Chapter 139 139. Target
Tabitha’s POV
My hands ache by the time the impromptu target shooting class finally ends. Out of roughly fifty attempts I manage to land about ten shots. None of them hit the circular target on the chest but a few catch the legs and one clips the shoulder. It is not impressive by any standard. Still, if those mannequins had been real people I would not have killed anyone, but I at least would have hurt them enough to buy time, and right now I decide that counts as survival.
“Not bad,” Luca comments.
“Yeah, I’m done.” I hand the gun to Evren and he disassembles it quickly.
“God, I’m starving after all that shooting,” Reed complains, rolling his shoulders.
“Of course you are,” Luca replies dryly.
Reed flips him off.
Wilson straightens and lifts a hand.
“I’ll head inside and see if they’ve got any snacks,” he volunteers and he doesn’t wait for everyone’s reaction before he starts walking towards the mansion.
“Hey, can you get me some water?” Rye calls out.
“And ask Rose if she can whip us up some sandwiches,” Reed adds.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wilson says, already turning away.
“Wait,” I say quickly, stepping forward. “I’ll come with you.”
Wilson pauses and glances back but immediately averts his eyes. “I can handle it on my own.”
“No, I’m thirsty, and I want something to eat too, so I might as well tag along.”
Jace raises his hand. “I’ll come with you too.”
I glance at him and snort. “We’re just getting sandwiches and drinks. Two people is enough. This isn’t a parade.”
Jace looks annoyed, but he lets it go.
Wilson and I head toward the mansion, keeping a wide distance from the others. He stares straight ahead and avoids my eyes. Once we are far enough, I grab his arm and drag him behind a tree, positioning us well away from the nearest CCTV I scoped earlier.
“Fuck—!” Wilson exclaims.
“Shut up. We’re far away enough to not be heard,” I bark. “So, you better start talking now before I force the words out of your mouth.”
Wilson looks around sharply. He looks irritated but there’s also a trace of panic in his eyes as he surveys the trees around us as if they can hear us.
“You’re really good at picking the worst time and place for this,” he hisses.
“I gave you the chance to swim out of this one last night at the party. But right now—you better answer my damn questions right now, Wilson.”
“You know werewolves have sharp hearing, right?”
“We’re far enough. They won’t hear us. Now talk. What were you and my mom talking about at the market?”
Wilson clenches his jaw and stays silent. Fear and annoyance war in his eyes while giving our surrounding another sweep like he’s afraid someone would suddenly pounce and murder us. For a moment, I’m convinced he’s just not gonna answer my question.
Until he lets out a frustrated breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “We’re running out of time,” he mutters.
“Running out of time for what?”
He turns to me with a hard look and pulls something from his pocket. It is small and triangular. He pulls out a lighter next, and my stomach drops when I realize what the first object is. It’s a firecracker.
“The hell? What are you—!”
I choke on my words when he suddenly lights the damn thing and throws it to the ground.
“Shit!” I exclaim.
I jump back as the firecracker blows up in blistering sparks of fire and hazard. The thing sets the thin blanket of grass on fire as it tumbles all over the ground, a piece of debris catching me in the shin.
“Ah, shit! Shit! Shit!” I frantically paddle against the ground like a penguin caught in fire.
In the chaos, Wilson yanks me close a split second before another piece of debris skids past my leg again. His grip is firm as he pulls me in, and his mouth presses close to my ear while the firecracker keeps screaming against the ground. The explosions crack and flood the air with noise, and the sound is loud enough to swallow everything else around us. Wilson speaks into my ear anyway and I hear him clearly despite the chaos. His frenzied words tumble out of his mouth and they land heavy in my ears.
The firecracker keeps detonating while sparks tear through the grass and smoke coils upward. Wilson finishes and lets go of me at once, and he steps away like nothing happened. My mouth parts in absolute shock while I try to process what he just told me.
Footsteps thunder toward us and Reed, Evren, Luca, and Jace come running with Rye, Ian, and Wyatt close behind.
“What the fuck was that explosion?!” Reed demands, his eyes flashing in rageful molten gold.
“What the…” Luca frowns as soon as he spots the burnt-out firecracker debris on the ground.
Evren bends and picks up what remains of the triangular shell. He doesn’t look pleased.
Wilson breaks into a grin.
“Relax, guys. I was just pulling a silly prank on Tabitha.”
“The fuck?” Reed glares at his friend. “A prank? By what? Throwing a firecracker at her? What the fuck is your problem?”
His eyes turn fully gold as if he is a heartbeat from shifting so he can pounce and tear his friend apart.
“What?” Wilson says, still grinning like he’s very pleased with himself. “I thought it was fun.”
“Dude, that’s not cool! Why the hell are you even carrying a firecracker here? You’re a walking hazard! We were firing guns earlier for fuck’s sake! Are you trying to set off an explosion in the damn estate?” Jace fires off.
Wilson snorts. “You guys are overreacting. We used to carry these bad boys back in high school.”
“We’re not fucking teenagers now, aren’t we?” Evren declares coldly. “This isn’t high school anymore. Look at what you’ve done.” Evren bends down to inspect my leg scraped earlier by exploding debris and now bleeding a bit.
“Fuck!” Jace yells when he notices the wound too. “Does it hurt?”
“I-I’m okay.”
My eyes are wide with shock but not for the reason they think. My thoughts are still tangled around what Wilson whispered to me a moment ago. I meet his gaze for a brief second and the fear I saw earlier flashes there again before it disappears. He turns back to Reed and that irritating grin slides back into place like a mask he knows how to wear too well.
“Eh, don’t get too worked up. It’s just a graze, man.” Wilson shrugs.
If he’s trying to purposely provoke the brothers, it’s working because Reed grits his teeth and grabs Wilson by the collar.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?!”
“Woah, woah! Chill, dude.” Wyatt tries to get in between the two to diffuse the situation but Reed just pushes him away.
“We used to do stuff like this all the time,” Wilson says, his grin widening. “Remember when you put a firecracker under the bleachers during assembly? And don’t give me shit about being way past high school. We used to do this kind of shit until college.”
Reed tightens his grip.
“That’s different. This is my stepsister you’re fucking with.”
Wilson meets his gaze, and the grin fades.
“Why?” he probes, his tone dropping uncharacteristically low. “You used to make fun of her too back in high school. What difference does it make now?”
Reed’s fist lifts, shaking with rage.
“Reed!” Ian yells somewhere.
Before Reed’s fist punches the daylight out of Wilson, Luca intervenes and grabs his brother’s arm, digging the protruding claws into Reed’s skin, drawing blood.
“That’s enough,” Luca says firmly before dragging Reed away from Wilson.
“I don’t wanna fucking see your face here again, Wilson. Unless you want me to kill you. And stay the fuck away from Tabitha,” Reed growls and is about to launch at Wilson again but Luca holds him back again.
“Wilson… just leave. I can stop Reed from killing you, but I can’t say the same thing for my other brothers.” Luca nods at Evren and Jace whose eyes have both shifted into rageful gold. Jace’s claws protrude from his fingers like Reed’s and angry black veins stretch from his jaw to his temples as if he is seconds away from shifting too. Fuck. “Go.”
Wilson clenches his jaw, giving me a subtle side eye, before quietly walking away.
As I watch him walk out of the Aldair’s estate, his words erupt in my mind like an uncontrollable explosion of rogue firecrackers…
“The Aldairs cannot be trusted. Alpha Emery Aldair is planning something that will destroy the island and everyone on it, and there is only one way to stop him and the rest of them. If you want the truth, meet me at Hakai Pier tonight at midnight, and make sure they do not find out you snuck out.”