Opa glanced at me. “We’re not going home until we have something to go home with. Willow, there are more, are there not?”
She nodded sullenly, her eyes focused on the ground. I hoped Malachai’s words about the pack hadn’t gotten into her head.
“Willow?” Jeremy coaxed with a gentle tone.
“There are more, but you saw Malachai. We would be lucky to find anyone worth keeping.”
“Numbers are numbers,” Opa said briskly. “It’s the impression we’re looking for. Besides, we still haven’t found Vin. That wolf obviously hasn’t heard from his alpha in a while, which means Vin really is in hiding.”
“Or that he doesn’t trust Malachai,” Jeremy said.
“Either way. He’s not in the loop. Vin has to be holed up somewhere. Have you thought of any more locations yet, Willow?”
“We’ve already been to most of the ones I know about. You saw how deserted they were.”
The sites we had visited had mostly consisted of poorly constructed huts in remote parts of woods and mountains and forests. The pack obviously travelled frequently and lightly, whoever the pack consisted of. Willow hadn’t been as forthcoming as I imagined, and I couldn’t figure out if she was truly ignorant or merely feigning it.
She went to her room as soon as we reached the hotel, which was pretty normal for her after we had visited a pack member she knew.
“Give her some time alone,” Jeremy said when Opa protested. “This is difficult for her.”
“The journey’s only going to get harder,” Opa warned.
They launched into a battle discussion, so I headed to my own room for a bit of peace. I lay on the bed and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. It was the only way I could ignore the way the walls closed in on me, the way everything reminded me of Perdita. I didn’t want to see new places without her, didn’t want to enjoy what the city had to offer if she hated me. The look on her face the last time I had seen her had tattooed itself onto my brain. I would never forget her words, never forget the coolness in her eyes that made her seem like a stranger.
I jumped off the bed in annoyance. I was supposed to be calming my wolf, not agonising it. I found Jeremy and Opa and tried to take part in their conversation, but it turned so often to anger and violence that I felt guilty for even trying to keep up.
“What now?” I asked as we ate together that evening.
Jeremy stopped eating long enough to wait for the answer.
“We’ll see what Willow says,” Opa said. “Actually, Jeremy, go knock on her door and remind her she needs to eat. We may be gone in the morning, and she needs the energy as much as we do.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes, but he obeyed. He came back a couple of minutes later, his body practically vibrating with tension. “She isn’t in her room. The door’s wide open. Nobody’s there.”
Opa stared at his food. “Perhaps she went for a walk.”
“And left her door open?” Jeremy snapped.
I found it hard to swallow. We were getting used to Willow’s eccentricities, but sometimes, after she had seen pack, she was a little harder to deal with.
“This is Willow we’re talking about,” Opa said calmly. “Let the girl have her space. In the morning, we’ll move out. Get away from this place if it bothers her so much.”
Jeremy didn’t come back to our room until late that night. I knew he had been looking for Willow, despite what Opa said. He knew her better than Opa or I did.
“Willow back yet?” I asked to break the silence.
“No,” he replied through clenched teeth. “Like the man said, maybe in the morning.”
He tossed and turned for hours, keeping me awake, but even when he finally slept, his snores kept my eyes open. I couldn’t remember how many strange rooms I had slept in lately, couldn’t remember the last time a bed had felt restful. Once again, I regretted leaving. I had been so upset that I had wanted to put my focus on anything other than feeling. Stupidly, I realised.
In the morning, when we checked her room again, Willow’s bed hadn’t been slept in. Her clothes were there, and we spotted no signs of a struggle. She had vanished.
“Did she run, or did someone take her?” Jeremy asked, scowling at Opa as if he had been the one to rip her out of our grasp.
“We need to find her,” Opa said at last.
We circled the area around the hotel, but we didn’t pick up any scents. We were used to Willow not leaving a proper trail; she backtracked and hid her scent without even being aware of it. But there were no distressed scents, nothing that said whether she had been running or taken.
