31. Lila
31
LILA
I t was the beast that reached me first. I could feel his fury, his power, pushing against Rainor’s barriers. Emma and I had been talking about going on a shopping trip in town, but I held up my hand, pausing her from talking as I felt the twisting turmoil in my chest.
I rubbed at it.
“Are you okay?” Emma asked.
“Yeah, it’s just…” I wasn’t sure what, only that Rainor might need me. What would happen if the beast broke out now? I had to calm him down. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” Emma said, “they might be, well, talking and…”
“I know, some things are just pack business, and I’m not pack yet. No harm, I’ll knock. I just need to check in on them.”
I respected their space when they took it, understanding they had matters to deal with that wouldn’t always involve me. Kage, thinking he was being slick, had started leaving his door open when he wanted me to come into his office and sass him. It was almost like he was leaving an invitation hanging every time the door was open. If the door was closed, I knew to give him space or to knock first.
I had only caught on to this the other day, when I’d gone to give him a piece of my mind about the security he sent with me to the precinct. It was hard to do my job with Clark breathing down my neck. I needed space.
I’d walked right into the office, through the open door, and instead of standing at his window, brooding over the city, he was leaning against his desk, hands in his pockets, and the whisper of a smile gracing his lips, as it so rarely did.
He was waiting for me. Instead of giving him a piece of my mind, I’d watched as he stole a piece of my heart with a simple “well, let me have it” look. I hadn’t said a word then. I just chuckled, shook my head, and left. He called out, no complaints? And I had answered, thanks for the extra security detail, I’ll never pee alone again! I could hear him laughing as I left his place, but the next day, Clark was ordered to keep his distance.
Now, I walked up to the office door, hand raised, knuckles ready, when I was hit in the heart with a punch. Kage’s voice echoed in my mind, and for a split second, it was as though I was already in the room.
We can’t say a word. You think her trust will be as easily gained when she learns that her pack is dead, annihilated by the hand of Cridhe?
Just as quickly as the voice sounded, it was gone. However, what it left in its place was hauntingly empty.
Annihilated by the hand of Cridhe.
My soul left my body, I was sure of it, because all life drained out of me, and I was left inside a numb shell. I didn’t burst through the door, I didn’t rush in and start demanding to know what the hell they were talking about. I mean, they might not even be talking about me. Right?
Right?
I dropped my hand to the handle and slowly pushed it open, every sensation suddenly on high alert for me. From the feeling of the cold, smooth metal of the door handle, to the very slight creek it made when I released it from my grasp.
Rainor and Weylin jumped at my entrance, backing up so they both stood in line with Kage between them. And we just stared at one another, for the longest time. They didn’t move, didn’t speak, and neither did I.
“Was that… I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“What did you hear?” Kage asked.
The sound of his voice had me snapping out of my stupor. “It shouldn’t matter what I heard!” I growled. “What is happening? Annihilated, what pack? What do you mean?” My brain knew what they meant, but my heart told me it couldn’t be. It was a lie, it had to be a lie. “Don’t keep it from me.”
The moment they began talking through their link, I knew it.
“Stop it!” My breathing became ragged. “Don’t keep anything about me, from me.” I glanced at Rainor. “I’m not naive.” My gaze turned to Weylin. “I deserve to know.” Then my eyes landed on Kage. “I’m strong enough to know.”
Rainor was the one to step forward. “We found out which bloodline you belong to.”
I swayed on my feet, but Weylin was there, taking me by the arm and helping me into a chair. Rainor continued to talk, keeping his distance from me. “You belonged to the Scarab pack.”
Belonged?
“They didn’t abandon you, they didn’t give you up.” And then he continued. He told me how the council put an order out against my pack, how Cridhe had been the one to answer the order. They weren’t sure how it was that I had gotten out of there, but according Kage’s father’s journals, there wasn’t a single survivor. All pack members had been accounted for—and killed.
“Where is it? The territory.” I stood up, walking to the map. “Where is it?”
