Page 149 of Roaring Flames

Once again, my thoughts begin to spiral, panic digging its jagged claws deep into me.

Where are the twins? Reid? Christian? Desiree? What about Mimi and Emilia? Are they here somewhere? And where are my foster parents and my…my birth parents?

Terror compresses my chest, and my breath comes out in shallow spurts of air.

“Hey.” Ashton grabs my face between his two hands and spins me so I have no choice but to face him. His brown eyes glimmer with emotion. “You need to calm the fuck down, you hear me? You are no help to anybody if you’re passed out from a panic attack. So take a deep breath, pull on your big-girl panties, and help me figure out what to do. Unless you don’t think you can, then you can go wait in the car.”

His dogmatic words should irritate the shit out of me, but they don’t. The exact opposite, in fact. I’m suddenly more determined than ever to prove the fucker wrong.

Which was his intention in the first place.

Goddammit.

“I’m calm.” I slap his hands away and then refocus on the shifters. “Why aren’t they fighting back?”

There are a few dozen wolf shifters and only six gunmen. It should be an easy battle.

Ashton, his mouth pressed in a firm line, jerks his chin towards another group I didn’t notice earlier. There’s only one gunman that I can see, and he’s surrounding…

My breath hitches, and horror trickles into my veins like a poison.

“The children,” I whisper, anger rushing to the forefront of my mind and taking hold.

My body shakes with the force of my fury. The gunmen are holding the children hostage.

“They’re monsters.”

Ashton opens his mouth to respond but snaps it shut when one of the masked men gracefully jumps onto the longest picnic table. He holds his assault rifle loosely in his grip as he surveys the gathered wolves.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the hottest new game show around!” He has a deep accent, though I can’t pinpoint where it’s from. “Who should we have as our first contestant?” He taps a gloved finger to his chin before pointing at the shifters below him. “Eeny. Meeny. Miny. Mo. You! Come on up and win a prize!”

Two of the other men surge forward and drag an unfamiliar shifter by his arms towards the picnic table. He looks to only be a few years older than me with bright-red hair. He almost resembles Dec from my school.

Could this be…?

Does Dec have a brother?

My pulse races.

“Ashton…” I whisper, but I don’t know what I want to say to him, what I want to ask him.

“I know,” he responds.

The man is thrown unceremoniously onto the picnic table at the leader’s feet.

“Please don’t hurt me,” the man sobs. “Please.”

“Get up,” the leader says calmly.

“God, that’s Sam,” Ashton says in horror.

Sam.

I turn the name over and over in my head.

Sam.

“Please,” Sam cries again.

---