady, like she was a toddler. “That’s Darius. He’s a prick, but he was your friend.”

My brain latched onto that word—was—but I didn’t fight him on it. Instead, I held her gaze, as we kept walking, like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Eventually, she loosened her grip. Her muscles rippled and tensed as she resisted the deep urge to feed on me. She didn’t.

“Good.” Nash’s face lit up with a smile as he caught my eye—a shared recognition in her progress.

It took him a minute to realize he was sharing that moment with, well, me, and he dropped his gaze when he did.

He was right not to abandon her, to hold onto hope. She was still in there, buried deep under the blood lust.

She had better control than I had when hunger took over.

Eli whistled when the forest opened into a clearing. “She really did a number on this place.”

He grinned, brows raised, impressed.

Wade grunted. “Damn right she did.”

The council’s underlings asked for a meeting spot. I suggested their old headquarters. A bit of a petty power move on my part, perhaps, bringing them to the scene of a battle they’d clearly lost.

The grounds were covered in the charred remains of the cabins, and I could smell the softest tinge of smoke damage in the air, even months later. The building I’d spent years in was burnt to a crisp, looking more like the site of ancient ruins than like the state-of-the-art ‘research’ center that it was. Good riddance.

It wasn’t just a site of destruction though.

The woods had started to reclaim the grounds as their own.

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