“Lila.” Weylin reached out to me, but I snatched my hand away.
“Don’t touch me!” I was breathing heavily. “Not right now. Let me focus, because if I don’t focus, I will fall apart. Where is it?” I pointed to the map.
“Here,” Kage said, his finger touching a small valley near an inlet of water.
My eyes scanned over it. “Cridhe territory,” I whispered. “It’s right across the inlet from Port Renderson, from my home.” Only a few hours’ drive around the inlet from here.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and took a picture of the map before leaving the office.
“You can’t go there!” Rainor called out, running after me.
“Why?” I asked, spinning around. “What town is there now? What pack lives in the homes of my family?” My hands slammed over my mouth. My family. I had a family.
“No one. Nothing. It’s desolate, a ghost town. Never inhabited since the incident.”
Incident. Downplaying the massacre of an entire pack, a whole bloodline, to a mere incident. A fleeting occurrence. A small matter that had to be dealt with. But that’s what Rainor was good with, wasn’t it? Making words seem as meaningless…or meaningful as he wanted to twist them to be.
I dropped my hands from my mouth. “I’m going,” I whispered, backing away from him.
“They are burying the dead,” he said. “I have teams there now, collecting the bodies, bones. Just… wait until they’ve finished. You don’t need to see it.”
“Tell them to stop.” I looked over Rainor’s shoulder at Kage, who stood at the end of the hallway. “Tell them not to touch a single fragment of my pack. As of now, I reclaim my territory, and if I need to challenge you, if I need to fight you to get it back, I will.”
I took a step towards the alpha, and just as he had upon our first meeting, Weylin stepped between us. His wolf sensed the true threat within me.
“It’s yours.” Kage’s voice croaked. “They will stand down for now, but Cridhe is at your disposal to take care of the matter as you wish.” Kage bowed his head to me.
I couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take them. Couldn’t comprehend or fathom what was even going on. I just had to go.
When I got down to the parking garage, a gamma was standing there, his head bowed, his eyes cast down as he held out a set of keys. I took them, clicking them and finding the black SUV they belonged to.
I didn’t know the back roads well, but I knew in general where I was heading. Wiping tears from my eyes with shaking hands, I drove. I drove and I remembered all the times I’d wondered when my parents would come back for me. I’d wondered if they would remember the house they dropped me off at. I’d wondered if they thought of me. I’d wondered what it would be like to run with them, as a wolf. To not have to hold back when play fighting, like I did with my adoptive parents. To not be hindered as I was growing up among humans.
And then I remembered the times I’d cursed them. The times I’d screamed a howl at the moon in hopes it reached them, and they would hear how angry I was that they’d never come back. That, even though I was one of them, they preferred me to be exiled from them. Why? What had I done wrong to be cast aside like I hadn’t mattered? Nothing.
I had done nothing wrong. Because, at the end of the day, my pleas for their return, my angry, anguished howls at the moon, had fallen on deaf ears. This whole time, my parents had lain in no grave at all. Rotting on their own territory.
In the end… they had been the forgotten ones. Not me.
An hour and a half into the drive, my mind started to click in, and I tried to figure out which way I was going.
A black SUV pulled up in front of me, putting its hazards on before signaling to turn off to the side of the highway. I knew it was them. Two more SUVs were behind me. All together, we pulled over and I got out.
Weylin got out of the first SUV. “I can drive you,” he yelled over the sound of the traffic blasting past us.
“No. I want space right now.”
His shoulders deflated, and he really did look sorry. I knew this wasn’t about him; this had happened before him. But this was about Cridhe, and I couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling that Scarab wasn’t the only one this had happened to.
“Follow us,” he called out, backing up to the driver’s door again. “You don’t know where you’re going. We’ll bring you there and stay with you.”
I thought about it, my eyes still filled with tears as I looked around us. Other than the highway, there was nothing but fields around us for miles. “Okay,” I yelled back.
“Lila, there’s more to tell you,” he said. “I promise I will tell you everything, all of it.”
