She moved up on the tips of her toes, putting her hands on my shoulders. She kissed me, and warmth flooded through my body. Wolf relaxed, and the constant pressure behind my temple eased considerably. I pulled her close, and everything was okay again.
She stepped back, her cheeks flushing. “Abbi…”
I covered my face with my hands. “Ah, crap! I told her I’d be back. Not to… I meant to explain to her properly that I could never…”
“Go on, then,” she said, laughing. “I have to go home anyway. I need to talk to my dad. I have to be honest with him about this.”
“I want to be with you. I’ll go with you.”
“Well, let me talk to him first, so he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown at the sight of you. I just… I don’t want to waste another minute, so if you’re serious, come over later and face Dad, too. For me. I want him to know he can trust me now.”
I kissed the corner of her mouth. “This is not a goodbye kiss. No more of those, just in case. We have a lot more to talk about. I will be ten minutes tops. Tell the others I left, okay?”
“I will.”
She turned to walk away, but I called her name. She looked back at me quizzically.
“I missed you.”
She smiled, colour flooding her cheeks again. “I missed you, too.”
I sprinted back to the party, shouting at Amelia to let Joey and Tammie know Perdita had left. Abbi was still on the bench, looking miserable, and a wave of guilt hit me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re a great friend. It’s just—”
“I know,” she said. “It’s her.”
“It’s always been her,” I said softly.
She sniffed, and I knew she was pissed. “Good luck, I suppose.”
I made to leave, but three figures stood before the front door, waiting for me.
“What’s going on?” Amelia asked, her eyes bright with excitement.
Joey and Tammie didn’t look quite as pleased.
“We’re going to talk to her dad. Try to convince him to let me see her sometime in the next year, I suppose.”
Joey’s frown deepened. “This better end well,” he all but growled.
I might have laughed, but he and Tammie both wore venomous expressions, “You better not hurt Perdy, or we’ll kill you, and nobody will ever find the body” kind of looks.
“It’s going to end well,” I insisted. “It will. Everything’s going to work out. We’re doing what we want. We’re not listening to what anyone else wants anymore.” My anger rose at the scornful look on Tammie’s face. “I care about her. What more do you want?”
“Then go get her,” she said, surprising me. Joey scowled at her, and she shrugged helplessly. “She wants this. Let her have it, Joe.” She opened the door for me, and I ran, unable to do anything else.
I couldn’t wait, not even my guilty conscience about Abbi could slow me down. I sprinted, buoyed by excitement, even at the thought of facing Perdita’s dad, but as I approached her house, a warning sounded, loud and clear.
Something felt wrong.
I assumed it was nerves until I got closer to her home and saw that the front door was wide open. Afraid, I sniffed the air as I walked into the garden.
I smelled it. The scent of werewolf. Enemy werewolf.
I gasped as I called out for Perdita, but I smelled her blood when I stepped through the doorway.
She was gone. She had been taken. Furniture was flung around the place, just like the flat in Lyon. I smelled blood again. Not just hers. She had fought. Hard.
Wolf felt pride. Wolf felt anger.
“What on earth are you doing?” Perdita’s dad asked from the open front door, keys in hand.
“Something’s happened here,” I whispered. “Something’s happened to Perdita.” I wanted to vomit.
He shouted her name, struggling up the stairs. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the house. They had come for her, and I hadn’t been there to protect her. Again. I found it hard to breathe. I moved around the room blindly. They had taken her from right under my nose. I could still taste her on my lips, but she was gone, ripped away from me all over again, except it hurt much, much more.
I had been with her. I had left her alone. I had led them straight to her.
I stepped out of the house, panicking so much I couldn’t see straight. I collapsed to my knees, struggling to control the ire of my wolf. Wolf was beside himself with rage at the loss. What he had felt before was nothing compared to his current fury.
With shaking hands, I rang Amelia. When I told her what had happened, she promised to pass the word to the others. I said I would wait, that I would do something. What, I didn’t know. The world was still blurry, and my head was too full of the scent of her blood.
My own blood boiled in my veins. I would kill them. I would kill every single one of them.
I heard Perdita’s ringtone, and I glanced around, hope blooming.
Perdita’s father stumbled out of the house, holding her phone, his face deathly pale. “There’s blood on the wall,” he murmured, looking as sick as I felt. “What did you do to her? What did you do?”
I wanted to throw up. Horrified, I stared at him. “I just got here! What are you talking about? I would never hurt her. Never! She’s only been gone a few minutes. She was at the party, and she left. I followed her to talk to her… to ask her about getting back together. She said she had to speak to you first. I went back to the party. I was supposed to follow her here to talk to you. But… but when I got here, she was already gone. They took her, but maybe I can find her scent.”
I leapt over the wall, fully aware I was leaving an utterly confused man behind. I chased her scent, picking it up once my head began clearing properly. I smelled her everywhere, but the scents were old. No good.
Then I caught the smell of werewolf again. It cut off abruptly, and I knew they had taken a car. But where?
I ran toward the main road, unable to think of what else to do. I had been running for less than five minutes when Byron pulled up next to me.
