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Bending to pick up the strange meal Franklin felt I needed to have in the middle of the night requires effort, but I manage it and close the door, returning to my bed with the tray.

Shane took away the plate of chicken and rice he brought the other day that I wouldn’t eat, so I place the tray on the bedside table. Not hungry, but relieved I had nothing to fear.

I lay back down again and ponder my position.

What’s going to happen to me now?

I was supposed to be Shane’s reward for drawing Mack here, but now what? I glance at the crib on the other side of the room. Is Franklin going to make me stay here or will he let me leave?

An hour later, I’m no closer to sleep as I lay on my side when footsteps move toward my room.

They’re not heavy like before, but light. I’m not sure if it’s the same man from before or it’s someone else.

I hold my breath, eyes glued to the door as I wait for whoever it is to walk past.

The footsteps slow.

Please don’t come in here, I mentally will the person away.

Someone knocks on the door.

Not loudly.

The knock is timid.

I stare at the door, not intending to open it.

I am still staring at it when the handle starts to very slowly turn.

14

MACK

“You’re not going in alone.” My dad stops peering out of the front windows of our rental to snap at me.

I slept as well as I thought I would. Which was terrible, and so did everyone else, because no sooner had we all gathered around the dining table to discuss our next steps than we were already yawning.

“Last night was pointless,” I tell my dad. “We don’t have time to waste peering through trees in the hope of finding a way in.”

My urgency to act isn’t just because of the terrible nightmare I had about Aerin in desperate trouble and me not being there when she needs me the most.

It’s Clary.

Clary has been quiet at the dining table, head down, clasping his mug of coffee but has yet to take one sip from it.

He hasn’t mentioned leaping out of my car and charging to the forest, on his way to potentially getting himself killed. He hasn’t mentioned Douglas catching up to him and laying him out with one punch.

But just because he passed the night on the couch, watched over by Bennett and hasn’t attempted to slip away, doesn’t mean he won’t the second we’ve turned our backs.

“So what do you suggest?” My dad crosses his arms as he continues to scowl at me.

I run a hand through my hair as I slump into my seat. “I don’t know. I just know that waiting for an opportunity to slip in might mean we miss a chance to help Aerin and the other omegas who might need help now.”

Warren texted me this morning while I was in the bathroom. I called him back and checked in with everyone in Winter Lake. They’ve had no trouble at the house and Chris and Zoe are healing fine. Aerin’s grandparents have thrown themselves into the task of clearing up and repainting the den, ready for Aerin to come home.

And I had nothing to tell them.

“We’ll have breakfast and think things over,” Ivy says, getting up from the dining table. “Probably we’re all still a little grouchy from hunger.”

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