Where Are You Going?

The interior of Viper’s Dodge Charger smelled of burnt fur and blood. The engine roared against my eardrums, but it was nothing compared to the sound of Cane’s laboured breathing.

I sat in the back, his massive head heavy in my lap. My clothes were soaked through, the fabric clinging to my skin. I pressed my palms against the gash in his chest where Silas’s claws had ripped through bone and muscle.

"Stay with me," I whispered, my voice cracking.

"Cane, look at me. Don't you dare close your eyes."

In the front seat, Viper was a figure of focused tension, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he wove through the industrial backstreets of the Rust Belt. Beside him, Vane was shaking with grief and rage. He wasn't looking at the road; he was staring back at Cane, his golden eyes wide.

"He’s not healing," Vane rasped, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over broken glass.

"That shit Silas was pumped with, it’s a toxin. It’s fighting him."

"We’re two minutes out," Viper growled, slamming the car onto a dirt track that led toward a derelict shipyard on the edge of the Miami River.

"I’ve got a medic on the payroll. He’s used to sewing up wounds from the street races, but he’s never seen a wolf. You two had better keep him quiet."

The "hideout" was a reinforced concrete bunker beneath a rusted crane. As the car screeched to a halt inside the dimly lit hangar, a man in a stained lab coat, Viper’s doctor, rushed forward. But the moment he saw the silver-white fur beginning to sprout from Cane’s skin in a desperate, involuntary shift, he froze.

"What the hell is that?" the doctor stammered.

"It’s a patient," I snapped.

"And if you don't start working on him, you're next. Get the surgical kit. Now!"

We hauled Cane onto a metal workbench. The light from the overhead lamps was harsh, illuminating the true extent of the damage. His ribs were shattered, and the glowing blue residue from Silas’s claws was pulsing inside the wounds, eating away at the natural tissue.

For the next three hours, the bunker was a theatre. The doctor worked with trembling hands, while Vane and I held Cane down. I didn't leave his side. I used a sponge to wipe the grime from his face, whispering promises I wasn't sure I could keep.

"You don't get to leave like this," I murmured into his ear.

The doctor eventually stepped back, shaking his head.

"He’s stable, but the internal damage... he needs time. I’ve done what I can."

Viper led the doctor away to pay him off, leaving Vane and me alone in the silence. The adrenaline that had kept me upright finally began to drain away. I looked at my hands, stained, bruised, and trembling.

Vane was standing by the door, his back to me. His shoulders were heaving. The silence was unbearable, then it snapped.

"Jax is gone," Vane said.

The name hung in the air.

"Vane, we will get him back," I started, stepping toward him.

Vane turned with a speed that made me jump. His face was a mask of pure loathing.

"Get him back? With what? We have no home. We have no Alpha. We have a dozen young wolves being turned into God knows what because of you."

"Because of me?" I felt the fire in my chest ignite.

"I warned you! I risked everything to get back to that garage to tell you about their plan! I think I killed my friend!"

"And why did all this happen, Eloise?" Vane stepped into my space.

"Because you brought all this to our door.”

"I saved his life tonight!" I shouted, gesturing to the unconscious man on the table.

"You saved the man you broke!" Vane roared, his voice echoing off the concrete walls.

"If you just stayed away from us, none of this would have happened.”

"That’s a lie!"

"Is it?" Vane sneered, his lip curling back to reveal his canines.

"Look at you. Even covered in blood, you still look like a Thorne. It’s in your blood to consume everything you touch. You turned our survival into your personal drama, and now Jax is in a harness being flown to a slaughterhouse."

The words hit harder than any fist. I thought of Jax’s golden eyes, the way he had looked at me with such trust when I first arrived at the garage.

"I love this pack," I whispered, the tears finally breaking through.

"You don't know the meaning of the word," Vane said, his voice dropping to a cold, flat tone.

"To us, love is a bond of blood and moon. To you, it’s a transaction."

He walked over to the workbench, looking down at Cane with a profound sadness. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against the Alpha’s for a moment, a silent goodbye.

"Where are you going?" I asked, a fresh wave of panic rising.

"I’m going to find what’s left of the pack," Vane said, not looking at me.

"I’m going to find the survivors.”

"Wait for Cane! We need to go together!"

Vane finally looked at me, and the lack of emotion in his eyes was the most terrifying thing I had seen all night.

"There is no 'together,' Eloise. Not anymore. You stay here. You nurse him. Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll still be blinded enough by your scent to forgive you. But the rest of us? We're done with the Thornes."

"Vane, please—"

He turned and walked out, disappearing into the pre-dawn mist of the shipyard.

I looked at Cane, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.

I sat down on a crate next to Cane and took his hand. It was cold, but the pulse was there.

"They think we're broken," I whispered.

I looked toward the door, where the first light of dawn was beginning to shine through the cracks.

I leaned over and kissed his forehead.