by D. N. Hoxa
“What?” I asked halfheartedly. Had he found out something else about me, something even worse than what we already knew?
“I’m sorry, kid,” Finn finally said, looking down at the desk. “It’s your sister.”
My sister. “My sister?” My sister was safe, far away from here.
“She’s gone.”
Slowly, I sat back down again. “Gone, how?”
The man shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m not sure. She was supposed to be at work by now, and when she didn’t show up, my friend sent men to search for her. There’s no sign of forced entry, and all her things are missing. She’s…she’s gone.”
Darkness filled my vision. For a second, I thought I’d gone blind. My heart pounded and my palms filled with cold sweat.
“You said she’d be safe.” I sounded distant to my own ears. My wolf stepped back, as if afraid by the mess of thoughts rushing through my head. I slammed my hands on the desk, desperate to feel something other than pure horror. “You said she’d be safe!”
“I know!” Finn shouted back. “She was safe, safer than anybody else I’ve made disappear. My guys are looking into it. They’re tracking her through spells and security cameras, but there was no sign of forced entry!”
My eyes squeezed shut on their own accord. “You think she left herself.”
I could hear it in his voice—the judgment. He was an old fool is what he was. My sister would never leave on her own. I didn’t care about signs of forced entry—Haworth found her somehow, and he took her. And it was all my fault. I should have kept her right here, or I should have left with her.
“It looks like it, kid. It looks like it,” Finn said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
“I don’t care how it looks. You haven’t seen what Haworth can do. He took her, and he made it look like she left herself. He took her because you didn’t keep her safe.” It was all perfectly clear to me.
“Don’t you dare blame this on me, Victoria. I kept her safe,” he said, his voice a warning.
My blood boiled, my ears whistling. “We had a deal. You were going to keep her safe while I did everything you wanted me to. I’m here doing my part, and you let them find my sister, you lying piece of shit!”
The view swam in front of my eyes when I turned around to leave. His office was suffocating me. I needed some fresh air, and I needed to think.
Finn followed me, walking much faster than he usually did, but the door at the end of the hallway wouldn’t open. I pushed it with all my strength, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Goddamn it, open this thing!” I shouted, so angry I was going to explode any second now.
“Calm down, kid. You’re not going anywhere,” said Finn. He made me laugh.
“My sister is gone, and you think you can keep me here?” My wolf was alert now, just waiting for what would happen next. If it came to it and she wanted to come out, I’d let her. I’d let her rip Finn apart, so I could search for my sister myself.
“You’re angry. I can’t let you leave for your own sake,” the werewolf said, but he wouldn’t approach me. The first door on the other side of the hallway opened, and Aidan, Terra and Ethan came out. I ignored them completely.
“You’re going to let me out right now, or I’m going to tear this place apart. I’m going to go after her whether you like it or not,” I warned him. I hoped he realized how serious I was.
“Go where? You don’t know where she is!” Finn cried.
Oh, shit. He was right.
“So you’re going to tell me where you took her.”
Finn stretched his lips into a tight smile as he watched me approach him. I couldn’t hope to do a single thing to him like this, but I was pretty sure my wolf could intimidate him.
“I will but not like this. Not unless you calm down first and talk to me.”
The others were coming closer to Finn to protect him. They thought I was going to attack him. I wanted to—God, I wanted to, but what if he didn’t tell me where he’d put Izzy?
“There’s nothing left to talk about. You failed to keep your end of the bargain, and now the deal is off. Tell me where you took her,” I demanded.
“No.” Crossing his huge arms in front of his chest, he squinted his eyes at me. “Leave us.”
At first, I was surprised, but when I saw his research team moving toward the door that hadn’t opened for me just now, I realized he was talking to them.
“If you’re right and Haworth really found your sister, how long do you think you have until he finds you?” Finn asked.
I was going to tell him that was no longer his business, but he didn’t let me.
“If he catches you, too, how are you going to help your sister? And if Haworth doesn’t catch you, what about the ECU? Sooner or later, you’re going to get caught, kid, and trust me when I tell you, you won’t like it.”
“You promised me,” I said, my voice completely defeated. Because he was right. If Haworth got me, too, God knows what was going to happen. Against him, I couldn’t hope to win or even get away like I did last time. He’d kill Izzy, and he’d either find a way to control or kill me, too.
“I’m a man of my word, Victoria. If I told you I’d keep her safe, I did my best. Maybe she ran away herself, maybe she didn’t—I don’t know, but I do know that I’ve got my best guys looking for her.”
“Liar,” I spit. He’d lied to me. He’d told me he could keep my sister safe!
“I could have lied to you today. I could have just kept this to myself until I found her. You would have never known,” he said, even angrier now. The whites of his eyes had turned red.
He was right about that. He could have left me in the dark, and I’d never even know that Izzy was gone.
“My people are looking for her, and they’re going to find her if she wants to be found. But if you leave, you won’t hear from me again—this, I promise you.” Taking a step back, he raised his hands at me. “It’s your choice.” Then, he turned around and went back into the office.
