With his free hand, he deftly unbuttoned his shirt, peeled it off and tossed it on the bed, never breaking eye contact. Thinking of that—throwing a vomit-covered shirt onto Benicio Cortez’s Egyptian cotton sheets—I had to bite back a surge of hysterical laughter. My eyes filled at the same time and I started shaking so badly I couldn’t breathe.

My mind was back in that room, wallowing in the chaos, gulping it down, seeing Troy…

A sudden vision shoved the memory aside. I was peering through bushes, watching a dark-haired young man on a restaurant patio, eating a burger with one hand, writing with the other, gaze fixed on a book. Something about him looked familiar.

The vision faded and I saw Troy again, dying. Then I saw him sitting across from me, laughing and flirting, and I was thinking what a nice guy he was, how he was someone I’d like to know better, someone I…

Wanted to watch die?

My stomach heaved, but there was nothing left.

Karl pulled my face back to his. I struggled to understand him.

“Focus on me, Hope. On what I’m showing you.”

His face swam in front of me, then vanished, and I was behind the bushes again. I could see my hand, holding back a branch as I peered through. My fingers were long and slender, masculine but smooth, not a child’s but not yet a man’s.

“Hey!” a voice boomed. “So this is where you’re hiding.”

The dark-haired man at the table lifted his head, lips curving in a crooked smile that finally made the recognition click. Jeremy Danvers, the werewolf Alpha. Another young man, thickset and muscular, grabbed him in a headlock, leaned over, snatched Jeremy’s drink, took a swig and made a face.

“Get this man a beer,” he called to two others stepping onto the patio.

“Next year,” Jeremy said. “When I can legally—”

“Stop being so damned proper. It’s hot. I’m buying you a beer. You’re drinking it.”

The man swung a chair around and plunked down.

“Please, sit, Antonio,” Jeremy said. “No, you aren’t interrupting my work at all.”

They continued bantering as the other young men joined them, but the conversation faded under the swirling emotions from the watcher. Envy. Longing. Loneliness. His fingers whitened on the branch as he strained to listen, lapping up the camaraderie from the patio, caught up in his feelings. Then others overlapped—those of an adult looking back on the memory. Regret, grief and guilt, as intense as the chaos of the panic room, and it swept me along, giving me something to feed on, a rich substitute devoid of moral consequences.

After a moment, though, it wasn’t enough and the shaking started anew, my chest constricting, breathing ragged—

“Focus, Hope. Focus on me.”