It’s not up to you.
What?I screwed up the piece of paper and tossed it in the car.Why are you getting involved? This happened when you were embedded deep inside me and you know nothing of this.
There is a debt that must be paid. A blood debt.
My wolf continued, saying Charlie and Arnie were my parents. They saved me from a life without love.
I couldn’t run off and confront a guy who may have murdered my folks and quite possibly killed Mika. That was the definition of insanity.
It’s my choice. They were your parents in every way possible, and their deaths must be avenged.
Avenge? No, no. I wasn’t maiming or killing anyone. Besides, I couldn’t leave Eira and Phelan, but as I glanced from my mate to my friends, my brother and bestie, Jack, it was as though they were slipping further away, and they couldn’t hear me, like in a sci-fi movie. They were fading, their voices jumbling into one another, and I was coming into focus in the foreground.
My feet were moving of their own accord, or maybe my wolf’s. I tried to tell everyone I was going, but I produced no intelligible words. I was swept away, and the buildings and students who were all headed into dinner or study hall blurred. I made it past Phoenix House and toward the quiet of the woods before crossing the parking lot where I’d met Holdenand continued to the new sports center that was still under construction.
If I hadn’t found my wolf, I would have needed a flashlight, but my newfound shifter sight picked out a pile of rebar. Was that the substandard kind that Coach had substituted for the high-quality stuff?
But if not for my wolf, I wouldn’t be here, and I’d be safe in the car with Phelan and headed toward the hotel and Eira.
Perhaps having a wolf wasn’t what I wanted, because mine had led to a place where the past and present mingled but my fate was unknown.
THIRTY-SIX
RAWLING
If the professor had answers, I needed them. I circled the sports center… Nothing. Zev went out of his way to make sure I got his note, and Professor Shaw saw firsthand that I was about to leave campus for good. Surely, he wouldn’t lure me here and not show up. Unless he planned for someone else to be here. But who?
My parents? No, that was irrational. We’d established they were dead, though we had no proof.
I took out the note and tried to read it, the light too dim for me to make out all the words clearly. It said I’d find answers, but that wasn’t the same as it saying he was going to be the one delivering them, was it?
“Your head is back to conspiracy theories, Rawling. Quit overthinking,” I whispered to myself. It didn’t change the different scenarios playing out in my brain.
Had something happened to Zev? He was the delivery guy, but was he involved in a sinister plan to get me away from my mate and friends? The security guard was with Eira. Shit. I’d been such a fool.
A light flickered as if from a cigarette lighter, and I shivered. It reminded me of a detective series. The catalyst often happened in the dark in an isolated area with a pinprick of light.
Feet crunched over the gravel. I didn’t need to be scared because I now had built-in protection. My wolf. I sniffed the air. I was still learning to identify scents, but I knew this one. It was that sort of musty smell of tweed that Professor Shaw’s jackets were made of.
He was smoking. What the ever-loving fuck was this? Tea and cake, yes, but I'd never seen him with a cigarette. Not that he could smoke on campus. But if he did, a pipe would be more appropriate with a tweed jacket.
Coach was beside him, and she’d never looked more like a squirrel. She was grasping something in her hands, and I was tempted to ask if it was a bag of nuts. But that would be rude.
“You came.”
I made a face because it was kinda obvious. I was here and waiting for answers.
He was taking his time, puffing on that cigarette and exhaling.
“So you want to know about your parents.” His nostrils flared. “Except they weren’t really, because Charlie,myCharlie, didn’t give birth to you, did she?”
“She was my mother and Arnie my father, and you took them from me.” Shit, I’d just accused him of murder. I could be locked up for that.
He scoffed and tossed the cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with his foot. He was in no hurry to talk, and I glanced over my shoulder, wishing I wasn’t so alone.
“Charlie was mine and he took her from me, that filthy human.” He spat on the ground. “You’re right, she paid for that mistake, and so did he.”
He fiddled with the lighter he pulled out of his pocket.
