Page 248 of Psycho Beasts

We couldn’t risk it.

Sweat poured down my face as every muscle in my body burned.

The ball was in the afternoon, and the night was just fading into a gray morning. Who even knew if we’d passed the third trial. Had there even been one to begin with?

Everything reeked of betrayal and sabotage.

Just one big setup.

I breathed through the pain.

Lucinda gripped my hand in hers, her savaged arm still dripping blood, her eyes wide with shock.

The don had warned us this world was cruel.

But it was so much worse than I could ever have imagined.

When the car came to a stop, I dragged the Ortega brothers behind me through the rain, but stopped at the entrance.

Bullet holes speckled the front door, and the ornate glass on either side had been shot out. Shards lay at our feet.

I couldn’t lose Aran.

I couldn’t face any of this without her.

I refused.

My hands shook so hard I couldn’t twist the doorknob. No one stepped up to open it, and all of us stood on the stoop, unable to face the truth.

Eventually, Xerxes walked up and shoved it open.

Blood was everywhere.

The foyer stank of death.

Aran lay on top of Walter like she’d tried to shield him with her body, and both were riddled with bullet holes.

No one could survive that.

I keeled over and heaved bile across the gore-splattered marble.

Lucinda and Jala joined me. Jess collapsed.

Xerxes backed away.

Warren stood in the doorway, staring at the scene in horror.

The alphas didn’t move.

My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees. The Ortega brothers mimicked my motion, my power still wrapped around them.

I screamed.

They bellowed.

Jinx was the only one that walked up to the bodies.

I fell forward onto my forearms, so much pain coursing through me that I couldn’t cry, could do nothing, as the world fell apart around me.

---