I parked in the gravel drive behind the pack house, the route usually taken for deliveries. I’d gone past the normal road in due to the traffic, so to speak. It wasn’t cars or trucks or even bikes. It was people. Gathering together, making plans…
I knew they were bound to branch out to look for Lynn.
I’d stopped briefly, and Elena came over immediately, spotting me.
“Hey, Blackstone.”
“Hey…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t want to ask, because I already knew why they were out there, but I didn’t want to overstep and interrogate her on updates. I mean, she was older than me, and the Beta of this pack.
She sighed and nodded, as if she could sense what I wasn’t saying.
“We’ve been trying to track her but we lost the trail just beyond the pack border not far from here.”
“Scent gone already?”
Usually it took a while.
She nodded.
“Some idiot humans ran right through the area. Smells like they dumped it with every essential oil they could find. Like - gallons of it.”
Obviously, she’d been exaggerating things with the gallons part, but strong smells didn’t take much. And if it was that bad, it meant it obscured any trace of where she went upon reaching that point.
And the people who had to check…
I held back a grimace but a hint of it must’ve appeared on my face. Elena nodded.
“Yeah, I feel bad for them too. A few had to go take some meds to sleep off the headaches.” She hooked her thumb and pointed at a woman sitting hunched over on a stump with her palms pressed into her temples. “Bella said it was like getting an ice pick up the nose while getting a sledgehammer to the forehead… so it doesn’t sound fun.”
“That…” was a very colorful description. “Yeah. Not fun.” I took a breath. “What’s the plan now?”
She ran a hand over her head and gave me a less than confident look as she told me what they were working on.
“We’re trying to branch out beyond that headache inducing cloud, but…”
She shrugged and I nodded.
It was hard with changing winds. If the area was big enough… it was all too easy to lose her scent entirely by the time we’d reach it.
“Which direction had she been going the second she crossed the border?”
She shook her head. “It’s hard to say. She was dodging the patrol, but it seemed like she was headed south, even with the meandering.”
I nodded. “Then… can I head in and maybe…?”
“We’ll take all the help we can get.” She smiled as she tapped the frame of the door. “Head around back.” She slipped a paper into my hand. “Give this to Miyra, alright?”
I nodded and complied, even as confusion rolled through me.
It wasn’t odd per se. It was just… no, it was odd.
I walked toward the pack house, paper in my hand.
Why was I supposed to give it to Miyra?
Blakeley, Lynn’s other mother, was the Alpha, so unless she was out, it seemed reasonable to give updates to Blakely. Part of me wondered if it meant she was off of pack grounds, looking for Lynn.
I actually stopped in my tracks as that feeling following that thought hit me.
Yeah.
That wouldn’t be ideal to run into her.
It sounded terrifying, to be honest.
I guess that meant no running off alone to go find her…
Reaching the front of the house, I stopped a second time, just for the grass, because seriously? What the heck?
Considering everywhere else was fine… this was not a normal occurrence.
A cold thought raced through me. Did this mean she was taken, that someone came into the pack and they fought before taking her away?
I raced up the steps of the front of the house, my thoughts whirling around in places they shouldn’t have been.
If they were looking for Lynn and her captor, why hadn’t Elena said anything? Why had Jane not said she was taken to Mom and Dad on the phone call?
Just inside the open front door, I froze. Voices. Sobs.
“Hello?” I called gently, trying to be courteous.
Not two seconds later…
“…that William Blackstone?”
I heard the low voice call my name, sounding tired. It sounded familiar, while at the same time sounded strange.
There were some low undecipherable words in an exchange between a couple different voices and then Miyra appeared at the top of the steps to the second floor of the house.
She beckoned me closer with a hand.
I did, hesitantly grabbing the banister as I made my way up. I’d never once climbed up these steps. Whenever I was over as a kid and Lynn had to grab something from her room at the very end of the hall of the second floor, a room she shared with her twin sister Jo, I always stayed down on the first floor, on the couch in the living room.
This was all new territory. I mean, I knew what was up these stairs, I’d just never actually seen… any of it. At all. I never even put my foot on the bottom step, let alone the top.
As I reached her, she held out a hand. I put mine in hers, seeing the haunted sad look in her eyes. How this must be weighing on both her and Blakeley… it had to be as bad as what I felt.
Like being put in a blazing fire that freezes your skin while it burns, making you numb and in extreme pain all at once.
“Elena wanted me to give this to you.” I held out the paper. I hadn’t looked at it. I had no idea what it said. Miyra flipped it open, read it, stuffed it in her pocket all while keeping my other hand trapped in hers.
“Thank you,” was all she said on the matter of the paper I’d brought. “She wants to talk with you.”
I let her pull me along. I had no idea what was going on now.
She wants to talk with me.
Who exactly was this ‘she’?
Why me?
A momentary click of recognition. The person who asked if it was me. It had to be that person…
My thoughts stalled as we walked the opposite direction from where Lynn and Jo’s mystical unseen room was. But wasn’t this–
When I saw the interior of the room Miyra had taken me to, I was stunned.
I had been right… but that only made more questions swirl in my mind. More realizations.
The grass…
Why they weren’t sure if Lynn left or was taken…
Karen being called to come here…
And now this.
It made sense now.
All of it.
And I could almost see how it all played out within my mind.
Henry was perched on the side of the bed, a hand clamped down on Alpha Blakeley’s shoulder, his face a mix of concentration and fatigue.
Josephine was sobbing, her face a red puffy mess, practically hunched over the bed holding her Mom’s hand. Blakeley had a hand on the top of her head, lightly petting her hair.
