Chapter 15: False Alarm

Cade did not answer my texts, and he did not answer my door.

By Thursday night the mark on my shoulder had begun to ache.

It was not my pain.

It came in slow waves from across the quad, and each one made my knees go weak.

I lay on the bed with Tilly's hand on my forehead and said, "He's hurting."

"Maybe he's sulking," Tilly said.

"He's scared."

I knew the taste of it now, metallic and thin.

I put on my coat and went.

The pull led me straight to Greaves Hall, up the stairs I had used before.

At the second landing I put my ear to the vent.

Anson's voice came through it, soft and unhurried.

"Hold his arm, please. Higher."

Then Cade's voice, slurred and furious.

"Don't."

"It's a full dose, Cade. Enough to put a wolf under for a week."

"I asked you to stay close to the girl. You let her put her scent on you."

"She's not who you said."

"No," Anson said. "She's far worse. Gunnar's own daughter, and the stone is going to hear her name on Saturday."

A cabinet drawer closed.

"I'll give her to Gunnar tied in a ribbon, and you'll sleep through it."

I stood on the landing with my heart pounding.

There were three hunters in that room, and I was one wolfless girl.

I looked at the red box on the wall beside me.

FIRE.

I pulled the lever.

The alarm tore through the building, and doors burst open on every floor.

Students poured into the stairwell in pajamas and hockey shirts, shouting and coughing and clutching their phones.

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