“Even if Kage orders you not to?”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, looking into the window of the SUV.
I shook my head, turning around and getting back into my vehicle. I watched as Weylin cursed, about to punch the window, before stopping himself and getting back in the driver's side.
It was another hour before we pulled off the highway. I followed them, and two more SUVs followed me. It was another forty-five minutes through winding roads before we came to the town’s sign, worn and overgrown with vines, halfway embedded into a tree, as if the tree had grown around it.
Weylin pulled partway to the side of the road, letting me take the lead as I drove into what was supposed to be… my hometown.
At first, there was nothing except the obvious decay and erosion of the road we took. A tree here and there lined the side of the road, as if they had been pushed aside recently to allow for access.
Once we got over the hill, and down into the town, my breath hitched.
I had expected to see broken-down buildings. I had expected to see a town forgotten by time. What I hadn’t expected was to see a town that looked like it had come from a post-apocalyptic movie.
The sky was grey, no sunlight getting through, the threat of a light drizzle hanging in the low clouds. The roads were broken, potholes and craters galore. Tree limbs littered falling-apart sidewalks while live trees grew through the cement. Some even grew through the homes and storefronts.
I slowed the vehicle to a crawl as I took in the destruction and mayhem. Buildings had been burned down, leaving only rubble behind. Belongings were thrown everywhere. Wardrobes, dressers, tables, and chairs littered the long-forgotten community. I felt sick thinking that, after they were killed, their homes were raided. But then I slowed to a stop as realization dawned. One house had a dresser in the middle of the doorway.
These had been items my pack used to barricade themselves against the attack.
And then I saw them.
Cridhe.
Dozens of gammas dressed in black uniforms lined the streets, kneeling on one knee while bowing their heads. Spaced out, bunched together, every street I turned down, I saw them. Some had boxes with them, as if they were moving things, but now none of them moved from their kneeling position.
Cridhe will be at your disposal. Kage’s words echoed in my head.
I took a deep breath and kept going. Looking directly at every single house, or what was left of a house, and praying I would know. Praying there would be some sort of sign or that something inside me would just click, and I would be…home.
The more roads I took, the more frantic I became. Speeding up and slowing down. I became lost in the destruction and pain. Physical pain took over, and it was as if I could feel them. I could feel their fear, hear their screams. I was ready to scream.
Unable to take it anymore, I slammed on the brakes and dropped my head to the steering wheel, screaming as loud as I could for as long as my lungs would allow. I screamed their pain and my frustration.
“Please,” I begged. “Show me the way home. Give me a sign.”
I sat back in the seat, looking out the driver’s window into the mirror. All three men stood in front of their SUV, behind me. As my eyes met Kage’s in the mirror, he pointed up ahead of me.
My eyes flickered over.
I bit my lip to stop it from trembling as I got out of the SUV and began walking down the road. I stopped in front of an old white house. It wasn’t the overgrowth of landscaping and brush that caught my attention; that was everywhere. Not the boarded-up windows or the broken-in door; nearly all the homes had those. It wasn’t even the fallen, decomposing tree that protruded from the garage.
It was this tree.
In a town abandoned. Desolate. Cold and grey. Void of anything. It was the large, mature lilac tree that somehow, in the middle of autumn, still held purple flowers.
I just stared at it, unable to remove my eyes from it, noticing a rusted-out wagon underneath, the wheels of which were covered in grass, as if the land was trying to claim them as its own.
Two gammas were kneeling at the end of the property, their heads bowed, five boxes resting next to them. They didn’t move as I walked past and up into the house.
Walking up to the house was like walking up to a familiar stranger. I knew nothing of what it felt like to sit on these steps on a hot day and eat a popsicle as a child or draw chalk figures down the sidewalk. I knew nothing about walking through these doors on a regular Sunday afternoon.
Did my mom always keep the house immaculate? Would I be greeted by the smell of chocolate chip cookies? Would my father joke with me as I walked through, telling me to shut the door before the cat got out?
