Chapter 29 Rawling
TWENTY-NINE
RAWLING
The atmosphere at Sombertooth had changed, or perhaps it was just in my friend group. Channon had returned and was sharing the same room he had last semester with Bardoul, and Jack was alone in our original room.
Bardoul was a different person with his bestie back at Sombertooth, and I hoped the knowledge that I wasn’t a hunter had eased his mind. The group who were hiding my secret had expanded, and Phelan and I discussed how long it would be before someone slipped up.
But I wasn’t thinking about that tonight because I’d asked my friends who were in on my secret to come to the infirmary.
My mate went along with it, though he wished all the questions and confusion would end.
But it wasn’t his story to delve into and unravel, and also, he hadn’t been part of our group last semester.
Phelan and I had fucked and parted and fucked again.
We were fucking when Jack was with Atticus.
But we weren’t friends. He’d kept me a secret, so we’d both kept things from one another, though he said me not telling him I was human was a much bigger deal than him treating me like a fuck buddy. I disagreed.
“So you formed a secret squirrel society and didn’t tell me?”
I narrowed my eyes and pictured him the first time I saw him. He’d been with Atticus, and while Jack had claimed the asshat, I only had eyes for Phelan.
“Rawling, you went somewhere.” He tapped my forehead.
I shrugged and smirked. “Just thinking of someone I fucked in the school gym after archery practice.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from my mate as he leaned over me and nipped the delicate skin on my throat. “You’d better be talking about me.”
“I am.” I’d almost lost the power of speech, and I considered canceling the evening and spending the night in bed fucking my mate.
Someone knocked, and Phelan adjusted his length and whispered it was my fault he’d be greeting the guests with a hard-on.
“Nothing to do with me.” I winked before opening the door.
Channon, Bardoul, and Jack tumbled in. They’d been shifting in the woods.
One bear, a wolf, and a fox, and I was a little jealous that I couldn’t join them.
When Jack had been latent, I’d been content to be human most of the time, but now, her finding her bear set us a little apart.
But we loved one another, and she adored Eira, so I couldn’t deny that she was more content now that she had a bear.
Phelan got sodas from the fridge and everyone sat while I stood. I dragged over a whiteboard that’d been left here after I gave birth.
“I have so much to tell you.”
I tapped the list on the whiteboard that read:
-the letter I found from Professor Shaw in the boxes from Rawlins’s saying Charlie was his mate
-the letter from Charlie telling the professor she was mated to a human and adopting a baby boy
-the professor telling Atticus how much he loathed humans
-the bag the professor gave me that included scribbles from school and the hidden notebook
-how Holden said the professor was sweet on Rawlins
Channon sipped his soda as he studied the board. “Why would the professor lie and say the bag was Rawlins’s when it belonged to Rawlins’s sister, Charlie, who the professor wanted to mate?”
“Let’s go back to my childhood.”
Bardoul rolled his eyes. “We don’t have that much time, Rawling.”
Oh gods, he made a joke. The room went quiet until I chuckled and everyone joined in.
“I hate you all.” They threw cushions at me, and I batted them away before beginning my long-winded explanation.
“I never heard Rawlins mention the professor growing up. Not once. And yet Professor Shaw said they were besties though he did say they didn’t see much of one another because my godfather was busy with my upbringing. ”
Phelan interrupted and reminded everyone that from what he’d heard, they were good friends when they were at Sombertooth.
I held up my hand. Jack groaned. “Here it comes. He’s going to drop something momentous in our laps.”
Now it was my turn to throw the cushions at them. Phelan laughed with everyone else which pleased me. He was now officially a super-secret squirrel society member.
“The professor told me my godfather loved chocolate croissants.”
Everyone made a noise and twirled their fingers saying, “Oh noes,” and “That’s huge” and “Lock him up.”
“Shut up or you’ll wake Eira and I’ll make you change her dirty diaper.” My mate and Jack said that wasn’t a hardship while the other two were silenced.
“Rawlins was allergic to chocolate. He developed the allergy when I was a kid and he could never share my chocolatey treats.”
“I take it back. That is a good point and backs up that the pair hadn’t seen one another for years,” Jack said.
Channon got up and took the whiteboard marker from me. “Rawlins and the professor are supposedly good friends at school, and the professor meets Charlie and decides she’s his mate.”
Bardoul took up the story. “She rejects him, mates a human, and adopts Rawling.”
Phelan continued. “My father said he heard Charlie and her husband lived overseas.”
“The professor also said she’d left the country, but he didn’t mention her husband.” That was as much as I knew.
Everyone looked at one another and then me, and I put up my hands. “What? I don’t have the answers. But Rawlins never mentioned he had a sister or that she was my adoptive mother, and the professor pretended he didn’t know who she was when I asked him.”
We all agreed that was odd on both accounts, and Channon suggested the professor cut ties with Rawlins when Charlie rejected him. “It was too painful being with her brother who reminded him of Charlie.”
Bardoul was taking notes, and we were winding up the meeting with no clue as to why Professor Shaw gave me the satchel when I arrived at Sombertooth and why he pretended it was Rawlins’s.
“Maybe Charlie and her husband are still overseas. They might be doing volunteer work in a remote area and have no way to contact us.”
Instead of setting the room alight, everyone went quiet, and I didn’t like their expressions. Jack and Bardoul, who were sitting on either side of Phelan, nudged my mate.
“That’s a long time, babe. Do you think it’s possible? They would find a way to contact you.”
“But what if the professor was hassling them and they escaped, and Rawlins pretended they were dead.” I was clinging to a lifeline that they hadn’t died in an accident.
Again everyone looked at Phelan. “Could you leave Eira and run from danger and never contact her?”
My shoulders shuddered as I attempted to bottle up my sobs. “No. But we all know throughout history many parents have had to make huge sacrifices to keep their children safe.”
Phelan pulled me close. Deep inside, I knew they weren’t helping refugees or endangered animals, but it was a shred of hope that I’d clung to. But I had to let it go.
Everyone got up to leave, saying we’d meet up again in a few days.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Bardoul turned around at the door. “Channon and I talked to Kendric, Mika’s former roommate.”
Jack sat down again and so did Channon.
“And?”
Bardoul and Channon took turns to tell us what they’d learned.
“Mika had a huge beef with Coach. Or rather his father did.”
Coach? My Coach, as I thought of her. “Come on, spill.”
Bardoul lowered his voice. “It had to do with money.”
Channon explained that Kendric was traumatized after Mika died, but he was also scared to return to Sombertooth, fearing a confrontation with Coach.
I grabbed a cushion and pressed it against my chest, and we all leaned forward as Bardoul whispered that Kendric said Coach was siphoning off money during the building of the new sporting facility.
“What?” Nausea like I hadn’t experienced since I was pregnant had me in its clutches.
“She headed the planning committee and she’s overseeing the project,” Channon added.
“Mika’s dad was one of the project foremen.
He found out that she was swapping poor-quality rebar instead of what they were supposed to use.
” Bardoul was whispering. “She did the inspections, and the results of the strength tests were only seen by her, no one else on the committee or the head of construction.”
They added that the dad shared the information with his son, and Mika said his father was going to confront Coach.
“But then Mika died.”
Oh my gods, what had we stumbled into? I hadn’t seen Coach as much this semester as I used to because of my pregnancy, but I recalled that day after archery practice when she and Professor Shaw had their heads together.
Phelan got up. “Listen, this is serious, and I know you can all keep a secret because you haven’t blabbed about Rawling, but you cannot tell anyone about this. Promise?”
“Promise.”
Everyone hugged and they left, and Phelan locked the door.
“What the fuck did you and your friends fall into, Rawling?”