Semua Bab Blood of the Pack: Bab 21 - Bab 25

The cafeteria was a chaotic swirl of clattering trays, shouted gossip, and the acrid tang of overcooked fries mingled with spilled soda. Alice slumped at a corner table, her lunch tray untouched, the noise crashing around her like a tide she couldn’t outrun. Her heart was still raw from the library—Mira’s too-smooth denial of the crescent moon tattoo, Elara’s scarred palm and broken confession about her lost love Thorne, Rhea’s chilling Ask her about the tattoo, Kane’s crimson eyes burning with The Alpha’s scouts are in town. Liam’s howl echoed in her mind, a forbidden ache that tore her apart, and Mira’s unseen text—She’s slipping. Tell him to move faster—lingered like a shadow she couldn’t shake. She’d fled the library to escape their voices, their touches, but the storm in her chest followed her, heavier now in the crowded cafeteria.Her senses were too sharp, catching every detail—the scrape of plastic forks, the sweet sting of cheap body spray, the pulse of a hundred heartbeats.

Alice jolted awake, her heart slamming against her ribs like a trapped animal. The room was dim, fairy lights flickering weakly over posters that peeled from the walls, the creaky bed tangled with sheets that smelled of lavender and sweat. Last night’s truth clawed at her: she wasn’t a hybrid born of love, but a lab-grown weapon, forged by Samuel’s cult to burn the Crimson Moon and Lunar Howler packs. The vision of needles, her glowing scar, Mira’s text (Come back), Elara’s guilty call (I helped them), and the new girl’s whisper (The rally’s their trap, weapon) haunted her. She rolled over, breath shaky, and froze—a silver pendant shaped like a crescent moon with claws lay on her nightstand, not hers, glinting like a threat. Her wrist scar pulsed, and her stomach churned. Someone had been here, in her room, while she slept.She swung her legs over the bed, feet hitting the cold hardwood floor, the shock grounding her for a moment. The house was silent, Sophia likely still locked in he

Alice stumbled through the gym’s side exit, the rally’s roar—blaring music, screaming crowds—fading to a dull hum as the courtyard’s cold night air slapped her face. The school’s open quad stretched before her, cracked concrete benches under flickering streetlamps, skeletal trees rustling in the wind, the distant thump of the pep rally echoing like a heartbeat. Her hands still glowed faintly from the gym’s ritual circle, her wrist scar burning, the crumpled notes (Break or burn, weapon) heavy in her pocket alongside the bedroom pendant. The vision of Samuel’s ritual—lights pulsing, packs clashing, blood pooling—clawed at her mind, alongside Liam’s plea, Kane’s fierce grip, Mira’s whispered trap, Rhea’s venomous smirk, Elara’s guilty touch, and the new girl’s hiss (The ritual’s now). She was a lab-enhanced weapon, her mother’s affair with the Alpha a cult lie, Liam’s love a trigger, Mira a manipulator, Elara a complicit seer, Kane her only anchor. The courtyard’s silence felt like a tr