“Get in,” he called out. “Phase, and I’ll keep the window open. Amelia told me. You must be… just get in.”
I hopped into the backseat. “Ryan said they’d leave her alone.” I began removing my clothing. “He said she’d be safe if I stayed away.”
“Then what were you doing at her house?”
My cheeks warmed. “It was the first time. They couldn’t have known!”
“We’ll discuss it later. We can’t let them take her. Stay focused.”
I shifted, and he kept driving on the main road. I snarled in his face as I caught a scent. He pulled over, opened the door, and let me out. I bounded along the edge of the road, trying to find what held her scent.
Her bracelet. A small amount of blood was smeared on the clasp.
Byron followed me, and he picked up the bracelet, sniffing deeply. “Good girl,” he muttered. “Back in the car, and we keep driving. No need to snarl in my face next time.”
We got back into the car, but I shifted back so I could talk.
“She left that on purpose, I bet,” I said, excited. “She’s trying to show us the way.”
“They’ll notice eventually. And they could easily double back. They could prevent her from trying to get herself noticed, too.”
“So we’ll keep driving until we pick up another scent. I’m not going home without her.”
“They likely won’t hurt her,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“It had to be Willow.”
“They played this too well,” he said. “How could they have known when to take her? As soon as we think she’s safe…”
“I’ll kill them! All of them. I’ll do anything to get her back.”
“We’ll play it smarter than them,” he promised. “We’ll get her back.”
I glared out the window. If we didn’t, I would become something much worse than Vin. They would regret everything they had done to u
s.
Chapter Fifteen
Perdita
I awoke in the middle of a nightmare, clutching myself as the visions of blood and gore faded. Then I remembered. Reality wasn’t a whole lot better.
After seeing Nathan, I had walked back to my house as if floating on a cloud. Everything was working out. I was getting the people I cared about back, one by one. When I heard footsteps behind me, I assumed it was Nathan.
But when I turned to greet him, I saw a stranger’s face. There were two more behind him. I spun back to see another in front of me, standing there, watching and waiting. Breathing deeply, I walked as normally as possible until I got closer to the one in front of me.
At the last second, I dodged out of his way, under his outstretched arms, and sprinted to my house, four werewolves on my heels. I knew I didn’t have a chance, but I couldn’t give up.
I ran into my garden and even managed to get my front door open, but one caught the door before I could slam it shut. He burst through the doorway, almost knocking the door completely off its hinges with his supernatural strength.
He grabbed me as I ran into the kitchen, the carving knives just out of reach of my outstretched hands. I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough, but I was desperate to get away. I struggled out of his grasp, his surprise my only advantage as I refused to let him get a good hold on me.
He hadn’t expected a fight. I managed to grasp the edge of a plate left on the table, and I swung and smashed it across his face. Stunned, he stumbled. Brushing past him, I ran for my life.
Three more werewolves blocked my way as I tried to run upstairs, and I skidded around the closest one. Another took a quick step after me and slapped me across the head, not even full strength, but the force knocked me against the wall, and my head cracked against the hard surface. I slumped to the floor, unable to stop the room from spinning, but I kept crawling away, knowing I couldn’t stop. I took my phone out of my pocket. I needed to ring Byron or Ryan, but one of the werewolves kicked the phone out of my hand.
“Careful,” a deep voice warned as the one who had struck me lifted me by the scruff of my shirt.
“Let them smell her blood,” my attacker snarled.
They half-carried me to a car and tossed me into the back seat. A werewolf sat on either side of me. I tentatively touched the back of my throbbing head, wincing as my fingers came away wet. I was grateful Dad and Gran weren’t home and that nobody else had gotten stuck in my mess. I wished Nathan could see the car, but I didn’t want him to face all of the werewolves alone. They would kill him. Of that, I was certain.
But I had to leave a trace.
“I feel sick,” I said. “I need to sit by the window, or I’ll throw up. I get carsick, I swear, and… and everything’s spinning.” I made a gagging sound.
“You hit her too hard,” one of them drawled.
“Well, she’s not throwing up in my car,” the one in the driver seat said. “Not unless one of you is gonna clean it up. Move over, Dar.”
The one to my left, a skinhead named Dar apparently, reluctantly wound the window down slightly, then switched seats with me. “Make a sound, and I’m locking you in the trunk,” he warned as he closed my seatbelt.
When he bent over me, I saw blood trickling from the corner of his eye. He was the one I had hit with a plate. I gagged in his ear, and he backed off in a hurry.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, and then bit my lip at the expression on his face.
“What did I just say?” he bellowed. His blue eyes darkened into black, and I was too afraid to speak after that.
Gazing out of the window, I fiddled with the clasp of my bracelet until it opened. I pretended to retch again. Apparently I was pretty convincing because Dar reached over and wound the window down the rest of the way.
“Out there if it happens,” he pointed, looking disgusted. “Quiet now. Draw any attention to yourself, and there’ll be blood on your hands.”
