Page 158 of Crave

I was invisible to them now, except for the moments they needed to remind me I wasn’t one of them anymore. Silas leaned against a rusted metal table, a cigarette burning between his fingers. His other hand rested against his ribs, the place where I had stapled his wound shut, but if it still hurt, he wouldn’t show it. His eyes flickered between the men giving reports, his mind elsewhere—distant, calculating, dangerous.

Not once did those dark, haunting stares ever drift to me. It was almost like he’d convinced himself I no longer breathed the same air he did…almost like I wasn’t the one he wanted.

Or cared about.

Theo was worse. He barely even acknowledged me. I still smelled of him. Still, felt his savagery on my body.

And Jude… Jude just watched. Too careful. Too controlled.

I crossed my arms, pressing my back against the cold steel of a storage container. My stomach twisted as the weight of their distrust settled deeper into my bones. I had spent my whole life fighting to be a part of them. And now? Now I was just watching them move around me like I didn’t belong.

Maybe I didn’t? Maybe I was just a ghost in their life. A problem they never truly wanted and now they’ve finally made up their minds, I wasn’t worth a second of their attention at all. It sure felt like it.

I pushed off the wall and started walking, heading deeper into the darkness.

One of the men stalked in from outside, his radio crackling. His expression was sharp with unease. “We’re still missing three guys. No contact.”

I stopped, then slowly turned around.

Silas didn’t move. He just inhaled slowly, the cherry of his cigarette burning bright. “They’re dead.”

The words hit like a slap, flat and final.

Theo cursed under his breath and pushed off the crate he had been leaning against. “How the fuck did we not see this coming?”

No one answered.

Because there wasn’t an answer.

Jude exhaled sharply, rubbing his hand over his jaw, but his gaze flickered in my direction—just for a second.

I swallowed past the knot in my throat, feeling the weight of that glance like a silent accusation.

Because that’s what they all thought, wasn’t it?

That this had started with me.

Maybe they were right.

The radio crackled again, and this time, the voice on the other end was different—strangled, barely above a whisper.

“We’ve got bodies,” the man murmured. “Three. Could be more.”

The tension in the warehouse cracked like ice.

I barely had time to process the words before Theo slammed his fist against the side of a steel shelving unit with a boom! The metal rattling from the impact. “How the fuck did they get this close?”

Still, no one had an answer.

Gabe stepped forward, slow, deliberate. “They’re testing us.”

The words sent a sharp chill through my spine.

Testing us.

Pushing, inching closer, waiting for us to break.

An icy chill slithered down my spine.