Chapter 109
Elara's POV
I slipped out through the back door while Mom was loading the dishwasher.
"Just going to Chloe's to study. Be back by eleven."
Mom looked up, dish soap suds on her hands. "Take your inhaler."
"Already got it."
The weight of it sat in my jacket pocket. A reminder of what I used to be. What this body used to need.
I walked fast down Maple Street, checking my phone. 8:47 PM. Cole's message was still there, encrypted and terse.
Tonight. 9 PM. Black Ridge north entrance. Come alone. —C
Wild Hunt. It had to be about Wild Hunt.
My fingers tightened around the phone. I should tell Warren. Request backup. Make this official.
But Cole wouldn't have used our old emergency code if this was something I could share with the Council.
The night air bit at my face. I pulled my hood up and kept walking.
And tried not to think about Kael.
Failed immediately.
His hands on my skin. His weight pressing me down. The things I'd begged him to do...
Stop it.
I pressed my palms against my eyes. The heat crawled up my neck anyway.
That was the drug. Just the drug. Dylan spiked my drink and my body reacted and Kael was there and I was out of my mind and it didn't mean anything.
Except it had felt like everything.
I forced my hands down. Forced myself to focus.
Wild Hunt. Cole. The meeting.
The rest could wait.
---
The old lumber mill loomed ahead, its broken windows like empty eye sockets. I'd memorized the path here during my first week in Misty Creek. Every escape route. Every potential ambush point.
Old habits.
I checked my watch. 8:58 PM.
The north entrance was a gap in the chain-link fence, half-hidden by overgrown bushes. I squeezed through and stepped into the mill's shadow.
Moonlight barely reached the ground here. The air smelled like rotting wood and rust.
I moved carefully, keeping my back to the wall. My hand found the knife strapped to my thigh. Not much, but better than nothing in this body.
"Cole?" I kept my voice low.
No answer.
I took another step forward.
Something moved in the darkness to my left.
I spun, knife already rising—
A fist came out of nowhere. Aimed straight at my face.
I dropped low on instinct. The punch whistled past my ear. My body moved before my brain caught up, muscle memory from twenty years of combat kicking in.
Cole.
I recognized his silhouette now. The way he moved. The precise, economical violence.
"What the hell?" I gasped, barely dodging another strike.
He didn't answer. Just kept coming.
I blocked his next punch with my forearm. The impact sent shocks up to my elbow. He was holding back. Not much, but enough that I wasn't unconscious yet.
This wasn't a fight to kill.
It was a test.
But why? He already knew who I was. We'd confirmed it back at the warehouse. The old codes. The shared memories.
Unless he didn't believe it.
His fist came at my ribs. I twisted away, using his momentum to create distance. My lungs were already burning. This body had limits I'd forgotten existed.
"Cole, stop—"
He came at me again. Silent. Methodical.
Fine.
I stopped retreating.
When he threw his next punch, I didn't block it. I moved inside his guard, dropping my center of gravity the way I'd done a thousand times before. My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. Not to stop him. To redirect.
I used his own force against him, stepping to his left side—his blind spot, the one he'd had ever since that fight in the Yukon—and twisted.
His arm locked. I drove my shoulder into his back and swept his leg.
Cole hit the ground hard. Before he could recover, I had his arm pinned behind him, my knee pressing between his shoulder blades.
Exactly the way I used to do it when he got too cocky during training.
He went still.
"Enough," he said, voice rough. "Okay. It’s you. I’m convinced."
I didn't let go. "Convinced what?"
"That you're really her." He shifted slightly under my hold. Not trying to escape. Just adjusting. "That you're really Lynette."
My grip loosened. "We already established that. At the warehouse. Remember?"
"That was rushed. Chaotic." He turned his head, trying to look at me. "Could've been luck. Could've been you inherited some memories when you took over the body."
I released him and stepped back. My hands were shaking. From adrenaline or anger, I wasn't sure.
Cole pushed himself up slowly. Even in the dim light, I could see the scars on his face. New ones I didn't recognize. Old ones I did.
"But that move?" He rolled his shoulder, testing it. "The one where you used my blind spot? Only the real Lynette knew about that."
"You could've just asked."
"Would you have shown me if I had?"
Probably not.
I sheathed my knife. "You done testing me now?"
"Yeah." Something in his voice softened. "I'm done."
We stood there in the darkness. Two soldiers who'd survived impossible odds. Except I wasn't in my body anymore, and he looked like he'd aged a decade in the months since I died.
"You said you had news about Wild Hunt," I said finally.
Cole reached inside his tactical vest. Pulled out a tablet. The screen lit up his face, casting harsh shadows.
"I've been tracking them since..." He paused. "Since Canada. Following the money. The contracts. Trying to figure out who hired them to kill you."
"And?"
"I found something strange." He swiped through several photos. "They keep showing up in northern Canada. Same general area. Over and over."
I stepped closer to see the screen. The images were grainy, clearly taken from a distance. Surveillance photos. Several figures in the woods. Wolves and half-shifted forms.
"At first I thought it was just another job," Cole continued. "But the pattern was wrong. They weren't hunting. They were... searching."
"For what?"
He didn't answer. Just swiped to the next photo.
My breath stopped.
The image showed a young woman running through moonlit trees. The photo was blurred from motion, the subject's face partially obscured by shadows and distance.
But I knew that silhouette. That way of moving.
Because it was mine.
Not this body. My real one. Lynette's body.
"I thought I was seeing things at first," Cole said quietly. "But I kept digging. Kept following the trail. And every piece of evidence I found..." He looked at me. "It all points to the same conclusion."
The tablet nearly slipped from my numb fingers.
"You're saying..." I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't make the words real.
Cole's expression was grim. "I'm saying your old body is still out there. Still moving. Still alive."
The world tilted.
I'd died. I remembered dying. The silver blade through my heart. The blood. The darkness.
My soul had left that body. I'd felt it happen. Felt myself being pulled south by the blood connection to this family.
But if what Cole was saying was true...
"That's impossible," I whispered.
"I know."
"I died. I was there. I felt it."
"I know."
"So what the hell is walking around in my body?"
Cole's jaw tightened. "That's what I'm trying to find out."