Page 27 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

He drops his smile and lowers his plate as he steps up to the cage. “Then what is the point of your existence if not to lose control of your wolf, go on a murder spree and have me put you out of your misery?”

“I see, so not having a pack means I am?—”

“Worthless? A threat to life? A dead thing walking? Yes.” Contempt drips from each word.

I’ve seen that contempt before.

I’ve experienced it from age ten when I entered the foster system to age eighteen when I left it.

There’s no reasoning with someone who decides they want to think less of you. When they decide they are better than you. There’s only staring that contempt in the face and makingit crystal clear that they can take their contempt, and they can shove it so far up their ass, they choke on it.

“Was there anything else?” I ask calmly. “I’d like to get back to my meditating and you’re still here. Are we done?”

He barks out a laugh and turns to leave, then stops.

Still smiling, he walks up to the cage. I brace myself for what he intends to do next. If he opens the door, I will do anything I can to get past him and away.

But he doesn’t open the door.

Holding my gaze, he picks up the fork from his plate and tips the remains of his food on the floor, just outside my cage. “Wouldn’t want you to starve before I got what I want out of you.”

I don’t even blink. He won’t provoke a reaction from me.

“This should be fun.” He chuckles and, shaking his head, turns around and walks out. The man who quietly watched our exchange trails him.

Only when the door has clicked shut after them do I look down at the scraps of food inches from my bare feet. My sneakers must be back under the bleachers.

There’s barely three mouthfuls, and this floor is not nearly clean enough to be eating off of it.

The problem I have isn’t food. It’s a lack of water, especially if I’m going to be here for a while.

To get out of here, I need to survive, and to survive, I need to be strong.

Bending, I stick my arm through a gap between the metal bars, careful not to touch them. I don’t know what it is about those bars, but I’ve had a warning blaring in my head since I saw them that it would be a mistake to brush up against them.

Retrieving the few bites of pasta salad and the small chunk of steak is successful.

I return to the middle of the cage, sitting cross-legged and studying the lock as I eat.

The food is cold and slightly gritty, probably from whatever dust blew into the room when my captor entered. But it’s food.

I ponder the reason my wolf, for all her usual growly ways, has remained resolutely silent since I woke in this cage. Her silence feels ominous.

I tell myself I’m just being paranoid, but I don’t think I am.

Something is wrong.

9

KAT

My earliest memory is a field of sunflowers taller than I am.

When I’m alone, my thoughts usually turn to what it might mean and why I would dream of it. Like now.

Now, I have all the time in the world to think about sunflowers.

And my growing rage.

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