L*st and Death

Time around the Millander Shelter seemed to have come to a halt. The dim two-lane road had been silent for thirty minutes without a single passing vehicle. Like a ghost road leading to the edge of the world, it exuded a gloomy, ominous air. From the roadside, Lewis stood perfectly still, staring at the second-floor window of a room.

Across the street, the shelter was the only thing casting light over the land shrouded in darkness. But the glow was faint and pallid, only emphasizing the eerie, abnormal atmosphere around it.

Why had anyone decided to build a shelter in a place like this? It didn’t feel like a temporary haven for the homeless, where people could stay for a while before moving on. It looked more like a place meant to lock away the fragile and helpless, to restrict their freedom and let time rot away in neglect—a fitting setting for a closed psychiatric ward. Lewis wanted nothing more than to get Siron out of this unsettling place and run.

He was only holding back because he had warned Siron that he would storm the place if he didn’t receive one message every hour. And there were still twenty minutes left until the hour was up.

Why did I agree to this? Why the hell did I go along with this insane plan?

The world around him was silent, but his mind was in the middle of a full-blown war. The thought that Siron might end up like Joan Welch—abducted, imprisoned in V3011—or like Paco Torres, locked in a room and forced into prostitution with alphas, exploded in his brain like a grenade with the pin pulled.

If anything like that happened, he would kill them all. He would rip their throats out, crush their eyes, and stomp on their brains. Even though he could objectively recognize that these gruesome images stemmed from overwhelming rage toward things that hadn’t actually happened, Lewis simply couldn’t control the violent storm of emotion.

Something that hasn’t happened yet. No, something that will never happen.

Lewis let out a trembling breath, barely holding together his crumbling mind.

He’d forgotten. Forgotten just how fragile his body and mind had been ever since becoming an alpha—until he met Siron. There was no way he could ever lose Siron. If Siron was in danger, Lewis would burn down the city and flip the world upside down to save him.

Lewis gently ran his hand over the outside of his rider jacket, where a gun was tucked deep in the inner pocket. It was a Glock 19, secretly taken from the gun safe inside Anna’s bedroom closet. Anna would never have allowed him to carry a firearm, but after putting Siron in harm’s way, there was no chance he would walk into this without some kind of protection. Lewis just prayed he wouldn’t have to actually use it.

Until just ten minutes ago, Siron had been pacing nervously around the room. At some point, he’d vanished from sight. Maybe he had simply moved away from the window, out of view—but the moment Lewis couldn’t see him anymore, the anxiety became unbearable. As time passed, unease twisted into fear.

Lewis was about to call Siron when he gave up on words altogether. He decided to charge in and drag Siron out himself. As he adjusted his helmet to cover half his face to avoid being identified on CCTV—

—that’s when he heard the roar of an engine.

And then, without warning, a brutal force slammed into his body.

His massive frame lifted into the air like a broken puppet, then crashed hard onto the pavement.

Was it because all his attention was focused on Siron’s room? Or because the approaching car had its headlights off? Either way, Lewis hadn’t seen it coming.

“......”

Lewis lay motionless on the cold ground, unable even to groan in pain. There was no physical agony. His body, locked in shock, had flooded itself with endorphins and adrenaline to shut off all sensation. But it couldn’t completely block out the brutal feeling that something inside him had broken, torn.

Lewis felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.

The blazing sun. A town near the beach packed with surfers. A deep blue SUV rushing at him like the ocean. The final images he had seen before his brain had been destroyed.

And at the end of that memory—stood Siron.

Siron had been calmly watching him from the roadside as Lewis lay collapsed, hovering between life and death.

But what Lewis saw now wasn’t real. It was an illusion, created by his brain as it locked all focus on Siron.

Am I really dying? If I die now... what happens?

Lewis could feel his consciousness fading, darkness seeping in from every corner. Even when the reverse lights of the car flicked on and flooded the road with a harsh brightness, he saw nothing. He finally lost consciousness completely—sinking into pitch-black silence.

“Aaah, you fucking bastard. God, that felt good.”

Bang!