I tried to keep it together, but the tears came anyway. I’d felt like a failure before, but this time, it was worse. My father had come to me for help, and all I’d done was mess things up more. I’d lost Red. I’d lost my sister. I had no idea what the hell I even was or where I came from, and now even my wolf thought that our best bet was to stay put. Stay with Finn, the guy who’d promised me the world but hadn’t delivered.
I should have known from the beginning. Haworth wasn’t someone you just hid from. He found you. He found my sister, just like he was going to find me, no matter how Finn thought he was keeping me safe. No matter how many people he had. There was no stopping that guy.
But the next time I got my sister out of his clutches, I was going to make sure to stick by her side and take her to the other side of the world myself.
Returning to Finn’s office was hard, but I swallowed my pride. The man was right. If I got caught, I wasn’t going to be able to help Izzy at all. Part of me wished I could turn my back on all of this and run away. Go hide in a jungle somewhere and spend the rest of my life with animals.
But I’d already done that. I’d run away before, and I thought I could be happy. It was all a stupid illusion. I was just a kid then, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. I knew what the right thing to do was, and that was exactly what I was going to do.
4
I couldn’t handle losing Izzy, too. That’s the thought that kept me together all the way back home.
When I’d returned to Finn’s office earlier, I’d told him my new conditions: if he wanted me to stay, he was going to help me find my sister, and then he was going to help me get her back. I wasn’t very clear on what would happen afterward because I wasn’t sure myself. All I knew was that I was never going to leave my sister’s side again.
It was already dark outside by the time I stepped out of the car in front of my building apartment. I smelled the scent of honey and chamomile in the first three seconds. Amara. She was here.
A look back at Finn’s driver and I realized he hadn’t noticed anything yet. He watched the nearly empty street instead. Without wasting another second, I ran into the building and up the stairs in a heartbeat. I didn’t need to use my key—the door was unlocked, not broken. I wanted to call Finn. See that you can get into a place without needing to break the door?
I resisted. It was something better said to his face, anyway, and I couldn’t wait to see Amara.
She was standing in front of the windows that looked over the main street, so she had already seen me coming.
“Hey,” I said when I locked the door behind me, and took a look at the apartment, as if afraid she’d ruined it. Everything was as I’d left it.
“Sorry to pick your lock,” Amara said, holding her hips. “I needed to talk to you.”
Walking over to the fridge, I grabbed a much needed beer and handed her one, too. I’d spent the whole day pacing around Finn’s office, and now I wanted to sit. Amara joined me on the couch. She looked the same as always, with her black and red hair and her red leather jacket, but the bags under her eyes were darker than usual. Her eyes had lost their shine, too.
“Izzy’s gone,” I said, sure that those words were going to come back to haunt me, but they didn’t. It actually felt good to let them out, to talk about it with someone other than Finn, someone who knew the truth, too.
Surprised, Amara leaned back on the couch. “Haworth?”
“Who else?” I said with a nod. “No sign of forced entry and her things are gone. He made it look like she ran away herself.”
With a sigh, Amara rubbed her face then took a long sip of the beer. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I closed my eyes for a second. “I’m going to find her.” I kept telling myself that, and I was going to tell her the same, too. As many times as it took for me to believe it.
“Well, good,” Amara said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Because Haworth just stole back all the enchanted items from the ECU.”
The beer bottle slid from my fingers, but I caught it by the rim before it hit the carpet. “What the hell?”
Taking another sip of the beer, Amara shook her head. “It happened this morning. The ECU is keeping a lid on it, but he stole all seven of his enchanted items, and nobody got caught.”
As if my body wasn’t exhausted from the day I’d had, I jumped to my feet with renewed energy. My eyes opened wide as if I’d been electrocuted. Haworth took back all his enchanted items.
“How the hell could they let this happen? He just walked in there and took the items? What the hell did the ECU do?” They were the ECU, for fuck’s sake! How could they not be able to protect their own things?
“Pretty much, yeah. They tried to stop him, but they couldn’t. About ten people died trying, or so I heard.”
“How? How did you hear?” Finn hadn’t. He would have told me, wouldn’t he?
“My contacts,” Amara said. “And there’s something else.”
My legs gave up when the false sense of energy disappeared from my chest. “What?”
“It’s Nadia,” she whispered. “She’s still alive.”
“Are you sure? He stabbed her right through the heart, Amara. We both saw it.” I could still picture the whole thing if I allowed myself to think about it.
Drinking the last of her beer, she dropped the bottle on the table and brought the heels of her hands to her temples like her head was aching terribly. “I know, I know, but she’s alive. She contacted me just to tell me this.”
“Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it’s Haworth, messing with you,” I said halfheartedly, but Amara shook her head.
“It’s her. I’m sure it’s her. I just don’t know how.” I saw the pain in her eyes. She was tormented. My heart broke at the sight of the tears she refused to let out.
“Well, then that’s a good thing, isn’t it? She’s not dead.”
