“Athena? Athena!” I hear my mom yelling at me and softly tapping my face.
“Mmmm,” I mutter. “What happened?” I ask.
“You fainted and fell off the stool,” she says, her voice filled with worry.
I sit straight up, panicking. “Where’s my phone?” I ask, looking around the room, finding the warriors I ran with now filling the kitchen.
“It’s here,” Ryna says, handing it to me. “What the hell happened, Athena?”
I snatch the phone from his grasp and quickly search for the video, but the message has vanished. “They killed him!” I yell hysterically.
“Who?” my mom asks, shock filling her voice.
I open my call log to find the number the video came from, but the call log has been wiped.
I shake uncontrollably, “ANDREAS!” I yell, tears streaming down my face again. “WHERE THE FUCK IS THE VIDEO?! WHO DELETED IT?” I cry, searching around the room for the culprit.
“No one deleted anything, Athena.” Ryna crouches down in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders. “Athena, focus. What video?”
I take a deep breath and try to calm down. “Someone sent me a video of… Of Andreas. He was tied to a chair, with a hood over his head. Then… Then…” I break down again, unable to finish the sentence.
He leans forward and pulls me into a tight hug. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” he says, his voice shaky.
“No, it’s not,” I cry into his shoulder. “They slit his throat.” I cry harder, and I hear gasps around the room.
My phone rings, and I quickly pull away from Ryna to see who it is. “Uncle Alex,” I sob again as I answer the phone.
“What’s wrong?” He asks immediately.
I hand the phone to Ryna, shaking my head, unable to talk.
“Gamma, it’s Ryna. Is Andreas with you?” He asks.
I can’t hear what Uncle Alex says over my crying, but I already know the answer. My mate is dead.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Ryna asks.
I get up from the floor and walk out of the kitchen. I feel dead inside. I feel like I’m floating as I walk into the lounge room and sit on one of the couches. I had no idea my mother had sat next to me until she wrapped her arms around me. I try to reach out to Enyo for comfort, but I can’t feel her; she’s completely blocked herself off from me.
#
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on the couch crying, but the next thing I know, the front door crashes open, and I see Uncle Alex, with an angry-looking guy behind him. Uncle Alex rushes over to me and kneels before me, engulfing me in an enormous hug. I wrap my arms around his neck and sob into his shoulder.
“Where’s the video? I want to see it!” The guy that came in with Uncle Alex yells.
I pull away from Uncle Alex. “I don’t know what happened to it. It got wiped from the phone,” I say softly between small sobs.
He marches angrily towards me, yelling, “I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” He then grabs my shoulders and shakes them. “IT’S NOT FUCKING TRUE! HE’S NOT DEAD!”
“NOAH!” Uncle Alex yells at him, yanking him away from me. “Look at her! Does she look like she’s lying?”
“IT CAN’T BE HIM!” Noah breaks down, clutching Uncle Alex’s shoulders. It’s then that I realize his eyes are red from crying.
“I’m sorry, Noah. It was definitely Andreas in the video,” I say, crying again, barely getting the words out.
Screaming, he turns around and punches a hole in the wall, then collapses to his knees and sobs.
“Alex, how could this have happened?” My mom asks him.
“I don’t know. He said that he needed to go for a run to clear his mind after talking to Doctor Shields, and I haven’t seen him since,” he says. “I have more bad news, though…” he trails off.
I tear my eyes away from Noah to look at Uncle Alex. “What is it?” I ask.
“Doctor Shields escaped from the warehouse…”
“WHAT?” I yell as I get up from the couch.
“Andreas asked me to go into town to get supplies. He got out somehow after I left,” he explains.
“HOW?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I sedated him before I left. The only thing I can think of is that he had help. I picked up some scents I didn’t recognize in the warehouse, but I lost their trail. They must have had a car nearby.”
“WELL, THAT’S JUST GREAT!” I growl. “Do you at least know what Doctor Shields told Andreas?” I ask angrily.
“No…” Uncle Alex confesses, his head bowed in shame. “I had to get out of there before I killed him.”
“FUCK!” I scream. “So we have NOTHING! NO MATE, NO DOCTOR, NO FUCKING LEADS!” I scream. But before Uncle Alex can say anything, I run outside into the cool air.
I run down the road crying, not stopping until I reach the now empty playground. I pace around frantically, as I try to think of what to do, but I’m so tense with rage and pain that I feel like I’m going to snap at any moment. I take a deep breath and scream into the air, but instead of a scream, I let out a massive roar, releasing all of my rage into it. When I finally stop, I’m breathless but feel a little better.
“What the fuck was that?”
I jump, not realizing there was anyone nearby.
“Noah, you scared the shit out of me,” I say, placing my hand on my chest, my heart racing.
“I’ve never heard anyone roar like that before,” he says, looking at me strangely.
“I went to scream out my frustrations, and that’s what came out,” I say, slowly getting my breath back. “It can’t have been that loud. Alphas roar all the time.”
“Not like that…”
I notice movement behind Noah, and I realize nearly the entire pack is standing behind him at the top of the road, staring at me, their eyes wide with confusion.
When Noah turns around, he sees everyone standing there. “I might have scared you, but I think you scared the shit out of everyone,” he laughs softly, breaking the tension.
When I hear the warriors tell everyone to go home, I go and sit on one of the large swings, and Noah joins me, taking a seat on the other swing.
“So, you’re Noah,” I say, a small, sad smile on my lips.
“Yeah. Sorry for yelling at you… And I’m sorry you lost your mate,” he whispers.
“It’s not fair. I didn’t even get to know him, but I already cared for him,” I sigh, the hollow feeling coming back. “I’m sorry too, Noah. I don’t even know how you knew Andreas,” I admit guiltily.
“We grew up together,” he explains, sadly. “We’ve been best friends since diapers.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“All I want to know is what happened. He was always so cautious; how could this have happened to him?” he sobs.
I wipe my eyes and force my feelings down, forcing myself to stay strong. “I swear to you, Noah. We will find out who did this, and they’re going to pay,” I tell him, my anger returning with a vengeance.
“Could you see where he was in the video?” He asks.
I close my eyes and try to picture the room, but all I can see is blood everywhere. Finally, I shake my head. “It looked bare, with only the chair he was tied to and a small table next to him,” I tell Noah.
“Could you see anything about who did it?”
I shake my head again. “He wore a mask, and just a plain sweater and jeans. That’s all I could tell about him. But it was definitely a man.” I tell him. “I just don’t understand how the video got deleted. Even my call log is clear, so I can’t even see the number it came from,” I say, frustrated.
“Maybe we should go back to the warehouse… See if we can pick up Andreas’ trail,” Noah suggests.
“Uncle Alex is one of the best trackers in America. If he couldn’t track him, we wouldn’t be able to,” I tell him.
“It couldn’t hurt. Maybe we can find something your Gamma missed.”
I nod and take a deep breath. “I guess it couldn’t hurt,” I say.
We sit in silence for a few moments, and I gaze out through the trees that surround us. I listen to the birds chirping in the distance, and if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can hear the river flowing that Enyo and I used to swim in. The smell of butterscotch hits me like a ton of bricks as I take another deep breath and I open my eyes and look around for Andreas, but he’s nowhere to be found, and I realize that the breeze is carrying the smell of butterscotch and vanilla from the ponderosa pines that fill our territory. A cruel reminder that my mate smelled like home.