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“Wait, what do you mean they were poisoned?” I said to Ace down the phone. “I ate the same as them and I’m fine.”
I remembered Thomas and Elliot telling me their pizza tasted weird, but that didn’t mean they were poisoned. Ace was just being dramatic because he didn’t like that I was alone.
Ace was breathing heavily through the phone. “Look, I’m sorry but I need you to get in your dad’s car and drive. Get on the nearest highway and don’t stop unless you need gas.
“Stay on the phone with me. I’ll meet you wherever you end up as soon as I’m back in the States.”
I tightened my grip on the phone. My heart was starting to race in my chest. “I don’t understand. You’re freaking me out a little. What’s going on?”
“Doe, please, I know this is confusing but I need you to do as I say. Someone is coming for you, and I can’t let them get to you. I can’t. Please.”
I shook my head. None of this was making any sense. “What about my brothers? I can’t just leave them.”
“You have to. They’ll be okay, I promise. It’s not them that they’re after.” The panic in Ace’s voice was so real, it was nearly tangible. “You have to go now, Doe. Please, before it’s too late.”
I stumbled backward, tears rolling down my cheeks as I studied my siblings. They looked to be sleeping so peacefully on the floor. I couldn’t just leave them like this. I wouldn’t.
Something hard touched the side of my head.
“Hang up the phone,” a quiet voice said.
My heart plummeted. Slowly, I turned my head.
Standing next to me was a man I had never seen before, pointing a gun at the center of my forehead.
He was shorter than most of the men in my life, probably just a little over six feet, but he still towered over me.
He was dressed in all black, as were the several men behind him who I could see coming through the open back door, all of them armed with handguns.
Around twenty of them were flooding into my home the same way the police would raid a house, checking corners and running past us in every direction.
“Hang up the phone,” the man repeated. He kept his voice quiet enough so Ace wouldn’t be able to hear. He gripped his gun harder—a silent threat to do as he said.
“Doe?” Ace’s voice was frantic in my ear. “What is it? What happened?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the man in front of me shook his head.
His eyes darkened. “Do as I say, girl. Hang up the phone,” he repeated. “Now.”
My gaze strayed to my brothers and the man knelt next to them, touching each of their necks with two fingers, checking for a pulse.
Were they dead? Did these men kill them? My heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest.
I needed to warn Ace.
“Ace, there are men with guns—” I said through the phone, but was cut off when the man used the butt of his gun to strike the side of my head, sending me to the ground with a shriek of pain.
I dropped the phone, and it skidded across the floor before coming to a stop in front of the man next to my brothers.
I could vaguely hear Ace screaming my name through the speaker as the man picked up my cell and ended the call.
He threw the phone back down on the floor and shattered it under his massive boot, destroying both it and any chance I had of getting a hold of Ace—of anybody—
to come help.
The man in black slowly crouched down in front of me, tutting in disapproval the same way a father would scold his child. “You’ll find there are consequences for disobeying me.”
I clutched the side of my head where he hit me. The taste of iron filled my mouth.
He looked at a blond man standing behind him. “Bring him in, Elias.”
This Elias nodded in response and disappeared through the back door.
“What do you want?” I slid away until my back touched the front of the couch. I put my hands out to cover my brothers next to me.
The corners of the man in black’s lips turned up when he noticed blood starting to drip down the side of my throbbing head.
“I heard that your connection to your mate is so strong that he can sense when you’re scared or in pain, no matter where he is in the world. Is that true?”
I flinched away from him when he reached out to touch the flaming skin he had just struck.
He dropped his hand, his warped smile broadening. “I hope it is. I hope he feels every bit of what we’re going to do to you.”
Huh. Yeah, that doesn’t sound pleasant.
Elias reappeared with a familiar person following behind him. I nearly stopped breathing when I realized who it was.
“Mr. Callahan?” I whispered.
Mr. Callahan, my science teacher who hated me, barely cast his eyes at me when he entered my house.
“Well?”
Mr. Callahan nodded. “That’s her.”
The man kneeling in front of me smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dorothy Kennicott. My name is Robert.”
I didn’t give a damn who he was. I wanted to know why he was here. “What do you want?” I asked once more.
He pretended to think for a moment. “I’m hoping we can become friends. Given the opportunity, I believe we could be very useful to each other.”
This Robert person had to be some sort of idiot.
“I don’t tend to befriend people who break into my home and hold me and my family at gunpoint.”
Robert chuckled. “No? Well, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“The house is clear,” another man said, appearing in the doorway that led to the kitchen. “No one else is here.”
Robert raised his brow at me. “Your parents aren’t here?”
I hesitated for a moment, trying to determine what the best course of action was.
Would they leave if they thought my father was here?
“No,” I finally answered. There was no use saying my parents were here if I couldn’t prove it.
He raised his gun casually and set the barrel down against Thomas’s temple next to us. “Are you lying to me?”
My heart crawled up my throat. “No! They went away for the weekend. I promise.”
“Her mother went into heat this morning. It was confirmed right before we got here. They’re about two hours north.” It was Mr. Callahan.
Robert looked back at me. He still didn’t look convinced. “Then who is watching over you?”
“No one,” I breathed out.
I didn’t understand what Mr. Callahan meant when he said my mom went into