Chapter 90

Carol’s POV

By the next morning, I was feeling a lot better. I went home to get ready to leave for the stadium; the game was tonight so I had to get ready to be at the stadium by mid-afternoon with the rest of the team. Aiden was already awake and dressed when I returned the next morning and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest when I saw how sad he was.

“I’m sorry,” I said before he could say anything. “I overreacted and I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t about the adoption thing…”

“Then what was it about?” He asked, giving me the cutest scared look.

I bit my lip, not wanting to admit my little freak out to him, but knowing I needed to come clean.

“I might have been a little freaked out since we talked about me being a Luna,” I admitted, glancing at the ground sheepishly.

Aiden surprised me by closing the gap between us and wrapping his arms around me, holding me tightly.

“I had a feeling that’s what this is about,” he told me gently. “I’m glad you came clean and told me. I’m sorry you have been feeling scared. I never meant to scare you. I just wanted you to be prepared for the future. We can go at your pace though. We don’t have to go through with the marking ceremony yet. We can—”

“No!” I said, quickly, interrupting him. “I want to go through with the ceremony. I love you, Aiden. That’s never going to change, and I’d like to spend my life with you. Even if that means being a luna.”

He smiles and kisses me deeply on the lips.

“I love you too,” he whispers against me. “You aren’t going to be alone. I’m going to be with you every step of the way. I promise.”

I smile at him and kiss him again.

….

I was surprised by how packed the stadium was when we arrived a few hours later. Everybody was eager to beat and get to their seats hours before the game. I was excited about the turnout and even more excited to watch Adien play.

The teams were doing warm-ups on the ice, and I found my seat in the front row. The coaches were yelling drills at their players and Mr. Whitlock was watching everything from the top balcony, assessing the players and making sure everything was up to code.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about this game. This was the moment everybody had been waiting for; the moment they’d worked so hard to accomplish. I sat with my fingers and my toes crossed the entire time they were warming up.

Seats were filling up fast; I knew from the ticket sales that it was going to be a full house.

Within a few hours, the teams were being introduced. Each player went out on the ice one by one as their names were called by the game announcer. News reporters were already recording and capturing the moment, excited for the game to begin.

When they called Aiden’s name, I jumped to my feet and cheered the loudest. He skated across the ice effortlessly and when his eyes found mine, he winked, making my cheeks heat up.

As the game started, the crowd started to go wild. The Statford freezer had the puck and was quickly passing it along to one another. One of the other players shoulder-checked a player on our team and he nearly went down, but recovered quickly, just in time to get the puck and pass to Aiden who was closest to the goal post.

A player from the capital was just about to run him down when he forcefully hit the pick to the goal, just past the goal. The crowd went wild, and I jumped up and down excitedly as we got our first goal of the night.

It looked like the player who tried to bring down Aiden was exchanging some foul words with him, and I thought for a second that they were going to get into a fight. But another one of the players on the capital team held him back, probably telling him it wasn’t worth being thrown into the penalty box.

He reluctantly skated away as the game resumed.

“He’s so handsome,” I heard one of the nearby girls saying to a group of her friends. They all had Aiden’s jersey number on their faces and shirts, and they were watching him the entire time.

“Yeah, too bad he has a girlfriend,” her friend next to her said.

“I can’t believe he hasn’t dumped her yet. I thought she was caught red-handed cheating with her ex,” the first girl said.

“There has to be a reason they are still together.”

I bit my tongue, not wanting to get into an argument with a bunch of girls who seem to have a crush on my mate. Aiden glanced up at me and his smile was radiant. At that moment, the pink glow returned around him, and my eyes widened at the sight. There was no mistaking it, it was there. I wasn’t making this up. It made me wonder if it was because of these so-called special abilities that Aiden seems to think I have and maybe even that green glow that I see around people sometimes.

I wrapped my arms around my body trying to hold myself together.

Could I really be as special as he thinks?

The pink glow soon vanishes just like it always does, but I can’t help but remember the strange dreams I’ve been having.

“It’s coming! Your destiny awaits! You must be prepared!”

I swallow the lump in my throat as I wonder if that has anything to do with this as well. Who is that voice and what does it want with me?

Just as the thought crosses my mind, I feel my phone ringing in my pocket. I fish it out of my pocket and frown when I see that it’s an unknown number.

It was loud in the stadium, and I knew there was no way I’d be able to hear whoever was on the other end. But I answered it anyway in hopes that I could at least get the gist of it. It could be business-related, so I didn’t want to just ignore it.

“Hello?” I say into the phone, trying to plug in my other ear.

I hear something, but it's hard to make out with all the noise in the stadium.

“Hold on! I can’t hear you!” I say loudly, hoping they could at least hear me.

I look down at the ice and as if he could feel me staring at him, Aiden shifts his attention to me. I hold my phone and mouth, “I’ll be back.”

He nodded, understanding my meaning and I quickly stood and ran out of the stadium. I don’t stop until I’m outside in the night and then I press the phone back to my cheek.

“Sorry about that; can I ask who’s calling?” I say.

There was no response. I looked down at the screen and saw that whoever it was, they hung up. Aggravated, I called them back. I pressed the phone to my cheek and waited while it rang, but nobody answered. There wasn’t even a voicemailbox.

I sigh and hang up the phone. Shoving it in my pocket, I turn around to go back inside only to see two very familiar men standing in front of me, blocking my entrance. My heart falls deep into my stomach as I take an unsteady step backward.

“It’s you…” I whisper, staring between the two men who only smiled, sending chills up my spine and making me shiver.

It was the men that stalked my parent's house and tried to attack me. They were there and I was completely alone. Aiden was busy with the game so there was no way he’d stop them in time if they were to try anything. I have a feeling they were also the ones who were chasing me when I went for that morning run.

It was obvious and I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have come out here alone.

I gasped at the realization that they were probably the ones who called me and got me alone outside too.

“What do you want with me?” I finally ask as they step closer.

“We’ve been paid a lot of money to collect you, Carol,” the tallest one says. “You don’t make it easy.”

“Stay away; there are security cameras everywhere,” I said through my teeth, suddenly feeling confident as I clenched my fists at my side.

“Oh, we know… we disabled them,” the shorter one says, his smile growing even wider.

“You did what?” I ask hoarsely.

“You heard us,” he says.

“We could either do this the easy way or the hard way,” the taller one says.

I shake my head.

“Stay away from me,” I order, and I attempt to run but one of them, I’m not sure which one because it happened so fast and it was all a blur, grabbed my arms. I screamed as loudly as I could, but I knew the sound was drowned out by the sound of the game inside. Nobody could hear me…I was all alone.

I struggled against his hold, kicking and screaming while one of them grabbed my torso and arms and the other one grabbed my legs. That’s when I noticed the waiting car with its headlights facing my direction, nearly blinding me.

“Let me go!” I hiss, fighting even harder to get them to release me.

I chomped down on the man's hand, trying to get him to let go of my arms. He winced and hisses at the pain and I even managed to draw some blood. But he doesn’t let me go.

My shoe comes undone which makes the guy holding my feet lose his grip on my foot and it comes loose. I managed to kick him in the face, and he dropped my other foot as he stumbled backward. I then swing my foot up, glad for my yoga training in high school, and kick the other guy in the face. I heard a crack and then got a glimpse of blood running out of his nose as he released me, and I fell to the ground.

I scramble away while they recover themselves. I’m determined to get back inside and get some help. My heart was racing as I ran but I didn’t go far before I heard a crack and then a heavy pain in my head just before I fell to the ground, and everything went black.