“You did the right thing. It was the right choice.”
“But – but… if she…” Jo’s voice cracked and her face scrunched up as more tears slipped from her eyes.
“Josephine.” Blakeley said quietly, putting her hand under Jo’s chin, lifting it so she’d look at her. “It’s okay. I know why you did it. Nothing to be forgiven.” She stopped speaking, only to glance at the doorway toward Miyra and me. “Let me talk with William. Alright?”
Jo nodded and left the room, giving me a full view of her face. I couldn’t even utter a single word to her as she passed me by, giving me a small nod just a second before she wiped the sleeve of her shirt across the lower half of her face. Never in my life had I ascended those steps that I had just moments ago, and never in my life had I seen Jo actually cry. I realized it as soon as I saw her face. Turning a bit, I watched Miyra lead her down the hall to the steps, and then they were both out of sight.
I looked back to Blakeley, who now had her full attention on me. She waved me closer, much like Miyra had on the stairs, and I had to wonder which one of them had done it first. Who copied who?
When I stepped closer, sitting in the place she gestured to, her attention went to the other side of the bed, where Henry was lazily sitting.
“I want to speak with him. Alone.”
Henry wasn’t fazed. He reached over to a bag on the floor and pulled out a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and hooked them around his neck, looking rather unimpressed.
“You think I’m just gonna leave you here unattended. Ha.”
Blakeley stared at him for a long moment, in silence.
“It was a good attempt.”
He snorted and rose to his feet, only letting go of Blakeley for a brief few seconds. “Yeah, an attempt. Unsuccessful, I might add.” His hand landed on her knee as he took up residence at the end of the bed, tucking his feet under him, adjusted the headphones over his ears while he shifted a bit to face away from us. He pulled his phone out and clicked a few things before we faintly heard music coming from the headphones and then he put his phone down and closed his eyes.
It was as close to private as she could get right now, it seemed.
Silence hung in the air for a few seconds. I didn’t know what to say.
“You…” she started and then paused to collect her thoughts, staring me over all the while. “You came all the way over here to help?”
I tried not to fidget under her gaze. Even if she looked tired and sleepy, she was still herself. She was still intimidating.
I couldn’t lie to her.
“Yeah. I… I really like–” I barely stopped myself from spilling everything, “–I care about Lynn. We’re… friends.”
Her gaze softened. She looked to her hands and licked her lips, out of habit, it seemed.
“Really?”
“Hm?”
What?
Was she… questioning my motives? Or was this just clarification? I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
Suddenly, her eyes were back on me, locked on mine.
“Is it really just that you care about her? You–” a yawn escaped her as she was speaking. The second it was over, she glared into open space in the room as if the involuntary act had annoyed her greatly. She sighed. “You haven’t come to our pack in years,” she stated plainly. “You don’t go to the reunions. Now you come here, just because of her. When you know she’s not here.”
A knot was forming in my throat. Where was this headed? Did she already suspect how I felt? For how long?
And… had she been keeping tabs, observing me since Lynn and I used to hang out all the time?
I was a terrible liar.
Abysmal, really.
How was I supposed to answer whatever it was she was going to ask? Would I be in trouble for liking her daughter? Was she going to tell me that I wasn’t good enough?
Or was this headed in a direction I didn’t consider?
Did she suspect I was involved in her disappearance now?
Fear trickled through me.
I wasn’t involved… right?
I mean, I didn’t think so. Would… She wouldn’t have read my letter and then bolted… right?
I thought my letter was fine.
“So… I’ll ask you… Really? Is that all?”
I stared at her for a moment, absorbing those words, trying to determine what she was saying.
That look in her eyes seemed to paralyze me.
She knew.
Part of me wondered how she could’ve known, how she could’ve put those pieces together in such a way to have the truth remain visible. The fight within me, that wanted to deny it, left. How could I? Denial would only mean she’d know I was lying to her. I felt my shoulders fall.
“No… I was – I was going to come…” I had to close my eyes and fight back the hard emotions I was feeling. ‘If I’d come sooner’ kept ringing in my ears. Finally, I managed to look at her again, hoping the courage I had for admitting the truth lasted long enough. “I – I like your daughter. I like Lynn, a lot. She’s… my best friend.”
A few seconds of silence passed.
I pursed my lips.
Instead of replying to my declaration, she only relaxed more into the bed, a smirk playing on her lips.
“What?” I eventually asked, feeling more on guard than before. Was she laughing at me? Was she accepting it? What was going on?
“Lynn…” She paused, tilting her head as she gave me a once over, stopping briefly on my newly clasped hands, clutched together so tight that my skin looked pale. I hadn’t even realized I had done it. I released them, only to be at a loss for what to do with my hands.
“You’re in love with her.”
I blanked. My mind just stopped working. She looked at me, and I saw Lynn’s eyes. Lynn’s face. I saw Lynn however many years from now it would be until she looked like her Mom. Minus the scars. For just a small few seconds, I hadn’t seen them. My chin trembled and I had to look away.
She patted my knee gently and I jumped at the contact.
“It’s alright. It’s just us here.”
I glanced at Henry before looking back at her with a pointed expression. She just chuckled.
“I tried them out myself. They work wonders. You hear nothing at all except your own breathing, even without the music on.”
Instead of continuing the new line of conversation she’d given me, I backtracked to what she’d said.
“What if I am…in love with her?” I asked carefully, searching her face for any indication on how she felt.
She took a deep breath. Then a small smile appeared.
“Well,” she said, “then we have something to talk about, don’t we?”
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