Florence POV:
I woke up to the sound of dripping water and the smell of rot.
I was chained to a wall. Silver cuffs burned my wrists, neutralizing my strength.
"Ava?"
"Mommy..." A small voice whimpered from a cage across the damp room.
We were in the boathouse at the edge of the Carroll territory.
The heavy iron door creaked open. Julius walked in, followed by Kenzie.
"Look at this," Kenzie laughed, holding a flashlight to my face. "The Princess of Garbage."
"Let her go, Julius," I spat. "She's your daughter."
"She's an uncontrolled variable," Julius said coldly. "Burning my men? Glowing eyes? She's dangerous. Probably a Rogue mutation."
He held up a tablet. "I saw the 'fix' you sent for the Temple. Nice try. My engineers caught the sonic trap."
"Your engineers are smarter than you," I said.
Julius backhanded me. My head cracked against the stone wall.
"Sign the confession," he said, holding out a document. "Admit to corporate espionage. Admit to being an unfit mother. Then I hand Ava over to the state ward, and you... you disappear."
"And if I don't?"
"Then we have a hunting accident," Kenzie giggled. "Rogues are so unpredictable these days."
They left us in the dark. "You have until midnight."
Hours passed. The silver burned.
Suddenly, a hatch in the door slid open.
"Mrs. Carroll?"
Alfred. The pack's elderly butler.
"Alfred," I whispered. "Help us."
"I cut the power to the cameras," he hissed. "I can't open the main door, but I stole the key to the cuffs."
He slid a key across the floor. I stretched my leg, barely catching it with my toe.
I unlocked myself. I rushed to Ava's cage and picked the simple lock.
"We have to run, baby."
We slipped out the back, into the service tunnels.
We burst out into the night air near the riverbank. Freedom.
But as we scrambled up the muddy bank, floodlights blinded us.
"Did you really think the old man could outsmart me?" Julius's voice boomed from a loudspeaker.
We were surrounded. Not by pack warriors, but by mercenaries holding leashes attached to starving, feral wolves.
Julius stepped out of a black SUV. Kenzie was filming with her phone.
"Run, Florence," Julius smiled. "Let's make this sport."
He nodded to the mercenaries. "Release the hounds."
Five massive, skeletal wolves surged forward.
I looked at the river. Too far. I looked at Ava.
I couldn't hide anymore. The silver cuffs had burned the last of the suppressants out of my system.
I felt it. The ancient power. The moon was calling me.
"Close your eyes, baby," I whispered.
"One," Julius counted. "Two..."
My bones began to heat up. It wasn't painful. It felt like coming home.
"Three..."
I stood up. I turned to face them.
And for the first time in ten years, I let the White Wolf out.
