Chapter 26

The house is empty. My grandmother is gone. Two guards wait outside as I roam through the vacant space. Everything is still here, the furniture, some clothes, food. It is like she just disappeared. Right when I came through the door and called through the house, realizing that she is not here, I panicked almost to the point of a heart attack. Immediately, I blame it on the alpha, as my mind cannot conjure up any other guilty man.

After shouting at the guards to search the area for her, I scavenge for a note, possibly saying that she has gone away. Once I find none, tears spring to my eyes and my heart squeezes tightly in my chest. The pounding shields any other sounds from slipping in. What if he took her? What if he killed her? The thoughts rush as if the dam holding them back finally broke.

The house is silent besides the frantic sounds of my breathing mixed in with a sob every few seconds. I fall to my knees and hide my face with my hands. He is watching me, isn’t he? He’s enjoying the scene of me in shambles. I continue to cry on the floor, feeling defenseless.

Sudden anger bubbles up inside, and I feel my cheeks flush with heat. Promptly, I get up and hurry up the stairs. My bedroom door is cracked open, and I push it the rest of the way, showing a bedroom I once used to recognize. Everything is in the same spot as before. Nothing moved an inch, but I feel like I no longer belong here. Glaring out the window, I search for something—my grandmother, the alpha, anything. Extremely frustrated, I rip my bedding off the mattress and shout when it will not let go.

Heading into her bedroom, I scan the area again as thorough as I can be. My hands fist my hair when I find nothing in return. My chest rises and falls dramatically as I fly back down the stairs and rush outside.

One of the guards is running towards the house. “Did you find her?”

I yell, but he replies with an expected “no.”

“Would you like me to get the alpha?”

I hesitate. “Yes, yes. Please get him.”

The other guard must still be searching, and I watch until the messenger disappears into the trees.

The trees watch me. They witness all, and they must be laughing at me now. These towering beings see everything that happens in this forest, every death and every plea, and it is all embedded in their trunks. If you hold your palm against the bark, you may just be whispered the secrets they keep. They will tell you how a foolish girl stumbled onto taken land, and they will confess how she ended up getting everyone killed. If you are lucky enough, you may just hear a cry.

I sulk back into the house and slowly close the door behind me. I lean against the door, the wood being the only thing keeping me up, and I stare into the hotbed of memories. Her scent is sparse in the air. The open cabinets, the missing clothes, and the sense of trepidation all show the effects of a story that I may never hear.

The curtains are pulled shut when they are usually all the way open, left that way, so the house is never gloomy. It all hints to one final answer— an answer I cannot get my hands on. Did she also fear his stalking eyes?

Did he force his way in? Did she leave in a hurry?

“Where are you?” I murmur.

My hands curl around the fabric before tugging the curtains open, letting a filtered ray of the drab light show through. Minuscule dust particles swirl in the air, dancing in the gleam, adding to the empty feeling of the space.

I hate feeling like I never grew up here. It is a different place now that my grandmother is not here. It is no longer a haven or opportunity to be free but an abandoned house lost in the center of an observing wood. The second step to the porch no longer means anything without my grandmother.

A decade of my life is gone, vanished. A desolate hole lies in the timeline of my life—a period that taught me so much, forgotten about. My grandmother would not just leave me on purpose. There has to be a reason.

My fingers trail along the back of the couch, thinking back to when we spoke only a few days ago in this exact spot. She told me everything I needed to know.

A sudden rustling from outside causes my ears to perk up, and I swiftly open the door expecting to see Sebastian or the guard. When no one immediately comes into view, I try to look further out. Nothing.

“Evangeline?”

Off to the side, I see Sebastian coming over with the guard close behind him.

“What’s going on?” he calls to me, and I hurry over.

“My grandmother, she’s gone. She’s not in the house. She’s not in the forest. It’s bizarre an-and something happened. I know it,” I ramble. “She wouldn’t leave without a purpose. I looked through the entire house, and I couldn’t find anything.”

He turns to the guard and tells him to continue searching, and then he leads me back inside. Once the door is closed behind us, I feel all my emotions surfacing again.

“I can’t do this anymore. He’s getting to me, Sebastian, and I can’t take it anymore. With the nightmares, the dead body, and my grandmother missing, I can’t take it anymore. There is not one day where he is not either tormenting me in here—” I point to my head “—or out there. All I want to do is find him and kill him. I don’t care how many people are in my way. He cannot take my grandmother from me. What’s next, huh? Is he going to try and take you too?”

“Evangeline, please—”

“Do not tell me to calm down! My grandmother is probably dead. My parents are probably dead, and it’s all because of this alpha who I’m not even sure is real. All because of what? An ability I can’t even prove!” Tears of fury stream down my face. “He’s going to take you from me. He’s going to take you from me. He’s going to take everyone until I am all alone, alone and defenseless so I can die knowing that I’ll have no one.”

Sebastian roughly places both of his hands on either side of me, forcing my eyes to look up at his handsome face. No matter how loudly I shout, he does not seem visibly affected, and he doesn’t turn away. “Take a breath.” I obey.

“Now, nothing can be done if you waste time yelling and crying about it. I know this may seem harsh, and I am only telling you this because I care about you, but you have to stop panicking. Your grandmother is missing, and you’re scared, so what are you going to do about it?”

I swallow. “I’m going t-to relax and think.”

“Yes, think before you act.”

“You sound like Henry.” I let a small smile appear on my face as I clear the tears from my cheeks. “He says that you think before you act, and I have to.”

“Finally, he says something useful,” Sebastian jokes in a brotherly way. “See, you are relaxing. You cannot conquer with a clouded mind.”