“We have to go back.”

“We can’t.”

How many times had we been through this since the four of us had first arrived at this abandoned cabin hours before?

Ten times?

Twenty?

More?

And yet, Luke was still standing there, staring at me, hands clenched at his sides as he glared at me. I could feel the fury coming off him in waves, the desperation, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him what it was that was keeping me from letting him or the other guys from going back there. If he found out, I didn’t know whether it would keep him safe and stop him chasing, or if he would go straight back to the MacLaren compound there and then and do his best to break Rafe out. An effort that, without a plan in place, would surely fail.

I sat down on the rug, about the only bit of furnishing in the sparse ice cabin that we had come to after we’d fled from the MacLaren place. I was so exhausted that I knew I could have fallen asleep right there and then if they’d let me, but the tension in the room was too thick and the guilt running through my system too strong for me to close my eyes. It felt as though my body had been wired up to a live socket for the last twenty-four hours and I could hardly take a moment more of it.

I was close to imploding.

“Luke, you gotta calm down, man.”

Ethan tried to reach out, attempting to get Luke to stop pacing back and forth across the floor in front of him. Luke hadn’t been still, pent up rage and fear keeping him in constant motion since we’d arrived in this place. The wild gleam in his eyes was growing more intense, and I was starting to wonder just how long it had been since he’d gotten some sleep.

“Fuck off,” Luke snarled, brushing his brother away like his touch only pissed him off more. “I don’t know why you guys aren’t going crazy over this.”

“You think we want to be stuck out here?” Anton got to his feet at last – he’d been staring at the floor at something that only he could see for the last ten minutes, but he suddenly seemed to come back to life just like that. “You think I don’t want to go down there and get Rafe out right now, same as you?”

“Then why the fuck aren’t we doing that?” Luke demanded, rounding on his eldest brother. His face was taut, his jaw so tense, it looked as though it might crack.

I pinched my eyes closed, grief threatening to swallow me whole.

How long had it been since I’d last seen Rafe? The thought of him, locked up in that place just like I had been only a few days before, physically hurt me. There was a part of me, a significant part, that agreed with Luke and thought we should just toss it all in and go fight our way through the compound until we got him out or died trying.

“You want all of us to end up right next to him?” Anton snapped, pushing his face towards Luke, challenging him, daring him to push it any further. “Tell me exactly how that helps him, Luke.”

Luke eyed him for a moment, and, for a split-second I was sure that fists were about to start flying, but eventually Luke pulled back, letting out a deep growl as he returned his gaze to the floor. I knew this must be driving him crazy. He didn’t like having to back down to people, didn’t like being told what to do, and here he was, stuck waiting while the rest of us tried to figure out the best course of action as a group.

“I think we need some sleep and something to eat before we make any rash-” Ethan started to say, but before he could get any further, Luke had cut him off again.

“We don’t know what they could be doing to him down there,” he pointed out. “What if we wait and we’re too fucking late?”

He sent a glance my way, as though testing me, but I kept my mouth shut. There was no point in telling them everything except to make them suffer like I was, with images etched into their minds that could never be erased and nightmares like something out of a horror movie that barely touched on the reality of the situation. If I told them, our options were still the same.

Go in half-cocked, to our certain deaths, as well as Rafe’s, or figure out a plan first that gave us even a shot in hell at saving him.

I flashed back to the image of Rissa, hunched over in the shadows of her cell. The way she moved, the look in her eyes. No longer herself, but a miserable assembly of parts…a monstrous creature they’d created, and I shuddered. Yeah, there was no doubt in my mind, whatever that was, it was worth than death.

“Am I the only one who gives a shit that he might already be dead?” Luke snapped, his voice suddenly spiking up and making me jump. “We don’t know how long they’ll keep him alive.”

“It will be awhile,” I cut him off, my voice quiet, but just enough that everyone else in the room rounded on me at once. I hadn’t said much since we’d arrived back – too exhausted, too traumatized – but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. Luke was a man on the edge. I was almost certain that, if we didn’t give in, when we woke in the morning, he’d be gone. Off on a one-man suicide mission. I couldn’t lose two of them. “They want him alive.”

“How do you know?” Luke was suddenly in front of me, down on his knees, clasping my shoulders. His touch was comforting, despite the situation – but I couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d touched me, the night before this all started, when Rafe and Luke had joined me in the hot tub and the three of us had done things I had never dreamed of. It made my heart ache at the lack of one of the men I had grown to love. “Talk to me, love.”

“When I was there, I saw something,” I began haltingly, going slow at first because I didn’t know how to explain what I had seen in the days leading up to my escape. “Experimentation.”

Ethan and Anton exchanged a look behind us. I couldn’t read it, or maybe I was just too tired to pick up on the nuance.

“What do you mean?” Ethan asked, and I nodded. “Like new types of weapons or?”

“Yeah,” I muttered grimly. “Only, their weapons are men and women. Shifters,” I clarified. “I know I…I saw someone, the woman in the cell next to me. She had been hurt…changed, and she was--”

I broke off, choking back a sob as I remembered Rissa. Those tattered, ghastly wings that had protruded from her rail-thin body. I wanted to cry all over again, remembering how she’d told me that she didn’t want me to save her. Not now that she was like that. I couldn’t imagine having given up on your life so completely, but at the same time, I didn’t blame her. And now Rafe and a friend from my former pack were both trapped in that place, subject to God knows what diabolical machinations at the hands of the MacLarens.

