Chapter 46: Space

Calina

I’d taken Mason’s advice seriously about getting jobs and spent a good portion of the morning researching any sort of employment that would match my skillset… Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much available for a retired werewolf hunter. Perhaps I’d take him up on that offer to work at his cousin’s restaurant.

My job searching was, however, cut short when Freya entered, almost frantic until she saw me sitting at the kitchen counter with my laptop out.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wiping sweat from her brow.

“Job searching?” I said awkwardly.

She shook her head and gave a soft chuckle, “Well I hope it’s only part time and at the night shift because you’ve got initiation training starting tomorrow.”

I almost slammed the computer shut as I gazed at her both curiously and angrily.

“What do you mean, ‘initiation training?’. I can’t even shift. What are they going to teach me?”

Freya shook her head again and shrugged, “Look, it’s out of my hands. It’s compulsory for new wolves to go for initiation. Alpha’s orders. But don’t worry, Mason will be joining you!” she said before promptly leaving the house.

Erin had finally woken up and wandered into the front part of the house, scratching her head but clearly well aware of Freya’s words as she looked at me curiously.

“Did you have to do this initiation training crap?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No they didn’t really care about me.”

The way she said it made my heart ache for her.

“I could always ask Freya to let you join in too if you’d like?”

Her eyes brightened and she nodded enthusiastically. I couldn’t see the appeal, but perhaps she longed for a sense of normalcy. After all, this would be our life now.

Vander

By the time I’d left the hospital I was so exhausted I couldn’t even find it in me to speak. And so, reluctantly I stopped by the vending machine. Unfortunately, there was no canned coffee in the vending machine. In fact, there were hardly any items in it at all. It was odd, this vending machine was almost always full. When I asked around about it, I’d heard that there was something wrong with some of the items and that some people had experienced weakness or fainting after consuming some of the food. It was then that I remembered the night of Calina’s disappearance. I’d grabbed a chocolate bar and eaten the whole thing hungrily. A few seconds after that, I blacked out.

I checked the vending machine again and the chocolate bar I ate that day was no longer inside. An eery feeling washed over me, but I was too tired to fixate on it. Instead, I walked home, happy that I’d at least be seeing Calina. That was the impression I carried the entire time until I opened the door and the cold, silence hit me like a cold gust of wind. She wasn’t here anymore, and perhaps she would never be. She hated me, but I wondered selfishly if I could change that and what I could do to change that. Perhaps a grand gesture of some sort? Though I did think that letting her ex-boyfriend stay here was grand gesture enough already.

I got in a few minutes of sleep before Freya knocked on my door. Groggily, I answered. Her face was in a tight frown, obviously caused by the fact that I’d fucked up everything with Calina. But it was clear that was only at the back of her mind. What took the forefront was what was in her hands. It was a report back of what we’d been looking for before finding Calina.

“Nova and Lana were originally from the Silver Crescent pack?” I questioned in disbelief.

Freya nodded and then said, “And if you turn to the next page, you’ll see they transferred to the Red Flame pack before disappearing.”

I turned the page, reading exactly what she’d said. It was obvious why Brutis wouldn’t mind letting such information slip. There was nothing really tying them back to him, except the fact that they were originally members of his pack. And now that Nova and Lana were dead, there wouldn’t be anymore information we could get out of them. I sighed, realising then that it would have perhaps been better to injure the two and hold them as hostages. It seemed I’d done a good job of cleaning up after Brutis already.

“Calina’s starting her initiation training tomorrow morning. If you cared at all,” she said with a venomous edge to her voice.

I gazed up from the report, almost in disbelief at the implication she was making.

“For your information, Freya, she chose to leave. I didn’t force her to go. And now, I’m choosing to give her the space she needs,” I said.

Freya scoffed, “As if you know anything about space.”

I didn’t respond to her comment.

She then turned towards me, a more serious look on her face.

“She needs space Vander. So please, don’t go cooking up ideas about trying to get back in her good books. Let her have her space.”

I sighed and nodded. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps space would be good for the both of us.

“Oh and by the way,” Freya said as she started to walk towards the door, “I heard your friend Loraine is going to be starting off the programme tomorrow.”