Page 188 of My Unhinged Alphas
You can always tell an owner from the expression. He looks stricken in a deeply financial way. Fifty-something, badly buttoned shirt, sandals, phone clutched in one hand, face pale with shock and apology. He keeps saying “I’m so sorry” before anyone’s even accused him of anything.
“I’m so sorry,” he says again, stopping in front of us. “I don’t understand, I checked everything last month, the wiring, the units, the heaters, everything.”
I want to laugh, but I’m too tired to make it sound fun.
Knox gives him a flat look. “You had empty extinguishers.”
The owner actually flinches. “What?”
“In the room,” Knox says. “Empty.”
That rattles him more than the fire itself seems to. Good.
“That’s impossible,” he says. “No, no, they were serviced, I signed—” He stops talking when he sees none of us believe him.
Lena says, hoarse from smoke, “Were there cameras in the hallways?”
“Cameras? Yes, outside, on the lot, reception, stairwell, some hallways.”
Knox turns. “Save the footage.”
The owner nods too quickly. “Yes, yes, of course.”
I watch him while he says it and decide almost immediately that he’s telling the truth about one thing only: he did not expect this. He looks terrified, overwhelmed, and deeply aware that his motel may have just become evidence in something much uglier than an insurance claim.
That helps exactly not at all.
A paramedic kneels in front of Knox and starts shining lights in his eyes, asking orientation questions he answers with visible contempt. Vale gets his ribs checked again and nearly bites the man’s head off when he presses too hard. Lena’s getting waved off as smoke exposure and mild shock, which sounds insulting given the night she’s had.
I’m halfway through explaining to another firefighter that no, we did not leave candles burning, because apparently we look like idiots who’d light candles in a motel, when I see movement at the edge of the lot.
A kid.
Not a little kid. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Thin. Dark hoodie. Ball cap low. He moves with that uneasy, deliberate purpose of someone trying very hard to seem like he belongs and failing.
I know the look immediately.
Initiate. Not sworn in. Not trusted far. Sent to carry messages because if things go wrong, nobody important is lost.
He walks straight toward us, and every muscle in me tightens.
Knox sees him too. Vale does a second later. Lena just notices the way all three of us go still and follows our attention.
The kid stops a few feet away, close enough to be heard, far enough to bolt.
He looks at Knox first, then at me, then Vale, and says, “Message.”
Knox is already on his feet despite the paramedic’s protest. “From who?”
The initiate swallows. “Apostle Andrew.”
I suck in a breath. Not because I know the man well. Because the title is enough.
Lena looks at me sharply. I don’t explain.
The kid reaches into his pocket and holds out a folded slip of paper. I take it before Knox can, mostly because my hands are faster.
Inside is a location and a security code. Nothing else. No explanation.
