Chapter 272

I walk out of Sadie's bedroom feeling completely pissed. Pissed at the situation and pissed at my reaction.

I stay outside her door for a minute, my hand still on the handle as I try to get my emotions under control. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. I inhale slowly, filling my lungs and trying to let everything wash over me.

It doesn't help. The turmoil inside me is still there, churning.

After a few seconds, I let go of the handle and stomp down the hallway. My thoughts are spinning so fast I barely register the pack members who bid me goodnight.

When I get to my room, I slam the door behind me. The sound echoes through the empty space, sharp and final. It hits me in the chest like a punch. I'm angry and shattered at the same time. I want to hit something. Someone. Anything to get rid of this suffocating feeling, like my heart is being run over by a damn truck-again and again and again.

I feel like a loose cannon, seconds from exploding. The pressure has built so fast it leaves me shaking with rage.

Grabbing fistfuls of my hair, I start pacing the room.

I should be happy. I should be ecstatic-over the fucking moon. But why does it feel like I'm dying? Like I'm about to lose everything? Like I'm already losing a piece of myself?

I thought I had more time. Turns out I was just lying to myself.

"Alec," Knox's voice rumbles through my mind like an echo.

"I'm not in the mood, Knox," I growl.

I really wasn't. All I could think about was what Sadie just told me. It keeps replaying in my head like a broken record.

"We have to do something," he continues, ignoring me.

"No shit, Sherlock," I snap. "And what do you suggest we do? I'm all ears."

He goes quiet for a moment before murmuring, "I don't know."

I sigh and drop my hands to my waist, staring up at the ceiling. Frustration boils inside me because-just like him-I don't have a fucking clue. I thought I had more time.

A knock on the door interrupts the downward spiral. I'm so lost in

thought I don't realize it's my net

sister

until open the door and seecher

standing there.

She doesn't wait for an invitation. Piper breezes in like she owns the place while I quietly shut the door behind her.

"Piper..." I start, meaning to tell her the same thing I told Knox-that I'm not in the mood-but she cuts me off.

"It's been years, Alec. Why do you still have the same dull décor?" she asks, settling onto my bed.

I glance around the room. She's not wrong. Black and grey-the same paletted chose when I turned twenty. I haven't changed it, and I don't plan to. Well unless Sadie wants me to when we start sharing a room.

"That's not important," I mutter. "Why are you here?"

"Can't I come check on my brother?" she says with a too-sweet smile.

I stare at her. There's something different about her. A glow I haven't seen in a long time.

"Did you forget we just had the full moon?" Knox murmurs, and I nearly choke at the implication.

Right. Sadie had given Piper permission to spend the three days with Calvin.

I shut that train of thought down immediately. I do not need mental images of my sister and Calvin. Ever. It's fucking gross.

"Is Calvin back in his cell?" I ask instead, hoping she kept her promise to Sadie.

It's not that I don't trust her—I trust Piper with my damn life-but she can be impulsive. Headstrong. She leaps before she looks.

"He is," she replies simply. But there's no sadness in her tone this time. Not like before.