“Malachai,” Jeremy grunted when Opa wanted to give up. “She must have gone back to him. She might still be there. Something might have happened.”
“Perhaps she’s persuading him to leave his pack,” Opa said slowly.
Jeremy exchanged a frustrated glance with me. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s just go.”
“I’ll wait here,” Opa said, “in case she comes back. You two may run along.”
I could tell by Jeremy’s expression that he didn’t particularly appreciate being spoken to that way, but again, he didn’t openly react. Jeremy and I set off together, both of us hopped up on nervous tension.
“You really think she’s there?” I asked.
“No, but I think that twit did something.” He let loose a growl that startled a pair of passing young women.
“She was never ours, though.”
“She wasn’t anyone’s. The poor thing isn’t aware enough to protect herself. Ryan’s going to lose his shit.” He let out a sigh. “I’m not gonna be the one to tell him.”
“We might find her.”
“I have a bad feeling. I knew there was something up with her. You know how she gets. I should have paid more attention, stuck by her side more.”
I shook my head. “That gets her more agitated. This could have happened any night while we slept. This whole trip has been one massive waste of time. Willow and Ryan should have been kept together.”
He shrugged. “Let’s just get this over with.”
By the time we got to Malachai’s flat, Jeremy was noticeably seething with anger. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else while he acted that way, but as soon as we stepped inside the building, we both froze.
Blood. We could scent it as clear as anything. With one look at me, he raced up the stairs. I followed, but the werewolf’s flat was empty. The door was open, but unlike Willow’s, it hung from the hinges.
What little furniture he had was flung about the place, and there was the blood. A streak on the wall, a couple of drops on the floor. The scent was strong because it was relatively fresh, but it was covered by traces of numerous strange werewolves.
“Can you pick up Willow, or is that still from yesterday?” I asked, inching my way around the room and struggling to decipher what had happened.
“I can’t… I can’t tell. There’s not enough space, not enough air. Goddamn it!” He leaned his forehead against the one tiny window and gazed outside. “They were here. I can’t believe they came here. Why didn’t they come for us? Why Willow?”
“They didn’t want to face us? They wanted Willow to tell them what we were up to? I don’t know. Malachai did boast that he wouldn’t be alone for long. I mean, how do we know Willow didn’t plan this, didn’t walk away herself? How do we know we aren’t walking straight into some trap?”
He banged the window with his fists, and one thin crack grew along the centre of the pane. “These wolves drive me crazy. We should get back in case they go after Opa. He’s an annoying sod lately, but he’s still family.”
He strode out of the room. I moved closer to the kitchenette, closing my eyes to try and sort through the scents. Willow’s blood. Not much, but it was there, in the sink. Along with a long, curled blond hair. Hers, too. I didn’t think she had walked away all by herself.
Ryan was going to kill us.
We headed back to the hotel. Opa was fine, which annoyed me all over ag
ain. Why wouldn’t they come for us, away from innocent people? Why did they have to attack the ones who couldn’t defend themselves?
“She’s gone,” Jeremy told Opa. “There had been wolves in Malachai’s flat. There’s blood. But she’s gone.”
“Did you follow the trails? Track them down?” Opa asked excitedly.
“Eh, no, we came straight back here to make sure they’d hadn’t gone after you,” I said, irritated by his lack of interest in Willow’s disappearance.
He made a frustrated sound. “A wasted opportunity. We could have gotten somewhere today.”
Jeremy shook his head in disgust.
“We should go back,” Opa said.
“No,” I said. “I’m going home. I’m sick of this. Willow’s gone from right under our noses, and who knows how many wolves are on their way to Dublin? I’m going back. That’s where I belong.”
Opa sneered. “Where you belong? We wander. You see the other wolves. We might not live in huts in the middle of nowhere, but that is our life, too. We can’t stay in one place for too long.”