No.
Because those were all memories I had of Hannah and Jack…
It was the familiar feeling of being in a home, but this exact home had never been mine. It had been stolen from me.
I walked into the house, my eyes taking in the leaves and dirt blown in from decades of wind and weather. Especially around the front entrance, wooden floorboards were broken and popping up.
To my left was a stairway leading up, and to my right was a hallway. I went down the hallway, and for once in my life, I wished I wasn’t a detective, that I knew nothing of crime scenes or forensics. My stomach clenched at the pool of dried brown powder, spread across the kitchen floor. I held in my breath as I took in the sheer number of claw marks all over the walls, what was left of broken furniture, the floors. I continued walking through the kitchen, turning into a dining room, and then the living room, before I was back in the hallway. Decades of time hadn’t been enough to erase the struggle that had occurred in this house.
I carefully made my way up the stairs, taking my time as the first step gave out under my weight. At the top of the stairs, I turned to the right and entered the master bedroom. Eerily, it was completely intact. The dirty, dusty covers were made on the bed, a pair of pants laid out at the bottom, as if they had just been set there, waiting for the owner's return. The room was completely untouched by the destruction that had taken place downstairs.
I turned around, heading back down the hall and turning into the next room. Two twin beds, one on either side, filled this room. The once-blue walls, now marked with age stains, were peeling, and the dirty blue blankets on the beds told me this room belonged to a set of boys. Brothers.
I glanced up at the wood names above each bed.
Noah.
Caleb.
How old had they been? Judging by the toys strewn across the floor, only young. Less than five. Looking at the toys brought my attention to the small claw marks embedded into the floor from beneath the bed. As if someone had been pulled out from under there.
I tried not to think of that as I moved to the next door.
This door hung off its hinges.
Pink. At one point in time, it had been a pink, perhaps a baby pink. But on one side of the room, the walls were filled with curling posters of boys and boy bands. The tearful chuckle that left my throat wasn’t happy; it was broken.
Below the boy band posters was a twin bed, the blankets askew, and on the other side was a white crib. I walked up to the crib, surrounded by a white curtain hanging from the ceiling, draped in white bedding, a white crib bumper… the only thing that was missing was a white plush blanket.
I turned to look at the preteen side of the room. I’d had an older sister. The bed was all ripped up, signs of more struggle. I didn’t know why I did it, but I reached out and moved the blanket, wanting to fix it into place like the others. That’s when I saw the dried brown blood caked into the fabric. I dropped the blanket, startled by the sheer amount of blood there had been at one point. Someone had been murdered here. My sister had been murdered… right here.
I walked out of the room and back into the boys’ room, grabbing one blanket. I pulled it back and cried. Moving to the next, I did the same and was met with the same gruesome image.
They’d been murdered in their beds. These children were hiding, pulled from beneath their beds as they clawed at the floor in fear before being tossed onto their own bed and murdered.
My mind flashed back to the gammas out front, the boxes next to them.
I ran from the room, nearly jumping over the stairs, one foot going through the floor, slicing into my flesh. I cried out but ignored the pain, now my blood lay with theirs.
I ran out of the house, afraid the gammas would’ve left, but they remained in the same position as I had first seen them. “What’s in the boxes?” I demanded.
“Remains,” one said. And then, in unison, they both started pulling the boxes in front of them, removing the lids and sliding them towards me so I could see.
My cries turned to uncontrollable screams as they presented me with the remains of my family. A mother. A father. Two toddler brothers. And one older sister. I fell to the ground, my forehead hitting the wet dead grass as my body was racked with grief for a family I had never known.
My cries continued to fill the desolate streets. No one tried to touch me. No one attempted to even talk. But I could feel them. When my throat was raw and I had no more left in me, I looked up at the three men standing in the road, watching me, and I could feel the coldness seeping through my veins.
I stared at them through heartbroken eyes as everything I had held for them shattered.
Savages. All of them.