All Chapters of His Contract Luna Says Goodbye : Chapter 81 - Chapter 89

81.ELLARIA.The morning had started with four deaths before seven AM.I’d been on the ward since five thirty, moving between beds, checking vitals, adjusting dosages on medications I was increasingly certain weren’t doing anything useful. The contamination meeting wasn’t until tomorrow and until then all we could do was manage symptoms and watch people deteriorate and tell families things I hated saying out loud.By the time the sun was properly up we had lost all seven patients who had been in intensive care overnight.I stood in the hallway outside the intensive care ward with my clipboard pressed against my chest and stared at the floor and counted my breaths until the number stopped feeling like a physical attack.It didn’t.But I went back to work anyway.The ward was chaos in the particular grinding way that hospital chaos worked. It was relentless.Beds that had been occupied at midnight were already emptied, being cleaned and remade by eight in the morning.And filled again b

ELLARIA.The meeting was supposed to start at nine.By eight fifty the room was already half full and still filling.I sat at the far end of the table with my notes spread in front of me and watched people file in. Pack leaders. Senior healers. Three of Arren’s top enforcers. Two administrators who handled supply chain logistics and who I’d specifically requested be present.Arren came in last.He took the seat at the head of the table without looking at anyone in particular and folded his hands on the surface in front of him. Kade settled in beside him. Neither of them spoke.The room filled the rest of the way and went quiet.I looked down at my notes.Sariah and I had spent the better part of two days organizing everything we had into something presentable. The compound identification. The batch numbers. The timeline of contamination mapped against the timeline of patient deterioration. The supply chain breakdown showing every point where access had been possible.It was thorough.

ELLARIA.I snapped at one of the nurses at eleven in the morning.She’d asked me a perfectly reasonable question about a patient’s chart and I’d responded with something that came out sharper than I’d intended and the look on her face told me exactly how it had landed.I apologized immediately and meant it. She nodded and moved on and I stood in the hallway afterward and pressed my fingers to my eyes and told myself to get it together.I was in a mood and had been for two days.Arren had shut the council room door in my face and gone completely silent since.It’s been forty eight hours of nothing. None of my calls returned. No of my messages acknowledged. No indication that he was even aware I existed except for the fact that his enforcer had confirmed the trip was still happening tomorrow.Tomorrow.We were leaving tomorrow and I still didn’t know if Caden was coming. Arren had quietly rescinded whatever reluctant agreement he’d landed on before walking out. I couldn’t freaking cal

ELLARIA.Katerina’s hand flew to her cheek.She stared at the ground for a moment. Then she lifted her eyes to mine and her voice came out low and vicious.“You bitch.”I turned to Tatum.He was looking up at me with wide eyes that had gone a little frightened around the edges and it took everything in me to soften my face when I looked at him.I touched his cheek with my palm. “Go back to the house,” I said. Quietly. Firmly. “Go straight there. I’ll be right behind you.”He looked between me and Katerina.“Tate.” I held his gaze. “Go.”He pulled away from my hand and nodded once. A small shaky movement. Then he turned and started back the way we’d come without another word.I watched him go until he’d rounded the corner.Then I turned back to Katerina.She’d dropped her hand from her cheek and was standing straight with her eyes on me and something burning behind them.“I will gouge your eyes out if you take one step closer to me.” Her voice was tight. Controlled. “I said nothing but

ELLARIA.“Tate!”He didn’t stop.He was fast when he wanted to be and right now he wanted to be and he was weaving around everything on the path without slowing once. I went after him calling his name and he kept going like he couldn’t hear me or had decided not to.“Tatum!”Nothing.He ducked around the corner of the nearest house and I pushed myself faster and came around after him and he was already halfway down the next stretch of path putting more distance between us with every second.A hand closed around my elbow and pulled me to a stop.I spun around.Arren.“Wait here,” he said. Gently. “Let me go after him.”I knocked his hand off my elbow. “I don’t need your help.”I turned and went the other direction, scanning everything in front of me. Every gap between houses. Every possible place a small boy who didn’t want to be found could disappear into.“Tate.” I kept calling even though he wasn’t answering. “Tatum please.”Nothing came back.I made it back to the house after anoth