Chapter 84

“Where shall we take you, Miss Hedy?” The leader asked me, opening the door to the jeep.

“New Moon,” I said as I climbed into the jeep. “It’s a bit of a remote place, so you might not be able to drive me all the way there.”

They looked wary, but they revved up the car and drove me toward the border. I didn’t look out the window until we reached the forest. The forest closed in around us as we entered it and drove away from the capital. The sun was beautiful, glinting off the snow. It made me think of the first time I’d had a snowball fight. It had been me and Candido outside.

He’d tried so hard not to indulge me, but he was laughing by the end of it just like I was.

Just as I thought, my phone rang, and it was Candido.

I decided to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hedy, where are you going? Why are you leaving the capital?”

“To visit someone,” I said. “He lives in New Moon. We’ve been talking about getting together—”

“Hedy,” he growled. “Are you… Is he your mate?”

I smirked. “Why does that matter?”

“Just answer me, Hedy. Is he?”

“I don’t think I have to answer that. I thought we agreed that I was growing up and deserved the space to do so?”

“This isn’t what I meant,” Candido growled.

“Well, that’s the thing about not being my mate, Candido… It soon won’t be your concern.”

He stuttered and I hung up, sitting back and grinning as I pulled out a protein bar. A little thrill went through me and I grinned. It was probably the first time since all of this that I’d had a genuine reason to be happy. He was going to turn over my words and obsess for a long time.

I’d have his attention without even being there and I was making moves towards solving Claire’s murder.

“You and His Majesty still haven’t made up?” One of them asked.

“I doubt we ever will,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

But I didn’t want that to be the truth, honestly. It would be nice if we could make up eventually, but I didn’t want that right now. I knew that it wasn’t possible right now. I was still angry. I was still certain that we could be together no matter what the Moon Goddess said or wanted for our lives.

More than that, I wanted him to feel what I had been feeling all this time. Even just a little taste was worth it. I wanted him to be jealous. I wanted him to want me and think that I was looking elsewhere. I wanted him to think about me more than whomever he thought his mate was.

I wanted her to suffer and pine for his attention the way I had because it wasn’t fair that she was guaranteed to have more of him than I was.

I hoped they were both miserable. I hoped that they felt even a fraction of how much this all hurt me. I set my jaw and pushed that thought away, looking forward to what my next move would be.

I made a show of working on my homework. When we stopped for gas, I got out, stretched my legs and made sure to swipe my card at the store after buying a bunch of things. There was lots of snacks that I didn’t necessarily like. Sodas I didn’t like as well as ones that I did. Then, there were condoms. I went with the largest condoms there and tried not to blush as the clerk rang me up and wiggled her eyebrows at me.

“You two have fun,” she said as she slid all of them in the bag.

“We will,” I said kindly and taking the bag. I got back into the jeep, knowing that it would only take a few minutes for Candido to call and fuss about my purchases. He got a copy of every receipt. It was part of how he kept tabs on me.

But I wasn’t going to wait for him to get the notification. I handed my receipt to the commander to enter just then and opened my bag of chips. I didn’t even feel bad using them to further my plan against Candido.

A bit of old mischief and joy was coming back to me.

It was fun. I could imagine him pacing a trench in his office, thinking about what was going on.

Based on the directions Francium’s roommate gave me, it was very likely that he was only going to get more upset when we arrived.

The road that led to the town wasn’t traversable by car on the main road coming from the capital, but I didn’t tell them that.

When we reached the main road leading there, they stopped the car just as my phone began to ring. I hummed.

“Looks like we can’t drive it. Good thing I wore boots.”

Someone got on the radio as I hopped out. I put the bag with the condoms in my bag as one of them gawked at me.

“What? I have to be safe, don’t I?”

He turned bright red and looked away as I grabbed the other bags of snacks and sodas. I didn’t even know if Francium liked any of these snacks, but it didn’t matter.

I walked towards the path and answered the call.

“Hedy! Get back in the car, I told you—”

“Oh, what? You’re breaking up. Must be bad service out here… I’ll try and call you back later… maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” He screeched as I blew across the speaker and hung up. I turned off my mobile data and switched to wi-fi calls only before whistling and heading up the slope.

I walked alone for a while before I felt them coming up behind me. I turned back once and saw them several feet away. A few steps later they were gone. My heart lurched as I thought about the caves. This forest was the same way. I wondered why.

A strange chill filled the air as I kept walking up the slope, following the map as closely as I could. Soon, I reached a large archway. The letters that said what the town was called were long gone. I trailed my fingers across the stone. It felt old, older than anything I had ever seen except for the caves beneath the school.

I saw a few people milling around. They turned to look at me slowly before carrying on. None of them seemed interested in speaking with me, but they were all watching me out of the corner of their eyes. I stopped at the older-looking woman nearby as the chill started to sink into my bones.

“Hi, I’m looking for Francium.”

She looked at me, blinked and looked away. “Never heard of him.”

My gut said she was lying, but I thanked her anyway and kept going. The more I walked the more I started to recognize faces. Some of them were faces from my recent search. Some of them were from school, people I glimpsed in the hallways.

My heart lurched. Maybe we had been far more infiltrated than we first thought. Only people from the leading families of packs were supposed to be able to attend the academy. How had these people gotten in? Were they all Full Moon people or had they come through the caverns.

A woman in a dark hood stood across the space from me, staring at me, watching me. I glanced at her and watched her through the window of the nearest building as I realized that more and more people were starting to notice me. Clouds hung in the sky above us, blocking out the sun.

It hadn’t been cloudy on the walk up the mountain to the town. Where had these clouds come from.

I turned as the area turned silent as a ghost town. I turned around and found that only the woman was there, standing in the same place. Everyone else had vanished.

I turned, my heart lurching. Then she turned and began to walk away from me.

As she was the only person, I started to follow her, hurrying after her.

“Hey!” I called. “Wait!”

My stomach was churning. I felt cold sweat starting to gather at the nape of my neck. My instincts were screaming that I was in trouble. I followed her around the building, then turned sharply to what I thought was another alley, but she vanished and I ended up back in the center of town.

The chill and fear grew stronger. It wasn’t just the forest; it was this town too.

Was it an illusion or something else? I had no way of knowing one way or another. Even strengthening my mind wouldn’t help me.

“Who are you?”

I froze at the woman’s voice coming from behind me. I braced myself and turned around slowly.