“It hasn’t been too long,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what house I go to because I know where my family is. I know where I should be.”
“He can let Dad know exactly what’s been going on,” Jeremy said, and I smiled at him, surprised and grateful.
Opa growled. “Fine. Go. Protect the house. We’ll stay on Willow’s trail to see if we can pick up something. Perhaps Malachai will return.”
Jeremy’s face had hardened again, but I didn’t care.
I was going home.
Chapter Five
Perdita
I was early to my first day of work experience, but Mrs. Reed glared at me as though I were an hour late. Still, it was preferable to home. Dad had continued to play the grumpy old man all weekend, and Erin’s face had grown more and more pinched, her smiles less easy. Something was definitely brewing. It almost seemed as if Dad were trying to cause an argument between them.
Mrs. Reed explained what the numbers on the spines of the books meant, and I began the gargantuan task of stacking and categorising what appeared to be a decade’s worth of books. I sneezed more often than not, but once I got used to what I was doing, I had time to think. Too much time.
I wondered what Nathan was doing while I figuratively curled up and died in a library stockroom. I brushed myself off and kept going, feeling productive as one stack lowered slightly.
I did everything Mrs. Reed asked, and on my lunch break, I sat outside on the steps, eating a sandwich. It was a beach day, so there wasn’t much chance of anyone voluntarily stepping inside the library. There was no tension, no drama, and life seemed normal. Nice.
Boring.
I brushed that thought away, too, and got back to work. By the end of the day, I felt absolutely scruffy. Mrs. Reed still treated me as though I were likely to steal her purse, and my back ached from bending, but I felt better. Being somewhere new, somewhere I hadn’t already made memories, worked for me.
As soon as I got home, everything went back to our family’s new idea of normal. Dad wore the same foul expression, and the rest of us walked on eggshells.
“I was thinking we could all go for a drive tomorrow,” Erin said over dinner. “The weather’s so nice, and we could bring a picnic, have some fun outside.”
Dad glared at her. “If I have to sit around, I might as well do it inside where it’s cool.”
She frowned. “We could do something indoors.”
“Not this week,” he said in a weary voice.
“It might be good for Perdy to get outside for some fresh air,” she said.
“She gets fresh air on her way to the library.” His tone turned dangerously cold. “Isn’t that right, Perdita?”
Perdita? I gulped. “Yeah, Dad. Who needs fun when you have the library?” I said it lightly, but his eyes grew stern. His eyebrows might as well have been joined together what with all of the furrowing going on up there.
“We both know why you’re grounded.”
“I know.” But I couldn’t help glancing longingly at the window, wishing I could be out there doing anything, anything at all, as long as it wasn’t sitting at that dinner table with my grumpy father.
“You aren’t going out there.”
“I know, Dad.”
“And speaking of that, hand over your phone.”
I gaped at him. “Seriously? What if I have an accident on the way to the library and need to call an ambulance?”
“Perdita.”
“Fine.” I reluctantly handed over the phone, but it killed me to let go of my last grasp of freedom.
“And stop with the puppy dog eyes. Right now,” he snapped.
“I wasn’t even looking at you,” I muttered.
“She hasn’t done anything wrong, Stephen,” Gran said, but her voice shook.
Dad glared at her, and she looked down at her plate. For the first time in my life, Dad was intimidating my grandmother, and it was all down to that stupid werewolf bite.
I laid down my fork. “I’m not very hungry.”
“No,” Dad said. “No more moping.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “Look who’s talking!”
“Perdy,” he said warningly.
“Sorry,” I whispered and went back to pushing food around my plate, because I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. If I were obedient, he might soften. If I did what I was told, he might get over whatever stage of depression he was going through.
“You don’t have to be so hard on her,” Erin said. “She’s been through a lot, and if her mother—”
“That’s enough!” He slammed his palm on the table, making everything jump and clatter.
