Chapter 308 It Was Jax
"No!" she snapped, her finger stabbing the air toward him. "You don't get to 'please' me. You just told me that you are holding the secret to a biological weapon. You just told me a 'Council' of monsters is watching our house. And you just told me that the man you work for will kill you because you were too much of a coward to tell him the truth!"
She stopped her pacing and leaned over him, her eyes burning with a volatile mix of love and absolute resentment.
"You didn't just sell your soul, Elias. You sold us. You brought their war into our living room. You think I care about the 'Elemental' woman? I don't. I care that you’ve turned our home into a target."
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her clinical brain finally overriding the panic. She straightened her spine, her jaw setting with the strength of cold-rolled steel.
"You are going to listen to me," she said, her voice turning sharp. "We can't just run, Sloane," Elias groaned, burying his face in his hands. "They’ll find us. They don't just use GPS or license plates. They use... they use senses we don't even have names for. If we run, it just looks like a confession."
"Then we don't run like fugitives. We move like people who are terrified for their lives—because we are," she countered, her voice a low, urgent hiss. "You have the proof that this 'Council' is poisoning that woman. If you stay quiet, you're an accomplice. If you tell the Beta, you’re a corpse. But if you give that data to the one they’re actually afraid of—the Queen—maybe she buys our lives in exchange for the truth."
"How, Sloane? I can’t exactly knock on the door of a royal estate without being shredded by the guards."
Sloane looked at the broken man she loved. She hated the wolves for what they had done to his brilliance, turning his steady surgical hands into a trembling mess. But she wasn't going to let him go down with the ship.
"You said she was there tonight? This Leela?" Sloane asked. "She was there for the human girl?"
"Yes. She was devastated. She feels guilty for leaving her in the human world."
"Then she has a heart," Sloane concluded. "That’s her weakness, and it’s our only leverage. If she’s as 'elemental' as you say, then she cares about her people. You find a way to get a message to her and her alone. No guards. No Beta. No Council."
She walked to the kitchen counter, grabbing a notepad and a pen and shoving them into his shaking hands.
"Write it down, Elias. Not the jargon. Write down that her friend is being turned into a monster from the inside out and that the Council is holding the needle. Tell her you have the proof, but you’ll only give it to her if she guarantees our safety."
Elias stared at the blank paper, the pen feeling like a lead pipe. "She’s a Lycan, Sloane. Why would she care about a deal? She could just take it from me."
Sloane leaned down, her face inches from his. "Because according to you, she’s already lost enough. She won't want another death on her conscience—especially the doctor who's trying to save her friend. Now write. I’m going to start packing. If we aren't out of this house by dawn, I don't think we’ll ever leave it."
As she turned toward the bedroom, she paused, looking back at the bruises on his neck.
"And Elias? If we survive this... you are never stepping foot in a supernatural triage again. I'm taking you to a beach with no trees and no moonlight. Do we have an understanding?"
Elias didn't look up. He just started to write, the scratching of the pen the only sound in the suffocating silence.
"Yes, Sloane," he whispered. "Crystal clear."
The following morning, the air was thick with the scent of rain and ozone. Elias kissed Sloane with a finality that felt like a goodbye, his heart thudding against his ribs as he climbed into his sedan. He drove toward the hospital, making sure to stop for his usual coffee, playing the part of the weary doctor to the hidden eyes he knew were watching.
Sloane, meanwhile, executed her part with cold, surgical precision. She hit the high-end outlets, her SUV filling with bags of silk and leather—expensive camouflage. She made the drop at the North Gate, her voice steady as she handed the envelope to a Blackwood sentinel.
"Tell the Queen the clock is ticking," she had whispered before peeling away.
By 2:00 PM, the "emergency" call came to Elias’s office—a pre-arranged signal from the Blackwoods. He rushed out of the hospital, looking panicked, telling the nursing station he had a family crisis. He peeled out of the parking lot, heading for the highway that led out of town, knowing the silver-eyed predators were already falling into line behind him.
The highway transition was a blur. Elias pushed his sedan to eighty, ninety, his eyes glued to the black SUV that had been tailing him since the city limits. Just as the road began to wind into the steep, heavily forested cliffs overlooking the Blackwood valley, a massive, charcoal-colored truck roared out of a hidden logging trail.
It was Jax.
The Beta didn't hesitate. He swung the heavy ram-bar of his truck into the path of the Council’s SUV, forcing them to swerve and lose momentum. Simultaneously, a second Blackwood vehicle—an older, beat-up sedan identical to Elias’s—sped past from the opposite direction.
"Now!" Jax’s voice boomed over a burner radio sitting in Elias's passenger seat.
Elias slammed on his brakes at the exact marker—a patch of road where the guardrail had been "pre-weakened."
Two Blackwood warriors, moving with blurring Lycan speed, yanked Elias from his driver's seat and shoved him into the back of a waiting van idling in the shadows of the trees.
One of the warriors, a young man with a grim expression, hopped into Elias's car. He jammed a brick onto the accelerator and steered the vehicle toward the edge.