Chapter 102

Dominic

A quick phone call to Trenton that morning set me on a new trail, and the object of my search was closer than I thought.

When my Betas secretly look into my family medical records, they couldn’t find anything from when my mother was ill and passed away. She suddenly disappeared from the family file with no explanation after years of excellent health reports.

“I really shouldn’t be encouraging this,” Trenton said on the phone. “But if there is any justice in this mixed-up world, your mother deserves it.”

My father, in his grief and paranoia, had removed all of the information surrounding my mother’s demise from Pack archives. Perhaps it was fear of something else that drove him to secret them away into the Alpha mansion library. It was a place that only a few people frequented, and most of the time it was Mira.

“Don’t get yourself into anything stupid, son,” Trenton warned, “an Alpha needs to proceed with caution. And never forget to rely on your Betas.”

“Thanks, old man,” I told him, enjoying the throaty chuckle on the other end of the line.

It took me a few hours, but I finally found the box on the shelf in the corner that was easily missed because the lightbulb in the sconce on the wall was dead. I wondered if it was left that way on purpose.

For something that supposedly hadn’t been touched in over a decade, the box was in pristine condition. Not a speck of dust could be found on it, even though other occupants of its shelf showed signs of neglect.

It was no trouble taking the box back to my office, though the archivist did have a worried look when she saw what I held in my hands.

There were a few different folders inside, most of the volume of the box taken up by stifled air. A scent wafted into my nostrils as I took the items from the box. My father’s hands had been all over these.

I opened the thickest folder, recognizing the same templates from the Pack hospital that I had been seeing my whole life. These were faded and became delicate with age. I rifled gently through the pages, the first few seeming uninteresting and one was a bill for services rendered.

The fifth page was a death certificate, and a tsunami of grief wracked my body. Luckily I was already sitting, or else I would’ve had to catch myself from collapsing.

One does not need to believe in ghosts to know the magic power of the dead.

I removed that page, for some reason, and set it aside on my desk. The next page had something I had been looking for. After a flurry of latin and procedural terms I would need Mira to decipher for me, the words jumped out at me.

Cause of death.

According to the page, my mother died from a rare blood-born disease that the hospital had never seen before. Unable to figure out how she contracted it, but within days it had removed so much oxygen from her blood that her body began to shut down.

And by the time she admitted to herself that she needed to go to the hospital, it was too late. A team of the best doctors were speechless as her symptoms worsened. She was finally put into a coma to stop her suffering, and another handwriting added that she was babbling incessantly until she went fully under.

I sat there, not sure how to feel or if I was even capable of feeling anything at all anymore.

And then Mira came through the door, and at first my mood improved drastically. But once again Celeste’s name was dropped and now I was feeling pulled around again.

When Mira came home later, we both seemed bothered and restless. I suggested we take a walk before dinner, and we snuck out the back and followed a path along the edge of the woods. Neither of us spoke for a while, and Mira’s hands were tight fists at her side.

I didn’t know how to ease her pain, but I knew I needed to share mine. I hoped that she was willing to hear it.

“Hey,” I said, looking towards her and then back ahead. “Can I share something with you? I just, well I got some new information—“

“Of course,” she had stopped to look at me. “Just because I’m in a bad mood doesn't mean I can’t try to ease yours.”

The crease between her eyebrows softened slightly, and I loved her.

“It’s about my mom,” I said, feeling the need to start slowly. “I called Trenton, found out a little about her medical records, and… I found them.”

Her eyes went wide. I knew her first reaction was of intrigue at the thought of a medical mystery. She stayed quiet, though, afraid to interrupt me.

“It’s confusing, and frustrating,” I said, starting to walk again, “and I need you to translate some of the medical stuff, if you don’t mind.”

I saw Mira nodding softly out of the corner of my eye. She was watching me even as we walked along.

“Something in her blood,” I said, getting to the point. “They don’t know where it came from, but it was so aggressive that it ate her from the inside for days. It was a mystery, so much that they were teaching it in medical schools and clinics. My father eventually shut that down, and locked up her files.”

“I’m glad,” Mira said, “I understand the importance of study, but sometimes it can be so invasive to patients and their families.”

“Yeah,” I said, “even when they were hoping someone else might solve it. My dad just couldn’t take the prying anymore, and felt like some of the doctors were trying to make money off of it.”

Mira made a sound of disgust. “So horrible,” she said, shaking her head forcefully. “I’ll take a look tonight, maybe I’ll see something new.”

We arrived home to Lucas and Wyatt waiting for us.

“Good evening, Alpha, Luna,” Lucas said formally. “Sorry to bother you, but you said we should come with something as soon as possible.”

Mira looked at me, slightly confused. I spoke to my Beta without looking at him. “It’s alright, go ahead.”

“Malachi is a ghost,” Wyatt said, drawing Mira’s gaze sharply to him. “Maybe it’s not his real name, but we can’t find any connections between any medical facilities and a small bespectacled man named Malachi.”

Mira had found a seat on the couch and I joined her.

“It’s not unusual,” Lucas added, “especially among Rogues, to have some mastery over hidden identities. I suggest we reach out to the girl, Rae, and see if she might be able to identify anyone else involved.”

I realized I wasn’t listening, because my mind had traveled inwards to search among memories. Something they were saying pulled me back to the papers I had been reading that day. I almost smiled when I came to realize how small the universe could be, yet knew there were no coincidences in this life.

“Dominic?” Mira was gently shaking my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I have to…”

I stood and wandered over to the box of files in the bedroom. My father’s paranoia was contagious, and I wouldn't let those files out of my sight. My heart was pounding as I found the page I was looking for.

The others were quiet when I came back into the living room, eyes glued to the white sheet I held in my hand.

“I somehow didn’t even see it before,” I said, passing the page to Mira and pointing. “Now I can’t unsee it.”

Mira gasped when she saw what I was referring to. “It can’t be.”

“I think it is.”

At the bottom of the page was a list of names, doctors working with my mother.

Among them, was Dr. Malachi Waterstone.