Romance

  Brett&#39;s Perspective
  I was starting to get it. In this hellhole, if you wanted to live, to not be treated like a bug waiting to be squashed, you learned two things: keep your senses sharp, and make yourself look like trouble.
  Luka and a couple of the other marginally &quot;friendlier&quot; guys in this makeshift pack had been giving me pointers. Not fancy combat moves or pack lore. Just the dirty, basic rules of street survival.
  &quot;Pup, ears up, nose working,&quot; said a stray they called Scarface—a deep claw mark furrowed his left cheek—as he chewed on suspicious jerky. &quot;No one&#39;s your friend here, but everyone&#39;s a signpost. They get tense, guards are coming or someone nasty&#39;s on the move. They relax, maybe you can breathe. Scents, sounds, even how tight their muscles are when they walk… you notice it all. We ain&#39;t territory wolves with a cozy den. We&

  Aurora&#39;s Perspective
  Darkness.
  A thick, viscous dark, cloying with a chemical sweetness.
  My head felt like it had been stuffed into a rusty blender—a dull, throbbing ache radiating from the base of my skull, a persistent buzzing filling the void. Consciousness was a weight, dragging me down into murky water, something pulling me deeper just as I tried to surface.
  Groggy. Muffled sounds, as if through layers of heavy blankets.
  The steady beep of machinery? And… voices?
  I fought to open my eyes. My eyelids were slabs of lead.
  Light—harsh, blinding white—needled into the sliver of vision I managed.
  A shape moved into view. Lab coat. Glasses. Eric Milton.
  That bastard. That lying, treacherous son of a bitch.
  His face loomed close. I could smell him—the sharp tang of disinfectant, stale Americano, and beneath it, the nauseating, sweaty scent of a fanatic&#39;s excite

  
  Lily&#39;s Perspective
  It was hopeless. A goddamned dead end.
  Aurora and Brett might as well have vanished into thin air. Nearly forty hours had passed since the kidnappers sent that video of Aurora. Silence. No new demands, no threats, nothing. This quiet was worse than constant harassment—a dull blade slowly sawing through our nerves.
  We&#39;d thrown every resource we had at it. The Moonlight Pack&#39;s networks, both above and below board. Ethan&#39;s contacts in the police and city administration. Even tentative queries to underground information brokers. Surveillance footage was scrubbed frame by frame. Suspect vehicles were tracked and lost. The industrial district where they&#39;d last been seen was turned inside out, sewers included. Jacob roamed day and night like a caged beast, returning each time with red-rimmed eyes, smelling of dust and despair. Celena forced hers

Brett&#39;s Perspective
  I was starting to get it. In this hellhole, if you wanted to live, to not be treated like a bug waiting to be squashed, you learned two things: keep your senses sharp, and make yourself look like trouble.
  Luka and a couple of the other marginally &quot;friendlier&quot; guys in this makeshift pack had been giving me pointers. Not fancy combat moves or pack lore. Just the dirty, basic rules of street survival.
  &quot;Pup, ears up, nose working,&quot; said a stray they called Scarface—a deep claw mark furrowed his left cheek—as he chewed on suspicious jerky. &quot;No one&#39;s your friend here, but everyone&#39;s a signpost. They get tense, guards are coming or someone nasty&#39;s on the move. They relax, maybe you can breathe. Scents, sounds, even how tight their muscles are when they walk… you notice it all. We ain&#39;t territory wolves with a cozy den. We&#39;re scavengers. We live by being twitchy.&quot;
  Vigilance. Lesson one. I tried, but I sucked 

Chapter 258