Page 167 of Pretty When She Breaks

NINETY-TWO

KAOS

I hummed as I dropped my last smoke bomb and pulled my little homemade detonator out of my pocket. I looked down, a smile coming to my face as the happy face sticker I’d put on the red button smiled up at me.

You ready?I asked it. It smiled back.You asked for it, I said with a shrug and pressed the button.

It made the most satisfying click, setting off a chorus of hissing sounds behind me as white smoke spewed into the corridor. Sadly, I’d been barred from using real explosives, so this would have to do.

I cracked my neck and broke into a run, skidding around the corridor corner to where the medics and Sink alphas were setting up for the night. “Fire!” I yelled, my eyes wide with panic. “Fire! Run!”

I crashed into the nearest person, sending them flying before I scrambled to my feet and started off toward the pens.

It didn’t take long before my panicked energy had caught hold, bodies joining mineas we fled.

“Is there an extinguisher?—?”

“Shit, they don’t even have sprinklers down here?—”

“What’s the quickest way out?”

We broke into the pens area, where Casey had already started cranking the portcullis.

Lars strode out of his office, hands in his pockets. “What the fuck has gotten into all you?” he shouted.

“Fire!” one of the medics shouted.

“There’s smoke everywhere?—”

“No sprinklers?—”

“I’m not dying for a paycheck?—”

Wasn’t it amazing how people completely lost their shit when they thought they might die?

And not just die, but die in a horrific way, like being trapped in long-forgotten tunnels underground while you burned to death. All sense of loyalty and duty could be stripped in seconds, particularly if other people were panicking as well.

Most of them had already scrambled under the portcullis and past the missing security door, aiming for the exit. Lars’s eyes had gone wide, and he gave one brief look at the pens before bolting toward the exit himself.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, and I folded my arms as I watched the last of them pour out of the door and abandon the caged alphas.

Fuck that, indeed.

NINETY-THREE

THE DUCHESS

I was breathless as the spotlights all turned on me, to where I was sitting high above the Sink on my gilded swing.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” I called, and for once my smile was genuine as I looked down at the Sink below me. “Apologies for the change in schedule tonight. There’s been a slight delay as we prepared for a last-minute round of Blood Court!”

I paused, letting the crowd’s excitement swell.

“Tonight, the mighty will fall! See, an alpha strode among us, his arrogance assuring him he could abuse his power and walk away unscathed. He dared to break our most sacred tenet as we were on the cusp of welcoming him into our family.”

Another pause, and this time, the lights dimmed as the screens around the room flicked on. Finch and Jewel had made it to the production booth. The video Prince had taken of my torture was playing, the picture grainy and the camera wobbling, but my golden hair was unmistakable. I wasexpecting it but still flinched when Madison’s crooning voice echoed through the Well.

“He needs to hear you, Laurel.”