Four

Violet's POV.

"Alpha Dante?"

My voice came out too small for my own good. A squeaky high-pitched tone that I could do nothing to control.

If that kept happening he would find out faster than I would like. He tilted his head, watching me with gold-flecked onyx eyes.

Is he going to turn?

Luckily the lights were still dim and he couldn't really see much — unless his eyes glowing like that meant something. I didn't know. I didn't know enough about him.

I sank deeper into the water.

"You..." he started, taking a step closer, but a loud bang cut him off.

I sat up in shock, water sloshing over the sides of the bath. My ears rang. For a second I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except stare. Then I looked at Dante and whatever I felt tripled — his expression had turned murderous. His eyes darkened even further as both of us turned a full 360, trying to locate where the gunshot had come from.

The window was broken and glass was all across the floor.

Someone had shot at us. At him to be specific because there was no way it was me.

My heart was beating so fast it hurt.

I pressed myself back against the far end of the bath, knees to my chest, like making myself smaller would do anything. My hands were shaking and I couldn't stop them.

Thundering footsteps followed immediately after.

"Boss, are you okay? We heard the shot." Bret's voice came from the other side of the door.

The panic about the gun shifted into something different and somehow worse. I suddenly didn't care about the gunshot and all I could focus on was one thing.

Bret can't come in here.

But I can't get out of this pool either.

"We're coming in," Bret said.

My eyes went wide. I looked over at Dante. His focus was fixed on the broken window, glass spread across the floor beneath it. He wasn't looking at me. He was scanning, calculating, already somewhere else in his head.

"Dante." It came out low, almost swallowed by the loud frantic beating of my heart.

Bang.

The door came down and footsteps poured in.

"Stay outside." Dante's voice was calm. Flat. The footsteps stopped immediately, like he'd flipped a switch. He didn't look at me. He just walked out to address them and pulled the door behind him as much as he could with it half off its hinges.

I moved the second he was gone.

I grabbed my robe, stepped out of the bath and crossed the room as fast as I could, I pulled on my black shirt, black combat trousers, and laced up my boots in under a minute. I wasn't waiting around to see what happened next.

The front door wasn't an option so I took the back one instead. It opened out toward the garden, and the cold night air hit me the moment I stepped outside.

Once I put enough distance between me and Sauna, my body calmed down a little. But that didn't mean my mind stopped its spiral.

It kept replaying everything.

Dante walking in with just a towel. The way he looked at me. The gunshot punching through the glass out of nowhere. None of it connected into anything that made sense yet and all of it sat heavy in my chest.

I kept to the edge of the path, head down, staying out of the light. I just needed to get back to the bunks before Bret came for roll call. That was it. Simple.

Then I heard it.

Grunting. A short, sharp sound. Then the wet thud of someone hitting the ground.

I slowed down.

I should have kept walking. I knew that. I told myself that. But I looked anyway, and once I looked I couldn't keep going.

In the narrow gap between two of the outer buildings stood three people. Two on their feet. One on the ground with his arms over his head, trying to cover himself.

It was Sunny. My bunkmate.

He was the smallest tribute in our block, I came second. The two standing over him weren't big but they were bigger than him, and right now that was the only thing that mattered. One of them raised his hand and hit him across the face again, from here he looked so battered, his eyes swollen shut and he was crying begging them to stop but they just kept hitting him, before I knew it my legs were moving before my mind could catch up.

"Hey."

Both of them looked up.

I stepped in front of Sunny and put myself between him and them. The taller one had blond hair and a scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He looked at me like I was dirt on his shoe.

"Walk away," I said.

He smiled. "Or what?"

He punched me before I finished thinking of an answer.

He raised his fist up again but I managed to block most of it but his friend, caught me from the side. I went down hard, knees hitting the dirt, and before I could push back up something connected with my face and my lip split open. Blood hit my tongue immediately, warm and sharp.

I stayed on my knees, one hand on the ground, trying to get my balance back.

Sunny was saying something but I couldn't make it out.

"What's going on."

Dante's voice filled the space.

I didn't move. I stayed where I was and let the relief wash over me even though I didn't want to feel it, even though the fact that it was his voice that made my whole body settle annoyed me.

He walked in from the far end, unhurried. His eyes moved across all of us once. His face didn't change.

He crouched down in front of me. His fingers came under my chin and tilted my face up toward him. He checked my lip, my cheek, my eye.

but his expression didn't change if anything he looked annoyed and very uninterested

Then he stood and looked past me at the blond.

"I asked a question," he said.

"We were only playing around." The blond crossed his arms. He actually looked proud of himself. "Right, Matthew?"

The one beside him nodded.

"Playing..." Dante said.

"Yeah."

"The other person ends up bleeding?" They didn't seem to notice the way his voice hardened.

"Yeah," the blond said again, same tone, same stupid confidence.

Dante looked down at me. "You are such a headache," he said, low, almost to himself.

Then he looked back at the blond.

"Then let's play."

And before I could process his words, Dante Punched him