Page 43 of Fate Awakened

“It's pack business. You aren’t a part of this,” he snaps at Ghost.

“What’s 'pack business'?” I ask, looking between them again in a flashback of last night.

“Bri, you're going to be fine. They need you alive to get what they want from Dante.” Hudson says as if this is a typical transaction.

“Fine? I’m going to be fine? You’re trading me to a group of criminals who will use me as bait for Dante. The Dante, who I’ve said hello to exactly one time, yesterday, while drunk. The Dante who doesn’t actually know me? I know what the people who live in this dark world are capable of. Alive and fine are two very different things,” I yell back at him, my face hardening.

My shouting causes him to visibly recoil, and avert his eyes from my gaze.

“Look, it’s not ideal, but Dante will get you back.” Hudson clenches his jaw shut.

Perfect. Even he doesn’t believe what he’s saying.

“So what do you get? You know, for trading my life. My safety. What do you gain?” I spit the question at him, needing to know what my life is worth.

“My family back,” he snarls, standing up and snatching his plate from the table before dropping it in the sink unwashed and walking out the front door. It slams with a resounding crash that echoes off the cabin walls.

Ghost slides a plate of eggs to me, and my stomach rumbles involuntarily.

“Eat. You’ll need your strength,” he says. His eyes hold mine, and for the first time, I see guilt in them.

“How can you let this happen? How can you stand there and let him hand me over to people like this? What kind of person looks the other way to human trafficking? I've been struggling with whether I should trust you. Your actions lead me to believe you’re a decent person. Decent people don’t stand by while bad things are happening right in front of them!” I turn my anger on him. Misplaced as it may be. He isn’t the one walking me into this trade, but he certainly isn’t trying to help me out of it, either.

To his credit, he takes my yelling head-on, unlike Hudson, who runs off every time he doesn’t like the conversation. Squaring his shoulders, Ghost levels his icy blue eyes on mine.

“I don’t get involved in pack business. I have no claim to you. You don’t belong to me. You don’t know this yet, but you’re about to start a war in this state that’s been brewing for a very long time. YOU are the key, and I know you don’t understand, but I cannot interfere,” he states firmly. His hands clenched as if holding his frustration at bay.

“What the actual fuck does that even mean? A kidnapped woman is the key? That’s bullshit. What are you psychic? Are you going to read my palm next? There’s no war in Nevada. I’m being handed over to criminals who kill people on a whim, and you’re over here playing Switzerland.” Venom weaves through my tone.

Why did I expect more?

“Look City, if I get involved, we both die,” his eyes try to convey a message I don’t know how to decipher before he continues, his tone serious, begging me to listen. “You’re stronger than you realize. You hold something inside of you that will determine the outcome. Just know that when the truth is revealed, you must embrace your destiny. Do not run from it.”

“What does thatevenmean? Why are you talking in riddles? What truth? What destiny? How about you just tell me now? You know, take the guesswork out of all this vague prophecy shit,” I question, hoping he’ll just give in and explain what any of this means.

He lets out a low laugh. A dark chuckle that doesn’t give the impression of humor at all.

“Fate doesn’t work like that, City. Sometimes it takes a while to be Awakened,” He sounds disappointed. Pained in a way that makes zero sense to me.

“Well, I stopped believing in Fate a long time ago,” I say, my temper fading at the memory of my brother.

I don’t believe in Fate. I don’t believe in any higher power, destiny, or God.

Not since I lost Sammy.

If a higher power or someone were pulling all the strings in this universe, they never would’ve taken him from me. Sure bad things happen, but there’s no justice in a world where Elaine gets to live and Sam dies.

Change that, and I'll believe in whoever they want me to.

“That’s a shame because Fate certainly believes in you,” he says before heading out of the kitchen and back toward his bedroom. “Eat.” He says the single word over his shoulder before he disappears from sight.

My appetite is non-existent. I idly push the eggs around for a few minutes before washing off the plate and placing it into the dishwasher. Standing alone in the kitchen, I feel a familiar pull on my heart.

Cain.

I miss his banter, his smile, his smell. He came into my life like a hurricane and left his mark on every part of me. Even now, after everything that’s happened, I struggle to be angry with him. When it comes down to it, I was the one who told him I was leaving. I was the one who told him we couldn’t be serious. I was the one who pushed him away time and again. Then I was the one who flipped out because another girl knocked on his door. We never said we were exclusive.

Even if he did say, it was only me, that what we had was once in a lifetime.

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