The stakes are higher than ever.
It's been months since the four managed to temporarily defeat and escape Laurel, Amber, Kali and the others but the four's problems are far from over. Forced to live with their guilt and still plagued by nightmares o...
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Ashla - Leila's POV:
I can tell when the vision fades since reality returns with blinding flashes of colour that have me feeling dizzy. Even though I'd been the first to get trapped in there and had pulled Rosa into it afterwards. Then Hunter and lastly my Ash. the person who means more to me than my life. The person who managed to save me when I'd given up believing in being able to be saved. Or that I deserved it.
But even after we'd managed to get rid of the others we still had no peace. The four of us had no respite since Amber and the other's manipulations meant that even before Dana and Kalli were born they had been pulled in the same way we were before. And it had torn at me to know that, the same way I know the other three feel the same way. It wasn't right. It wasn't right that our kids had to take up our places in this game of life and death but we had no choice. Not if Heroux's words were to be believed from before.
"You ok?" I hear Ash talk to me seconds before I feel his hand link through mine and steady me where I'd ended up leaning against him slightly when I'd all but collapsed as the vision overtook me. "Lei? Beloved? Are you ok?"
"I think so, but I'm not sure how to deal with that," I respond and I hear his low sigh in response as he realises what I meant. But I can hear the anger underneath as well. The anger stems from us both seeing how Angel had our daughter captive along with her cousin and their mates. "How are we supposed to deal with that? Respond to it?" I frown and look up at him to see that anger in his eyes but it's overshadowed slightly with worry and that same protective instinct that we both had for Dana, Kalli and now their mates since we know how important - being both wolves - their other halves were. With or without the game they're stuck in.
"I say we strike back?" I hear Hunter respond with the same anger in his tone as I could see in Ash's eyes when I looked at him earlier after the vision ended and we were all catapulted back to reality. "And to drag Becks into it as well. I don't see the reason for that. Why would they want to drag in a teenage girl who hasn't been a player up until now?"
But she has been. None of us says it but we know it's true. Me and Hunter better than most given that when I caught his eye across the room seconds after I saw a realisation pass my friend's eyes and I nod once, hoping it was subtle enough that I had been unnoticed by the other people in the room with us. Something that's confirmed as false seconds later when I lean back and see Ash's eyes are already on mine. What? What's wrong?
What happened between you and Hunter just then? Ash doesn't sound jealous but I can hear the confusion in his tone when he looks at me, that same expression in his eyes. What happened to the two of you that has you so spooked beloved? What did you remember?
"It's about Hunter's comment, the one about Becky and how she wasn't a player before" I responded, remembering the horrible shivery feeling when I'd remembered why she had been pulled into the game. What she'd done to make herself a player that the other side took notice of, even with her previous backstage position. Like when Mara and Chalice had been dragged into it when they'd refused to stop being friends with me and Rosa after they'd been pulled into it.
