Babysitting The Amnesiac Lycan King

King Novel 60

Chapter 60

The scent of state cigarettes and cheap perfume clings to the hallway like a bad fucking omen.

My boots in against the cracked tiles x 1 mene, exch step heavier than the last. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker- bizzing like a dying mequitting everything in this sickly, yellow glow. The whole building smells like piss and regret. t's the kind of place where dreams go to choke themselves ont in a corner.

Perfect place to chase down a fucking ghone.

My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag skang over my shoulder, the weight of the burner phone inside pressing against my ribe Three weeks. Three fucking weeks of dead ends, classified files, and chasing shadows through back alleys. Three weeks since I walked out of that shitty apartment, leaving Zoe behind with nothing but a goddamn receipt and a promise I knew I'd break

I thought I'd find something by now.

I've been to places where newspapers have said that the Alpha King now has visited with bad intentions.

But instead, I'm losing my goddamn mind.

I know he's out there. I feel it in my fucking bones. Every time I close my eyes, I see him-those forest green eyes staring straight through me, mouth on mine, hand wrapped around my throat like he owned every broken piece of me. And maybe he did.

Maybe he still fucking does.

I shove the thought down where it belongs and keep moving.

Third floor. Room 306.

The tip I bought off some greasy little beta with a gambling debt told me this guy might have something on the Imperial Pack before, Old shit. Before the attack. Before everything went to hell and the world buried the case like they never existed. It's a long shot-like everything I've been chasing-but I'm too far in to turn back now.

I stop outside the door, pressing my palm flat against the peeling wood. My heart's already hammering in my chest, but I force myself to breathe through it.

No more waiting

No more hiding.

I knock twice.

Nothing.

I glance down the hallway-empty. Just flickering lights and peeling walls. My pulse picks up, the little voice in the back of my head hissing that I should fucking leave. But I don't. Because if I've learned anything in the last three weeks, it's that nothing worth knowing comes easy.

If I want to know what connection my parents had with the Imperial Pack, this is just one of the easy ways to do so.

I knock again, harder this time.

Still nothing.

"Fuck it."

1/5

Chapter 69

I reach into my jacher pory pers hung the way

give on

pidu mas was twelve-long to the park my 6 w rate at the t

do "Sometimes laws are quieter

I work fast-tension wrenching the my every sunt due frkly for dry and nude shunting the door hund me

The room smells like mildew and awow we dings we can the suryo San flickers in

the corner, casting week orange love are of juted as aut cap home and the

Farper

No one's here

Figures

I move to the desk, shoving peper side-old park acconds, cramped Raising die bulk emgry fonte of winding sty fingers skim over everything scarding for mysking that migår tur murder to the imperial Picks

1 freeze.

A photograph.

My heart slams into my throa

It's black and white, edges curled with age. A group of wohes-dressed in ours, standing in front of some grad fucking estate. The Imperial Crest carved into the stone behind them Mox of the bons e Muret her's arned an

Except one.

Enoch.

But

photograph-like he knows I'm looking,

than him is burned out of

fingers tightening around

shaking until I hear the

whip around-knife already in my

Nothing,

shifts.

know when

sweeping the room. I could swear there's someone here-just out of sight. But I can't see shit. My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out the sound

voice comes out steady, but my

Nothing.

door, knife still clutched tight in

2/5

25 Mar

Chapter 60

Fucking paranoia.

Or maybe not.

desk and shove it into my jacket pocket. I don't have

scrubbing the Imperial Pack's

is proof.

have to pry it

of the room, locking the

the hallway, the hairs on the back

one

Slow.

Deliberate.

don't wait to find out who the fuck they belong

lungs. I keep moving-tucking my hands deep into my jacket pockets, head down, blending

a busted payphone booth. My hands are shaking as I pull the photo out, smoothing the creased edges

home is the kind of suffocating silence that makes me want to bash my head through the window just to

his knuckles have gone bone white. Zoe's in the backseat, pretending she's not eating this

that, I know

pushing yourself

and low. I flick my eyes to him, barely turning

"Not your concern, Boss."

jaw ticks, eyes fixed on the road. "Actually, it is. You're under my

calm, but there's something under it-something... possessive. I fucking hate

know if

your messed-up

to glare at

nothing, but his fingers flex tighter on the steering

holding something back.

tension thick enough to choke on. By the

two of us, the silence has

noose.

our building, kills the engine, and

3/5

10:25 Tue, 25 Mar

Chapter 60

I don't either.

here and stare at the

already on the door

slowly, his head tilting against the seat. "Why are you

yourself?"

hits like a punch to the

sharp and hollow. "What? Having a job?

shit that's

chest so

96%1

seeing straight through me

sarcasm and

the door open without

the time I make it to my apartment, the overhead light flickers and dies the second I flick the

"Perfect"

grope around in the dark, knocking into furniture and cursing under

bulb somewhere-I

rattles the

I crack it open. He's holding

ladder like some overgrown handyman from

"Fuck off."

steps inside

the wall while he sets up