Chapter 12: ASPEN LUNA MORGAN
CHAPTER TWELVE
ASPEN
I didn’t know when the waterworks fell from my eyes, but I started crying. And no, it wasn’t the cute, silent tears displayed in movies. It was an ugly one. The one with a lot of drama and a lot of snot running down my nose.
Rachel held me in a tight embrace, patting my back and whispering soothing words into my ears. When my tears had ceased, she pulled away and gave me a tissue.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. But look on the bright side, you’re in school now. You get the chance to learn everything you were denied. They teach here, and they take it almost as seriously as the physical training. This is your chance to become educated.”
When she put it that way, being stuck in this school didn’t seem as bad as it was meant to be. Maybe this was a chance given to me by the moon goddess to gain everything I lost because of the pack I grew up in.
“I hate to be the bad guy or the party pooper,” Ronan cut in, making us both groan, because what he was about to say was most likely not going to be a good thing.
“What is it?”
“We just had another problem that could potentially lead to her being discovered. They don’t teach high school classes here. This academy is equivalent to college in the human world, which means she wouldn’t be able to pass or understand any of the classes taught. If she doesn’t understand, she won’t be able to pass. And if she doesn’t pass, she’ll face the dire consequences of failure.”
At this point, I was almost convinced that I had offended some sort of god or committed an unforgivable crime in my former life to deserve all the things I was being put through now. Every time I thought things were getting better, something else came up that put me in an even worse situation than before.
Even with the horrible news, Rachel didn’t seem discouraged. Instead, she restarted. She made adjustments to her plans and explained them to me one by one.
“Since Ronan is practically an educational guru, he’ll be teaching you behind closed doors. Learning how to read and write at home isn’t easy, and since you did it so fast, I’m guessing you’ll be a pretty fast learner, which would give us an advantage. Just make sure you’re putting in your best. I’ll try my best to cover for you when it’s needed, and if you ever need any feminine stuff, don’t hesitate to let me know. Also—” she snapped her fingers, recalling something she must have forgotten.
“Lest I forget. I found footage of the night Devenity was killed. You were there, but it didn’t fully seem like you.”
I frowned, unable to comprehend her words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She turned her laptop back to me. Ronan stood up, coming over to see what she was showing me. Truly, the video of the night Devenity died was on her laptop, and when she played it, I was convinced that I wasn’t the one in the video.
The first thing I noticed about the girl was the fact that she was limping, and it wasn’t something that could be easily ignored. Her limp was so obvious that it was the first thing anyone would notice about her.
“You don’t limp when you walk, which means you’re not the one in the picture,” Ronan pointed out.
Another thing about the person in the video that stood out to me was the fact that when she turned around and smirked, there was a noticeable gap between her teeth.
It was clear now that I wasn’t anywhere close to the person on the screen, even though we had the same face.
“This person looks like you, and yet there are subtle differences that set you both apart. Do you have a twin?” Rachel zoomed in on the girl’s face to get a clearer image.
Taking my silence as an initiative to explain, Ronan briefed her on our discussion the day before. “We don’t know if she does. She doesn’t remember anything about her childhood.”
“Anything at all?”
He shook his head. “No. All she knows is that she was adopted by the pack when she was little. Her memories start from there.”
My mind went back to the picture of me being wanted, and I realized a crucial fact that we had all missed. Someone had edited the image and covered up the gap teeth.
I rushed over to my drawer, pulling out the wanted flyer that had been resting there for a while. “Look, whoever took this photo knew that we weren’t the same person. Whoever did this intentionally edited the gap tooth to make it seem like I was the one there. Someone is really going out of their way to ruin me.”
“We already established that fact. The most important question is who is doing it, and why,” Rachel said.
“As for your origin, I think I can help with that. I have a way to access the pack history. Every member of the pack, from Lycan to Omega, to even slaves, is registered in a book called The Book of Powers. The book contains every single person, both rogue and pack. I don’t know how they get all the information, but there’s no one who can’t be found in that book. I’m sure we’ll find something about you and where you’re from there.”
Wow! That was mind-blowing. Who would think werewolf technology had gone so far that there was an account of everyone?
“How are we going to access this book you speak of?”
“That’s easy. I know the passcode. It’s available to all Alphas and people in high positions of authority. My father has had to access the book multiple times to confirm the identity of the students of the school before they are enrolled. It’s how we know who is real and who is pretending,” she explained, typing furiously on her laptop.
It didn’t take her long to gain access to the data that held almost all the information of this pack. “Bingo.” She clicked one last time, and I watched in amusement as various names lit up the screen of her computer.
“What’s your name?” she asked, clicking on the search bar to input my name. “Your full name,” she added.
“Aspen Luna Morgan.”