I stuck my head out of the window, gripping the door and gagging loudly. The bracelet slid easily from my fingers and dropped to the ground. I flinched, sure someone would notice, but they were too busy speaking amongst themselves in a language I didn’t recognize.
I expected them to take the motorway, but they took a longer route, the less obvious one, as if they knew exactly what they were doing, had planned the entire thing out in detail. When the car slowed at a traffic light, I snapped the seatbelt latch and opened the door in almost one fluid motion. Flinging myself out, I rolled from concrete to grass, scraping my skin against the pavement. The car squealed to a sudden stop, and before I could get to my feet, a heavy hand gripped my hair, pulling me back.
I screamed, tears springing to my eyes as my scalp burned, and I saw a movement in the distance: a woman in her garden, hiding behind the trees, peeking around to stare at us in horror. I screamed again to make sure she knew I was being taken against my will, and I was piled into the boot in a hurry.
I didn’t care. I couldn’t outrun them, but I had left my scent, and I had been seen. The more traces I could leave, the more chances I had of being found.
Dar hovered over me before they slammed the boot shut, his face distorted with anger. He swung back his arm and punched me right in the face. I couldn’t gather myself enough to feel the pain for a couple of seconds. Dizziness overcame me, then a searing pain in my jaw, but the agony faded as I lost myself to the dark.
***
When I first awoke, the darkness fooled me into believing it was night. But as my eyesight adjusted, I noticed pinpricks of daylight coming through the window above the cot. I listened for breathing, or any sign of another person in the darkness with me, but heard only silence. I got to my feet shakily and slid my hand across the window. My fingers came away smeared with peeling black paint.
The bed shifted easily, folding neatly inward when my knee brushed against it. I inched my way around, but there wasn’t much space, and I realised I had to be in some kind of mobile home, a modern caravan maybe.
There was little furniture, and I soon found a door. I tried to open it, but it was locked. The caravan could have been surrounded by werewolves, but I would rather risk an escape than sit around and starve, or worse, wait for them to come to me.
I fumbled around in the dark, feeling past the bed. There had to be something I could use to free myself. I found a small stool hidden under a pulled-out foldable table and decided that was the best I could do. Determined, I took off my cardigan and tore it into jagged pieces, fear for my life giving me strength. I wrapped my wrists and hands as best I could then stood before the largest window. If the window broke, if, I needed to be ready to run.
Using the stool, I whacked it against the window. I cringed at the noise and paused to listen. Nobody came running, so I kept hitting until I heard a nice cracking sound. I could almost smell the freedom. Again and again, I lashed out at the window until it finally shattered. I cleared away as much glass as I could before climbing out and half-falling to the ground. I only scratched myself a little on the broken shards.
Ignoring a pain in my ankle, I ran, blinded by the sudden light and still unsteady from everything else. I heard nothing and saw no movements, so stopped a moment to take in my surroundings and try to figure out a hiding place, somewhere to go.
The place appeared to be abandoned. I had been locked in a small neglected camper on a space of grass surrounded by shrubbery. Nothing was familiar. I felt as though I were in the middle of nowhere and might never find life again.
I slipped into the shrubbery, hoping to eventually find a real road or a house. I avoided the dirt track in case the werewolves came back that way in the car, but I tried to follow the general direction of the track to find my way out to a main road somewhere.
I kept moving, sweat running down my back as I listened for movement. After a while, I entered a copse of trees. I wasn’t sure if I should try to cover my scent or hope to expose it. I had no idea how long we had been driving. Had
they ditched me?
I pushed on, an unbelievable stitch in my side. I breathed too loudly and stumbled too hard. My head felt swollen beyond belief.
I heard a snarl before I saw the shape approach.
Werewolf.
He crouched as if to jump, and I held my breath. Despite the pain, I ducked out of the way as he leapt into the air. He came at me again, and I fell, kicking out at his face repeatedly, somehow rolling out of the way of his fangs.
I pulled myself up by a tree, landed one good kick in the werewolf’s face, and heard him whimper. He was small, I realised, young. He definitely wouldn’t be alone.
Launching into a desperate run, I only made it a couple of yards before two strong arms wrapped around my waist and dragged me off my feet. I flailed, struggling to get free, but when the hands released my waist, one yanked my hair before I could regain my balance. Whimpering, I froze as an iron grip held my throat.
Dar again. I recognised the earthy smell from his hands.
“Bloody nuisance,” he growled.
I automatically clawed at his fingers, trying to remove his grip from my neck, but the darkness came before I could win that particular battle.
Chapter Sixteen
Nathan
We headed home without her. Without any further signs. Without any hope of finding her.
“Why did they take her?” I kept asking. “Why now?”
I knew Byron didn’t have any answers, only unsatisfying speculation. One person knew what was going on, the one person we still hadn’t found. If I had stayed with Opa and kept searching for Vin, if I had gone after Willow’s scent instead of giving up, if I had done something different a million separate times, Perdita might be safe.
Back at the house, Amelia seemed to be spinning around the room, she paced so fast around us.
“What happened?” she demanded. “She’d only just left. I don’t understand!”