“What had happened to her?” Luke urged me. There was less anger in his face now, more fear, as though he knew that whatever I was holding back on was worse than anything he could imagine.

“She was stuck. Mid-shift, halfway between wolf and human. By force. They did something to keep her stuck there. And then they… ” I finally looked up at him, at the three of them, and swallowed hard. “They tried to attach some sort of wings to her back. It was horrible.”

Anton visibly flinched, and Ethan’s eyes widened. Luke’s grip tightened on my shoulders, and then released, as though he didn’t have the strength in him to hold me any longer. He shot back to his feet.

“Fuck,” he growled again, flexing his hands into tight fists at his sides. “Fuck. What do we do? Can we stop it?”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. If I’d just stayed in that damned cabin, none of this would have happened. If I’d just listened, maybe we could have been together, safe somewhere by now.

“I’m guessing it was a long process,” I went on, looking back up at Luke. “The person I spoke to, she had been trapped in there a long time – and I think she was one of their early experimentation subjects. I don’t think they’re still as primitive as they were when they did all that shit to her and I think their failures have taught them to take more care.”

Think being the operative word. Because I wasn’t sure of anything.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke groaned. The other two had been struck silent, standing there and staring off into space like they were still trying to process what they had just heard. “Even more of a reason that we can’t afford to wait. The compound is only a day’s run away, and if you got out of there then Rafe-”

“I only got out of there because I had help,” I reminded him. “And I have no reason to think that kid is going to offer Rafe the same chance he offered me. Going now is a death wish for us all.”

Anton nodded. “Agreed.”

“Well, I don’t think fucking sitting around here and waiting for them to catch up with us is going to do us any good, either,” Luke snapped. The two of them had the most antagonistic relationship out of the four of them, and I wondered if it was because they felt as though they were constantly vying for the top spot; even though Anton was the alpha, it was clear that Luke had a leadership streak that ran through him, and it meant that he didn’t like to be told what to do at the best of times. And today was far from that.

“I agree with that, too,” Anton said with a curt nod.

I looked to Anton. He must have known what a bad idea it was to go rushing in unprepared. Maybe he hadn’t heard me when I’d tried to explain what I’d seen. Maybe I needed to be a little clearer. But before I could open my mouth, Anton was in motion.

“Ethan, come with me.” Anton waved to his youngest brother, pointing to the spot next to him. “Me and you, we’re going to head back to the cabin and get some supplies so that when we do go in, we go in prepared.”

Luke stood up. “Well then, let me go. It will be quicker if I go by myself-”

“Yeah, but we can’t afford to let anyone out by themselves right now.” Anton turned to Luke, his eyes flashing, warning him to back down and listen to him, for once. “We need to stay in pairs, at the very least.”

“I’ll go with you, then, Anton,” I volunteered. Luke was angry and I didn’t blame him. The last thing he needed was to be stuck here alone with me.

“No, we’re not taking you out of this place.” Anton shook his head. “If they catch a hint of your scent, then all of us are done for. You need to stay hidden until they have called off the search.”

I glanced over at Luke and my heart twisted up with sadness and guilt at the sight of him. As opposite as they were, he and Rafe had a special bond, and this was all hitting him extra hard.

“So, you’re going to leave me here with her?” He narrowed his eyes at Anton. Anton met his gaze steadily and nodded.

“It’s not her fault.” Anton looked over at me, the first time he had looked me in the eyes since we got here. I wondered if he believed what he was saying. I certainly didn’t. I couldn’t see any way in the world this wasn’t my fault. If I had just stayed, then none of this would have happened. If any harm came to Rafe – any more harm than had already come to him by now – I would never forgive myself. God, what I wouldn’t give to see his face right now, to hear his easy laugh and see his crooked smile.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Luke muttered sarcastically, and turned to the window of the ice cabin. We’d stumbled across it after running for a day, and it was so dilapidated and run-down that we assumed no one had come by it in years. It was freezing inside, but there was a fireplace and a bedroom with some covers that had been sealed in a plastic bag, so at least the two of us would have somewhere to sleep that night while we waited for the others to return…

If Luke could even bear to share the bed with me at this point.

“We’re going to go.” Anton looked at Ethan. “You’ll know it’s us when we’re coming back, we’ll make sure of that. Don’t open the door to anyone before tomorrow, okay? No matter who they say they are.”

“Okay,” I sighed, getting to my feet, trying not to let Luke’s anger deepen the wounds in my already battered heart. “What do you need us to do?”

“I need you two to sit tight,” Anton grimaced. “And try not to fight. We need to stick together and work as a team for Rafe’s sake.”

“Of course,” I assured him, looking over at Luke. But I had a feeling that his last statement wasn’t aimed at me.

I watched as they gathered their things, aware that Luke was pacing again. Ethan pulled me into a tight hug once he was at the door, taking me by surprise, and planted a kiss on my left temple.

“It’s not your fault,” he murmured in my ear. “Just let him work it out and give him some space until he comes to grips with all of this.”

With that, Anton and Ethan were gone, leaving Luke and me in the icy cabin alone…and it was feeling more and more frigid by the second.