Chapter 10 · Burn the Safehouse

Cain shoves me against the wall the second Vera's voice fades.

Not hard. Just enough to pin me there while he listens.

I can still feel where my claws pressed into his throat. The heat of his skin. The way he didn't flinch.

"She's circling," he says. His hand's flat against my collarbone, holding me in place. "She won't come in. Not yet."

"Then we leave." My voice comes out ragged. "Right now."

"No."

"She knows—"

"She suspects." He cuts me off, eyes locked on the window. "That's different."

I shove his hand away. "Different how? She called you out by name. She knows you're hiding something."

He finally looks at me. There's blood on his collar from where my claws nicked him. Just a scratch. But it's there.

"If we run now, we confirm it," he says. "She'll call the whole team. We won't make it two miles."

"So what, we just wait here until she kicks the door in?"

"We wait until she moves her perimeter. Then we go."

I want to scream. I want to shift and tear through the wall and run until my legs give out. But he's right.