V’s mate smiled, her forest-green eyes kind as she pushed a hand through her cropped blond hair. “I was thinking the same thing, actually—but I’m not about to make anyone stay here unless it is medically necessary. And in your case, it’s not. It’s just maybe … a little easier on your dad.”

“Is it okay if I go call him on my cell?”

“Sure. If you can’t get a signal—and some people cannot—there’s a landline in the cafeteria you can use.”

“Thank you so much,” she said as she shifted her legs off the table. “I didn’t feel a thing while you were putting the stitches in.”

“You’re doing great, Paradise. Everybody’s so proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

She looked down as she landed on her feet and grimaced. There were specks of blood on her Brooks—which was not a big deal as long as she didn’t wear the sneakers around her father.

Yup, she definitely needed to crash here, she thought as she emerged into the corridor.

It wasn’t until she’d gone down the hall and pushed open the door to the break room that she realized …

She and Craeg were going to be in the same facility.

For the entire day.

As her body did that math and came up with a totally buck-naked answer, she figured, What the hell, if she had to get put together with a needle and thread, she might as well take advantage of someone kissing her to make it feel better.

Mmmm.

Going over to where she’d left her satchel on the floor with some of the others’ bags, she picked the thing up and put it on the nearest table. Unzipping the top, she rifled through, searching for her phone. She didn’t find it.

With a frown, she turned the Bally over and dumped everything out. As she waded through Kleenex packets and her wallet and random mascara tubes and her Kindle and loose money and ChapStick and other stuff, she knew she had to get better organized. Okay, where was …

Her phone was not in there.

What the hell? Had she left the thing at home? She could have sworn she’d put it in with the rest of her junk.

Tilting the open mouth of the bag toward her, she fished around the empty belly, and then unzipped the front pocket just to see what other useless crap—

Her phone was in that flap.

Frowning, she looked around the empty room for no good reason. The problem was, she never put the damn thing in there—she was always in too much of a hurry to bother with the unzipping. Plus she had this paranoia that she’d forget to secure the pocket back up and she’d lose her cell.

Never once had she put the phone in there.

Had someone been through her stuff?

One by one, she sorted through the items on the table. Nothing was missing that she could see, although it wasn’t like she kept a detailed mental list of her necessaries. And when she checked her wallet, her ID, credit cards and cash were all still in there.

Well, if anything had been taken, it wasn’t worth more than two cents.

As she put her things back in, she swallowed a load of creeped-out, but what was she going to do? Go to the Brothers with an, “Oh, my phone moved to this other pocket here and…”

Yeah. Right.

With no bars showing on her reception, she went over to the landline that was mounted on the wall by the glass-fronted refrigerator filled with Gatorade, Coke, and juices of various sorts. When she picked the receiver off the cradle, the dial tone was just like it was at the audience house, so she hit 9 for an outside line and punched in her father’s number.

Fedricah answered, and in a cheerful voice, she told the butler that she was going to spend the day at the training center because she was working on something for extra credit. She also assured him that she was going to be chaperoned.

And it was true. She wasn’t going to be alone—not if she had any say in things.

Craeg was going to take care of her.

“Does it hurt?”

As she hung up, she looked over to the door. Craeg was standing in the jambs, his bare chest gleaming, his pecs and abs standing out in stark relief under the ceiling lights.

Dropping her lids, she ate up the sight of his body—and thought, actually, she did have an ache all of a sudden.

“Hello?” he demanded.

“I’m crashing here for the day.”

As he went stock-still and narrowed his eyes, she held up her cell phone to him. “No bars. No service. Guess we’re going to have to figure out another way to hook up at seven, won’t we.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Out in the training center’s parking garage, Butch escorted the four trainees who were leaving to the door of the bus, making sure they all got on with their shit. Then he went back inside and walked the long corridor toward the office with a slow stride. He had no idea where Marissa was, but he was hoping, when he resurfaced up at the mansion, that she had called him back, texted him, something.

He’d left his phone on the dining room table up in the mansion by mistake. But maybe that was a good thing. He’d been driving himself crazy checking the device at First Meal.

Meandering down the empty hall toward the office, he became acutely aware that he was essentially alone in the facility: V and Tohr had already headed back to the house with Doc Jane, Manny, and Ehlena to get ready for Last Meal, and likewise, all doggen were working up in Fritz’s big kitchen. And Paradise, Craeg and Axe were eating in the break room.

Dear Lord, what if Marissa had moved out of the Pit? he thought.




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