Page 206 of Psycho Pack

We'll have to fix that.

"You thought what?" I demand, pressing the blade in just enough to draw a droplet of blood on her milky throat. Sheflinches and I pull it away before she can panic and kill herself before we get the answers we need. "You've seen someone like him before? Where?"

"You wouldn't believe me," she says bitterly.

"Try me."

She hesitates, glancing down at the knife, then at Wraith. I'm about to carve her eyeballs out if she looks at him wrong again, but there's no horror there anymore.

I'm not sure the pity I find is much better.

But it stays my hand.

For now.

"In a dream," she says quietly.

"A dream?" I echo. "You dreamed aboutWraith?"

Now I'm not sure if I'm going to cut her out of protectiveness or jealousy.

"No," she says, the impatience returning to her voice. If anything, it's the only thing that convinces me she's telling the truth. "Nothim. Someone with the same…" She hesitates, eyeing me warily as she chooses her next words. "Smile."

Valek snorts a laugh he quickly masks as a cough even before I can give him a death glare.

"It wasn't him," she continues. "The m—manI've seen doesn't have a face. The scars are more… extensive."

"More extensive thanthat?" Whiskey blurts out. He flashes Wraith an apologetic grin. "Sorry, bro. Meant it as a compliment. You're… unique."

Wraith growls softly in irritation.

So do I.

If Whiskey were anyone else, I'd bite him. But considering literally every inside thought Whiskey has makes its way to the outside, I guess it's not as bad as half the other shit that comes out of his mouth.

"The man you saw in this dream," I say, turning back to Cosima and trying to think rationally even though all my instincts are on a hair trigger right now. "What was he like?"

"I mean, he's not really a person," she says, her voice taking on a raw edge as she stares at the wall. Through it. "He doesn't communicate or think, he just… he follows."

"Follows what?" Thane echoes warily. "Who?"

Her eyes dart over to him, wide and wild again. "Me. He followsme. He wantsme. It's alwaysme."

"Okay," Plague says, his voice slightly softer now. The voice he uses with unruly patients. Ones he thinks are teetering on the edge of sanity, and I'd know, considering he's used that voice with me before when I was fully feral. "And what do you think he wants with you?"

She shakes her head, pulling her knees to her chest tightly and wrapping her arms around her legs. "I don't know," she mutters. "I've been having the same dream every night my whole life, and I know when he catches me, he'll devour me. I know he will. That's how the dream always ends."

Looking at her now, hearing the way her voice cracks as she speaks of this monster… I wonder if Plague is right and that she isn't exactly in touch with reality. And it puts her reaction to Wraith into a slightly different context. The realization that shewasn'treacting to my mate's face, not really, makes me a little less stabby.

A little.

"It's a dream," Plague says firmly. "A dream can't hurt you."

"This one can!" she seethes. The scent of blood hits the air and I realize her sharp nails have carved crescents into her thighs. "He'll find me. If I'm out here, he'll find me, and he'll rip every last one of you apart. You have to take me back."

My alphas and I exchange a wary look. Not a word passes between us, but we're all thinking the same thing.

"There are at least a hundred feet of reinforced steel and solid stone between you and the outside world," Plague says in his logical, matter-of-fact tone, but it only seems to agitate her further. "No one is getting in. Or out."

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