Erin leaned forward, gazing at Dad unfalteringly. “Do not speak to me in that tone. Her voice was low, but she was impressively rock steady. “You can’t take it out on us forever, or you might wake up and find yourself alone some day.”
“Maybe that’s what I need,” he said. “Maybe it’s the people I’m surrounded by who—”
Erin stood abruptly. “Ruth, Perdy, enjoy your evening.”
She turned and left without another word, leaving Gran and me in stunned silence. Dad cleared his throat and stabbed at his food with his fork.
“Dad,” I whispered. “Go after her!”
“For what? She wanted to leave.”
“Did you hear the way you’ve been talking to her? I’m surprised she stuck around this long. If you aren’t an idiot, then run after her. Like, yesterday.”
“Go to your room,” he said without looking at me.
“Gladly. Maybe you’ll stop feeling sorry for yourself while I’m gone.” I ran upstairs, and for the next half hour, I could hear Gran and Dad’s argument filter upward. The speed in which everything had gone wrong made me shiver. What I wouldn’t give to go back, to change everything for the better.
***
I headed into the library early again the next morning, eager to get away from my own home. As far as I knew, Dad hadn’t even called Erin, and I feared he was wasting his chance with her.
Sick of sneezing, I decided it would be more beneficial for me to dust the library as much as possible to make the air slightly cleaner. After moving things around in the stockroom the day before, I uncovered a stench that had made me fear something had died in there, so it was definitely time for a spring clean.
Mrs. Reed sat at the counter all day, blowing her nose with old-fashioned handkerchiefs, eating chocolates, and reading a doorstopper of a book. She watched me every now and then with little interest. As long as I kept moving, she didn’t seem to care what I did with my time.
The grime clung to my skin, despite my best efforts to clean. I might as well have had a job in a coal mine for the amount of dust clogging up my lungs.
I had my lunch on the steps again, knowing that was about as far as Dad would allow. Before my lunch break ended, Amelia showed up.
“I know you said
you couldn’t see me, but this is me seeing you, so you have no choice, so it’s okay,” she said without taking a breath.
“Um, okay?”
“I can stay?”
I thought of Dad. He wouldn’t be happy. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Dad—”
“Look, I really need to talk to you. It’s about your dad.”
I straightened. “What about him?”
“There’s a lot you need to know. A lot that’s happened. Some of it could help your dad.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Potentially help your dad. I mean, I don’t know for sure, and I’ll need your help trying to figure it out, but I really think we could do this. Fix it.”
I stared at my shoes, thinking of how unhappy Dad was, how he had essentially driven Erin away, how all of those things had happened because of me, and I hadn’t done a thing to fix them. If I had a chance, even the tiniest chance, of helping Dad get back to normal, I would grab it with both hands. It was worth the risk, worth the aggro, worth anything to help him. “Fine. Talk.”
She exhaled loudly and sat next to me. I fought the desire to move away.
“Where to start?” she said, but she sounded excited. “Remember I told you the story of my family, how the curse began and all of that?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, it was all wrong.” She flung out her arms. “Everything! I’m being confusing, sorry. I’ll start at the… remember when I started having those dreams?”
I stared at her. “Of course I remember.”
“Well, they weren’t dreams. They were memories. And when I used the spirit board? We heard from my ancestor, and she was the one who sent me the dreams. The memories, I mean.”
“I’m just confused now.”
“Okay, there was this gypsy girl called Kali, and her father was a chovihano—that’s like a gypsy witch—and she was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, so she was a werewolf mother.”
I squinted. “Naturally.”
“Just bear with me. It’ll make sense by the end.” She giggled. “Hopefully, anyhow. So he was this money-grabbing creep who did some kind of black magic deals to make sure he had seven daughters, because the seventh would be worth a fortune. He was training her to be the chovihani, so she would be a witch and have werewolf children to protect her clan. He wanted her to be as valuable as possible so he could sell her at the highest price.”