Page 181 of My Unhinged Alphas
I hate that instinct.
I also don’t know how to stop listening to it.
I curl a little deeper under the blanket and stare into the dark where I can’t quite make out the shape of the room anymore.
How long will this last?
I let that thought settle over me, flimsy and precious at the same time, and drift closer to sleep holding it carefully, like something small and living I already know I may not be allowed to keep.
Chapter 28
Knox
I waketo a sound that does not belong in sleep.
A dry snapping noise. Then another. For one disoriented second I lie there listening, trying to place it, and then the smell reaches me.
Smoke.
I’m out of bed before I’m fully awake.
The room is dark except for the dull orange light leaking under the door. Smoke is already pushing in there too, thin at first, but enough. I cross the room fast, pull the curtain aside, and look out.
Fire is running along the walkway outside. It has reached the door and climbed high enough under the window that going out that way would mean going straight through it.
Fuck.
Not a chance. Not with all four of us. Not with Vale in the shape he’s in.
I grab the extinguisher from the wall, yank the pin, aim low, squeeze. It gives me almost nothing. A pathetic cough of powder and then dead resistance in the handle.
Empty.
I throw it aside and turn back. “Up. Now.”
That gets them.
Havoc is moving before his eyes are fully open. Vale wakes harder, slower because of the bruising, but alert almost immediately. Lena sits up in the bed, still caught between sleep and fear until she sees the smoke.
“What happened?” Vale asks.
“Fire,” I say. “Door and window are blocked.”
Lena is already off the bed, bare feet on the floor, looking from me to the door to the orange light under it. I can see the moment she understands.
Havoc reaches the window beside me, looks out, and his whole expression changes. “That’s deliberate.”
“Yes.”
The heat is building now. Not unbearable yet, but rising fast enough to tell me we don’t have long.
I check the bathroom window next. Too small. Painted shut. No use.
The only viable route is sideways.
I look at the wall opposite the door. Cheap motel construction. Thin partition. Another room beyond it.
“We go through,” I say.
