Chapter 90 Petals to Panic
Wynter's POV
The quad erupted into organized chaos as teams tore open their starter packets and scattered in different directions, shouts of excitement and competitive determination filling the air.
Our team huddled around our first clue, Chase reading aloud: "'Where knowledge sleeps in ordered rows, seek the spring that ever flows.'"
"Library fountain," I said immediately, already moving. "Has to be."
We took off running, weaving through crowds of other teams heading in different directions, the competitive energy infectious despite my usual wariness of large Academy events.
The morning sun was warm on my face, the sound of laughter and friendly competition filling the air, and for just a moment I let myself enjoy it—this brief respite from the darkness that had consumed so much of the semester.
The library fountain sat in the center of the building's atrium, water cascading over carved stone flowers in an endless cycle that caught the light and threw rainbow patterns across the floor.
Jax spotted it first—a QR code cleverly hidden behind one of the stone petals, nearly invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. He scanned it with his phone, and the next clue appeared on all our screens simultaneously.
"'In the garden where new life takes root, find the bridge that bears no fruit,'" Rosalie read, frowning slightly. "The new garden installations?"
"The architectural students' projects," I realized, my mind already racing ahead. "They built those decorative bridges near the east gardens for their spring showcase. But which one doesn't have fruit trees nearby?"
"The one by the ornamental grasses," Jax said thoughtfully, his knowledge of campus grounds from his maintenance work proving invaluable. "All the others are near the orchards, but that one stands alone."
We took off again, our team working with surprising synchronicity. Chase's strategic mind plotted the most efficient routes between clue locations, Rosalie's attention to detail caught subtle hints others might miss, Jax's intimate knowledge of campus from his grounds work revealed shortcuts and hidden paths, and my pattern recognition helped us decode the more cryptic riddles.
The festival atmosphere was intoxicating in its simple joy. Music drifted from various performance stages where students showcased their talents.
The smell of festival food grew stronger as we passed vendor stalls set up throughout campus.
Everywhere I looked, students were laughing, competing, celebrating together in a way that felt almost surreal given the tensions that usually defined Academy life.
We were halfway through the hunt, standing in the sculpture garden trying to decode a particularly tricky riddle about "wings without flight" and "songs without sound"—Chase insisting it referred to the butterfly sculptures while Rosalie argued for the silent wind chimes—when the screaming started.
The sound cut through the festival noise like a knife—high-pitched, terrified.
My head snapped toward the source, my wolf instantly on alert. Through the Bond, I felt Chase's shift from relaxed enjoyment to battle-ready alertness, his hand tightening on mine as we both turned toward the commotion.
More screams now, and the sound of running feet—not the excited running of students chasing clues, but panicked flight.
Students were fleeing from the direction of the east gardens, their festival clothes torn, faces pale with shock and fear. Some were bleeding from visible injuries, others supporting friends who could barely walk.
"What's happening?" Rosalie gasped, pressing close to my side, her earlier excitement evaporating into genuine fear.
Then I saw them.
Three small figures burst from the treeline near the gardens, moving with a jerky, unnatural speed that made my stomach drop. Children—couldn't be more than ten or eleven years old—but something was terribly, horrifically wrong with them.
Their eyes glowed an eerie red-black in the afternoon sun, the color of old blood mixed with fresh violence. They moved like puppets with half-cut strings, their limbs articulating at wrong angles, their small faces completely blank of anything resembling reason or human awareness.
And they were attacking everyone in their path.
One of them—a little girl with matted dark hair hanging in her face—lunged at a group of students with claws fully extended, moving with a speed and ferocity that shouldn't have been possible for someone her size. She caught a boy's arm and tore through fabric and flesh with savage efficiency, her face never changing expression even as he screamed and went down, blood spreading across his pastel blue shirt in shocking contrast to the cheerful color.
"Rogue wolves!" someone shouted from somewhere in the panicking crowd. "Feral Rogues in the school! They're attacking people!"
The words spread like wildfire, panic rippling outward in visible waves as students scattered in all directions. The carefully organized festival dissolved into chaos within seconds—teams abandoning their hunts, decorations trampled underfoot, the joyful music suddenly jarring against the backdrop of screaming.
I watched in frozen horror as another of the children—a boy who couldn't have been more than nine, his clothes hanging off his thin frame in tatters—tackled a girl easily twice his size, his small hands wrapping around her throat with inhuman strength. She clawed at his arms, trying to break free, but his grip didn't waver, his red-black eyes staring through her without the slightest flicker of recognition or mercy.
"Everyone back!" Professor Stone's voice cut through the screaming, carrying the weight of Alpha authority that made even panicking students pause. "Students, retreat to the main buildings immediately! Teachers, form a defensive perimeter!"
I felt Chase trying to pull me backward, toward safety, his protective instincts overriding everything else. But I couldn't move, couldn't look away from those small, possessed figures wreaking havoc on students who'd been laughing and celebrating moments before.
The Academy's security team materialized with practiced efficiency, moving to create a barrier between the attacking children and the fleeing students. Several teachers had partially shifted, their wolves rising to the surface as they prepared to defend their charges.
"Their eyes," I whispered, horror crawling up my spine like ice water. "Chase, look at their eyes. They're not just feral—they're being controlled. Someone's controlling them like puppets."
Through the Bond, I felt his immediate understanding, his matching horror at the implication.
A girl near us—her spring dress torn and her face streaked with tears—called out in a shaking voice to one of the professors trying to organize the evacuation: "They came from the east woods! Just appeared from the trees like—like they were summoned or something! Their eyes were already glowing that red-black color, like they'd lost all reason before they even got here. They moved like puppets, like something else was controlling their bodies!"
Another student, a boy clutching his bleeding shoulder where claws had torn through his shirt, added desperately: "I tried to talk to one of them—the little girl. Thought maybe if I could calm her down, reason with her. But she didn't respond at all. Just stared straight through me with those dead eyes and attacked. It's like they're not even in there anymore, like their bodies are just empty shells!"
The security team was advancing now, moving with careful coordination to try to contain the children without seriously harming them. But the kids fought with a ferocity that belied their small size, their movements coordinated in a way that suggested they were being directed by a single intelligence rather than acting on individual impulse.
One of the security guards went down when the little girl ducked under his grab and drove her claws into his thigh with surgical precision, hitting the major artery with accuracy that couldn't possibly be accidental. He screamed and collapsed, blood pooling beneath him as his teammates rushed to apply pressure to the wound.
"Fall back!" Professor Stone commanded, his voice carrying across the chaos. "All students to the main hall, now! This area is on lockdown until we secure the threat!"