Page 168 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

Jason: Holy shit, did you hear?

Rick: What the fuck is this?

Lia: Are you okay? I've been thinking about you. I know I messed up. I just want to talk.

More messages followed. It wasn't just them. Notifications were flooding every pack group chat we knew about. The timed release had worked exactly as planned. By now every member with a phone already had copies of the videos. Even if Thomas managed to regain control of the room, he couldn’t pull the plug on thousands of screenshots, downloads, and forwarded messages already spreading outside his reach.

I leaned against his shoulder. “They’re turning on him. Fast.”

“They’re going to challenge him,” he replied.

Many of the wolves in that room had spent years obeying Thomas because they believed he was strong. Others had followed him because they thought he was protecting the pack. Tonight had shattered both illusions.

Satisfaction curled low in my chest.

“I want to see him lose his position. Status was everything to him. Taking that away… that’s the kind of wound that never heals.”

Jackson’s hand found mine, squeezing once. “Then we keep going,” he said. “Until there’s nothing left of him.”

We sat in silence for a while, watching the recorded chaos unfold. The first cracks in Thomas’s power were showing.

Everything was moving in our favor.

So why did it feel like something terrible was about to happen?

Chapter 46: Abducted

A week later, the pack was still in chaos.

Emergency meetings were being called almost daily. Members were demanding answers — why certain families lived rent-free in pack-owned properties while others scraped by, why the community funds for repairs and support had vanished, why Thomas’s closest allies seemed untouched. Thomas was scrambling. Damage control meetings ran late into the night. He was spinning tales, making promises, pointing fingers at “outside agitators.”

It wasn’t working. The cracks we’d made were spreading faster than he could patch them.

This morning, Jackson had been summoned to a mandatory higher-ups meeting at the packhouse. He couldn’t get out of it without raising more suspicion. I kissed him goodbye at the door, feeling the tension coiled tight in his shoulders through the bond.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’m just heading to the gym.”

He didn’t like it, but he nodded. “Stay alert. Text me when you get there.”

I watched him drive off, then started toward the fighting gym a few blocks away. Half a block from the entrance, a sudden, sharp sting hit the side of my neck. I flinched, reaching up instinctively, thinking it was a wasp. My fingers brushed something long, metallic, and feathery. I yanked it out.

A fucking dart. Tranquilizer.

Panic hit hard and fast. I tried to call for help, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. My lips wouldn’t part. My vocal cords refused to work. A heavy, numbing sensation crept through my limbs, draining my strength like water down a drain. My legs buckled under me. I slumped sideways, shoulder slamming into a rough brick wall before I slid the rest of the way to the ground.

Tires screeched nearby.

“Hey! What the hell?!” someone shouted from across the street.

“Call 911!” a woman’s voice yelled.

Hands grabbed me under the armpits. I was dragged roughly across the pavement. A coarse sack was yanked over my head, reeking of old vegetables and damp earth. My cat shrieked inside me, clawing desperately for the surface, but my body wouldn’t respond.

I couldn’t shift. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t even scream.

Through the pungent scent of the sack, a whiff of something familiar cut through — female, wolf, sickeningly familiar.

Naomi.