“Yeah, it’s good, but I have to help her get out. How long until he decides to stab her again, then bring her back? He’s a monster, Vicky, and he’s not going to stop unless we stop him.”
“Amara, he’s too powerful. There’s nothing we can do against him, remember?” A dry laugh escaped me. “I mean, the guy just walked into the ECU and took back his things! The ECU!”
“He’s not invincible,” Amara said through gritted teeth. “But he will be, very soon if we don’t stop him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he risked himself to go into the ECU for his items for a reason. He needs them. He needs ten, and he already has seven,” Amara said. “Three more, and then we can hope to die without ever meeting him again.”
“What does he need ten enchanted items for? Do you know?”
Amara shook her head. “It’s not for anything good, I bet ya. Which is why we need to stop him before it’s too late.”
“How? It’s two of us against him and his freaking army!” I couldn’t believe she was making me say all this, when she’d been there herself. She’d seen it all. We’d killed so many of Haworth’s men, yet he had more to spare to break into the ECU.
“If we make a good plan and stick to it, it can work. We’ll catch him by surprise.” Amara’s hands were shaking. She was trying to hide it, but I saw. She was scared. Terrified—and I was, too.
“Look, I’m going to find my sister. Finn is going to help me. She’s my priority right now, but if we find Izzy, we can find Nadia, too. We can get her out.”
Amara threw her head back and laughed like a lunatic. “And he’ll just get them back like he already did with your sister. Do you really think anything can stop him from finding them again? And you? Remember, he’ll be looking for you, too. It’s only a matter of time before he finds you in this place.” She gave a look of disdain to my apartment.
“Thanks,” I said bitterly. “Yes, I know he’s looking for me, but Finn is helping me. I’m going to find Izzy one way or the other, and I’m telling you I can—”
“Finn’s the guy who said he’d keep your sister away from him, too. I wouldn’t trust him if I were you,” Amara cut me off. “All I’m saying is, if we don’t try to stop him, he’s going to get all ten items, and he’s going to be unstoppable for real then.”
“The ECU is probably on it now more than ever,” I said with a heavy heart. “He stole right under their noses.”
“Oh, they’re on high alert, all right. But they’re not going to find him. He can’t be found.”
“So you’re saying we can’t find him, either?”
“No, I think you can. With your nose, if we’re in the right place at the right time, we can track him. Follow him. Catch him by surprise, and bam! Shoot him dead,” she said, clapping her hands hard.
“And what if we can’t?” The first time, we’d gotten lucky, but now he’d probably hidden himself even better. Haworth was no fool.
“Then we try again. And again,” Amara said. “This can’t go on, Vicky. I’m going to find him myself. Whether you decide to help me or not, that’s your choice, but don’t expect to keep your sister safe while he’s still breathing.”
She stood up and strode to the door without a look my way.
“Hey, where are you going?” I called, suddenly terrified to be alone.
“Think about it. I’ll be back,” she said, and before I could think of something to say to make her stay, she closed the door behind her.
If I’d thought I was lost before, now I felt a hundred times worse. Finn was right. Amara was right. Everybody was right. I just had no idea which right I wanted to follow. Once again, I was all alone with the entire night ahead of me, and I just knew that it was going to be torture until morning arrived.
It was clear to me what needed to be done, more so than ever before. I needed to find my sister and get her back. I needed to find out how Haworth knew what I was without even a spell and what more he could tell me about where I came from.
The problem was, I had no idea how to go abou
t it, and it was messing with my head. The anger I was feeling was mainly directed toward myself. I’d made all the wrong choices since my life began spiraling downward. I thought I could do everything on my own. I didn’t trust Red—the only person who was there for me since day one. I drove him away when all he wanted to do was help me. I was stubborn. I was selfish. I might have cost him his life. If I’d just done what he’d said, if I’d waited and prepared, things would have been much different today. I’d be with my sister.
I’d be with Red.
And that, more than all the rest, made me want to crumble to the ground and never get up again.
But I did get up because I had no other choice. The best thing I could do now was make sure that I’d be smarter, work harder, and never go for the easy way out. It was still hard to keep control of my anger, especially when I arrived in Finn’s office and he smiled at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” was my greeting. He’d known about Haworth—of course he had.
The smile dropped from his square face, and he sighed. “None of your business, kid.”
I threw my hands in the air. “He has my sister, Finn.” How was that not my business?
“And we’re going to find her. What Haworth does and doesn’t do isn’t your concern.”
My first instinct was to start yelling. That man was a murderer. He’d killed his own daughter—then brought her back somehow.
But yelling hadn’t gotten me anywhere until now. It was time to change strategy. I walked over to the desk and sat in front of him.
“My sister’s life depends on what he does and doesn’t do. If he stole back all those items, it means he’s preparing for something dangerous, and he’s going to use people like my sister to do the dirty work.”
Pulling his lips into his mouth, Finn thought about it for a second. “He’s perfectly fine with doing the dirty work himself,” he finally said. “He stole those things himself. He was there.”
“Which means that those items mean more to him than anything else. He’s up to something—something big.”