Joseph Miller slammed the car door shut and strolled casually toward the massive body now crumpled on the concrete like a broken mannequin. The man had been struck at full throttle. Even with “their” monstrous healing, recovering from that wouldn’t be easy.

Miller stared down at the blood-smeared face for a while. There was something familiar about it. Then it clicked—this guy looked a hell of a lot like Anna McCarthy. That irritating bitch. He vaguely remembered hearing that her actor brother had been in some serious accident.

“Ah, so you’re that bastard?”

Miller laughed, blowing air through his lips to flick his bangs away in disbelief. He knelt down and, without warning, delivered a vicious kick to Lewis’s face and skull.

“You motherfuckers think I’m some kind of idiot?”

Fueled by rage, he stomped on Lewis’s head again and again, putting all his weight behind it. Panting heavily, Miller paused to catch his breath, then drove his boot hard into Lewis’s ribs. The satisfying crunch echoed. The release washed over him like catharsis—stress from work, from home, all gone.

“Ahh, that’s what I needed.”

Miller pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat and white foam from the corners of his mouth. Then he tied Lewis’s hands and feet tightly with rope, dragged the body like a dead bear across the road, and stuffed him into the trunk of the car. He planned to bury the body on some land he’d bought with a shady loan, property he meant to turn into a business.

Satisfied with the appetizer, Miller caught his breath and headed back into the building. Time for the main course.

“Tsk.”

He hadn’t expected the homeless man to be lying docile in bed, drugged into submission—but he also hadn’t expected him to be passed out in the hallway, with what looked like regurgitated milk all over the floor. Nine times out of ten, this meant the drug had worn off early.

“Can’t have complications.”

Prepared for just such a scenario, Miller pulled a backup pill from his pocket. He pried the man’s mouth open and shoved the tablet deep down his throat. Then, trailing his fingers slowly across the man’s soft tongue and sharp teeth, he let out a moan-like sigh of satisfaction. The thrill of what he was about to do—violating the unconscious man without resistance—made his heart flutter.

He hooked his hands under the man’s armpits and hauled him up, then tossed him face-down onto the bed. The impact caused the phone resting on the pillow to bounce up and smack the man’s cheek before tumbling to the floor.

“No phone, huh? Another fucking lie?”

Miller seethed. That a bunch of idiots thought they could deceive him with such a sloppy plan—it was an insult. A deep offense to his pride.

Especially Anna McCarthy. She had always gotten on his nerves. She’d practically invited danger by asking about Joan Welch the other day. And now, she’d finally opened Pandora’s box.

If you were going to do this, you should’ve done it right. Half-assed bastards.

Miller’s suspicion had started with the man’s scent. For someone claiming to be homeless, he smelled faintly pleasant. His skin was silky smooth. His greasy, disheveled hair still had traces of hair product. His fingernails were neatly trimmed, and though they had a bit of brown dust under the tips, they looked like they belonged to someone who’d just touched a piece of chocolate.

And the guy had even dared to use a tail.

When Miller had noticed strange signs between Anna and the so-called homeless man, he’d bribed the bus driver with a generous tip—and learned that they’d been followed.

But Miller, ever the optimist, chose to see the silver lining. Thanks to their pathetic plan, he’d been gifted with the chance to enjoy this delicate porcelain doll of a man—if only briefly.

Admiring the unconscious man’s face with satisfaction, Miller yanked off his shoes and socks, tossing them to the floor. Then he pulled off the loose t-shirt, flipped the body onto its back, and stared.

“Beautiful bone structure.”

Fingers moving like they were playing piano, Miller swallowed hard and grabbed the man’s waistband. But his hand landed on something unexpected. Something hard and slender, like a pen, tucked into the elastic of the pants.

What the hell?

Miller pulled the object out.

It was a sleek black pen. A tiny red LED blinked from the clip.

A recorder.

The realization hit him like a hammer to the skull. He should’ve expected this. And yet he was furious.

“What the fuck do you think you can do with this, huh? What the hell are you going to do with this little piece of shit?”

Snarling, Miller crushed the recorder in his fist. Then he glared down at the man and trembled with rage.

“That’s it. Time for Daddy to teach you a lesson.”

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