Chapter 117
KATHERINE.
The phone rang for several moments before ending when there was no response and I dialed his number again. When I got the same result, I dialed my aunt’s number and she answered almost immediately. “Katherine,” came Uncle Lander’s voice amidst the background noise of wheels squeaking, an elevator pinging, and cell phones ringing. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” He sounded worried – even more worried than he usually was.
“I’m fine. I called you.”
“Oh. I’ve been… I’ve been really busy. There was a, uh…” He trailed off once again and I drew my brows when several moments passed without him speaking before he heaved a sigh. “There was a… ‘disturbance’ from Silver Bow.”
My whole body immediately broke out in hives while a bad feeling settled in my stomach like a brick and I shot off the bed. “Disturbance?” My voice came out tight and scared, and my heart rate had picked up.
“You don’t need to worry yourself now. Everyone is fine. Just some minor injuries. Nothing we can’t handle, really,” he said in a rush like he could see me panicking as I paced from side to side.
“What– What happened?”
“Just a small attack. We’re fine, Katherine,” he replied and I stopped pacing. It felt like my fingers were going numb.
“What happened?” I repeated, enunciating each word, and once again, silence for several moments before he heaved a sigh.
“They set a bomb in the meeting hall,” he stated and I exhaled in a rush as my head spun. I stumbled down, forcing myself to sit on my bed. “Some sentinels saw the culprits while they were making their escape and tried to stop them, but they failed and sustained some injuries. They’re in the clinic now, but they’re fine.”
“And the bomb?”
“We got everyone out of the hall before it went off. No one got hurt from that, but we have quite the cleaning up to do.” He chuckled at the last part, but I couldn’t even bring myself to calm down.
“Uncle Lander…”
“We’re fine, Katherine. Really. Kit is fine too. He’s here if you want to talk to him.”
I was really glad to hear that they were fine but– “What if they attack again?” The thought was enough to make my heart want to beat out of my chest and I tightly gripped my bedsheets till my knuckles turned white.
“They won’t,” he replied and I opened my mouth to ask how he could be so sure, but he continued before I could. “Not anytime soon anyway, but we’ll be ready for them if that time comes… Everyone’s fine, Katherine. Just a little surprised is all.”
My heart rate began to return to normal, but now my fear had been replaced by anger because ‘how dare they?’. “Uncle Lander…”
“Get some sleep, Katherine. I’ll call you in the morning.”
****
I’d barely slept last night thanks to what Silver Bow did to my pack and I was still boiling with anger over the fact that a lot of people would have died if sentinels didn’t see those members of Silver Bow. Since we hadn’t been able to detain any of them it would be our word against theirs when we reported this to the Administration, and the fact that they could get away with this made me even angrier. As for the reason why they did this, I assumed it was to help their case – wanting to dissolve River Ash and split the assets and land with Blue Moon – when the Administration meeting finally happened by saying that we weren’t strong enough to be a pack since we couldn’t prevent this from happening. It’d have made for a stronger argument if people had died and thankfully, no one had, but that wouldn’t stop them from bringing it up.
I gripped my fork tighter as the thought that they wanted people to die came to mind for the nth time. ‘The more, the better,’ must have been what Alpha Dawson had thought when he decided the bomb should be planted in the meeting hall, the most active place in my pack, and I gritted my teeth, wishing I could stab him repeatedly with the fork in my hand.
I should have seen this coming… Blue Blood had ended the alliance with them and they lost a couple of alliances after that. Noah and his friends got expelled for almost killing Lenore when they wanted to kill me – something his father must have put in his head. And there were still rumors about an alliance between my pack and Lenore’s. All of these were enough to make Silver Bow antsy so I should have seen this coming.
“Stupid,” I muttered to myself before laughter from the table next to mine in the dining hall drew my attention and my anger spiked when I saw that it was occupied by Poppy and her friends. She looked so happy and I knew there was no way she wasn’t aware of what her father did yesterday as I stared at her, trying to burn holes into her skull.
“They said the explosion was spectacular,” Poppy said and I stiffened in my seat before narrowing my eyes at her while she sighed wistfully. “Too bad more buildings didn’t go boom,” she added and I gritted my teeth, knowing she was saying this to rile me up because there was no way she didn’t see me sitting here before she sat there. “... Too bad a ‘kit’ wasn’t in the building when it went off.”
‘What the–’ I was on my feet before I gave a rational thought to what I was doing. With a growl, I rushed over to her and as I crashed into her, her chair tipped over, making the both of us fall to the ground. I wrapped my hands around her neck as I straddled her, squeezing her neck while she screamed and clawed at my arms. I was going to fucking kill her.
“What the fuck?!” She shot her fist at me, catching me in the face so hard my vision blurred and I loosened my grip on her as I became disoriented. She took the opportunity to punch me in the jaw and knock me down, but before she could get on top of me, smoke filled my nose and I knew she was about to use her element on me, so I grabbed her wrist and wrenched it. The sickening snap of bone filled the air the next moment and she screamed while I kicked her to the side before pinning her under me again. Then I began to rain blows on her wherever I could, unleashing the anger I’d been bottling up since last night. Since I became a student at Blackwood. Since her pack began to try even harder to dissolve mine. Since my parents died.
“Katherine!” came a familiar voice before I felt hands trying to pull me away from her.
“Let go!”
“Stop!” I recognized it as Hunter’s voice now before he pulled me off her while I panted and my head throbbed. It was then I realized that people were cheering while Poppy’s friends went to where she lay on the ground, groaning and bleeding, and I realized something else – I was in so much trouble.