Chapter 22
ROGUE RANCH
Jasper is burning, his eyes staring into mine, full of blame. Around me the familiar forest is overtaken by fire. It’s all I can see. The stench of smoke and something putrid, the stink of burning flesh and fur fills my nose.
I reach for Jasper, still frozen to the spot, but knowing I have to try.
I reach and reach and reach until the flames catch at the tips of my fingers.
They spread up my arm. The pain is intolerable. They rip across my chest and down my legs and up my throat until searing pain consumes me. The world goes black and all I know is that I failed. The Elite Pack has fallen. Jasper is gone. Everything is over. And then . . .
“Open your eyes, Blood Wolf.” I hear a familiar voice. The dulcet sound of a woman speaking to me. A woman I know. Mal. “This pain isn’t real. The visions you see are false. Open your eyes. Come find me.”
For a moment it seems like I can’t do as she’s instructing. I’m so overwhelmed by pain and grief that my muscles don’t want to obey. But eventually I regain control over myself and put all my focus into opening my damn eyes.
Finally, they snap open, and I’m pulled back into the real world. I collapse backward, Olivia diving to keep me from hitting my head on a pointy piece of quartz.
“Whoa,” Omar says.
“What’s happening?” Mia asks.
“Help me get him up.” Olivia is already hoisting me out of the circle and back to the log.
“It’s okay,” I say, finding my feet and my balance, but letting myself be helped to sitting. “I’m all right.”
Omar is in front of me instantly, kneeling. “Are you hurt? What did you see?”
“It was Walter,” I say. “I think he got in my head somehow. I didn’t even know he could do that. He made me watch . . . I saw . . .” Tears fill my eyes at the thought of Jasper burning to death in front of me.
“It’s okay,” Omar says, one hand on my cheek, the other a stabilizing presence on my shoulder. “Don’t think about it. He got in your head, he was trying to trick you.”
My breaths are coming short and fast.
“Breathe, Max,” Mia says, rubbing my back. She and Olivia are perched on either side of me, keeping me from toppling backward. “Breathe.”
I do and slowly I’m able to calm myself down, my heartbeat—which had been ratcheted up by about a million percent—returns to an acceptable pace.
Meanwhile, Olivia is looking over my head, at Mia and Omar. “What do we do now? He can’t go back there.”
“It’s okay,” I say, before anyone can respond. “I don’t need to. I know where Mal is.”
We form a little convoy. Omar and I in Jasper’s car, tailed closely by Mia and Olivia.
It’s not a signal that they’re going to join us for the return journey to New York, but I’m glad they offered to escort us to Mal’s.
Olivia said they were coming to keep us out of trouble.
And after what went down with the rogue alphas, I’m not mad about it.
We coast through miles of forest, tall pines whipping by on either side. Omar has one knee pressed against the dash and is tapping along to the radio on his thigh. I blink and shake my head to keep alert.
The drive so far has taken about five hours, and we’re not there just yet. Tired is an understatement.
Before Walter interrupted, I was narrowing in on a region just on the outskirts of Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana.
And when Mal’s voice calmed me down, pulling me back to reality, I was able to pinpoint her location.
As I’ve driven I’ve done my best to keep tabs on her location, holding her thread in my mind without opening myself up to Walter again, and letting it guide my hands on the steering wheel.
It’s dark by the time we pull off the main roads, heading down winding dirt paths for about another forty-five minutes, before finally we pull up outside a two-story house, with shutters on the windows, a veranda with swirling wrought iron railings, a steep corrugated roof, and vines crawling all over the clapboards.
Under the hanging branches of a magnificent willow, I put the car in park and step out.
The air is warm, humid, thick with the sound of bullfrogs, crickets, and cicadas. Fireflies dart between the dangling willow branches like tiny sparks of magic.
“This is the place?” Olivia asks, shutting the door to her car.
“Must be” I say. “But I don’t see any lights on.”
The windows are all dark.
“Is she here?” Omar asks.
I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose, preparing to open my mind, but an intriguing smell catches in my nostrils, something delicious, savory, and spicy. I open my eyes.
“You know how good she is at hiding her consciousness,” I say, remembering the rogues at Sanc and how they were able to cloak their minds. “But nothing could hide that delicious smell. Come on.”
Omar, Mia, and Olivia share confused looks but follow me as I head not for the front door but around the side of the house.
Grass and reeds grow tall against the siding, but a path has been mown through them, curving toward the back of the property.
When we turn the corner, I spot Mal and someone else, another woman, looking like a couple of fairy-tale witches as they sit next to a fire with a large pot suspended above it on a metal stand, their faces lit by flickering orange light.
“Is that . . . ?” I ask, trying to make out the second woman, the one stirring the massive cauldron, but before I can finish Omar has started jogging toward her.
“Agatha?” he calls.
“Wait, what?” Mia says. “Agatha is here?”
The three of us head to the fire, where Omar is buried in Agatha’s big, frizzy hair and the thick, cushiony collar of her knitted cardigan. Mia is next for a hug while Olivia and I hang back. Mal turns to catch my eye.
“Welcome Blood Wolf, looks like you found us.”
There’s a glint of mischief in her eye that might just be the fire, but I’m pretty sure she knew we were coming. Why else would she have made so much food?
The smell that drew me back here is wafting off the pot in great waves, and one glance inside has my mouth flooding with saliva.
In the pot is a stew with big chunks of stringy meat floating next to celery, carrots, and potatoes, as well as some leaves and what look like twigs, plus other herby additions I can’t identify.
It must be spiced and seasoned to perfection because the tangy, savory scent coming from it is almost too much to bear. I guess Agatha really is a witch.
“It’s good to see you all,” Agatha says, releasing Mia and looking my way. “I’ve heard all about how far you’ve come, Blood Wolf. I’m so proud of you.”
She moves to me, handing off her spoon to Omar, who takes up stirring the stew without needing to be asked, and wraps me in a big, cozy hug.
A hug that lasts and lasts. For a second I stay tense, not ready to let my guard down right away.
But Agatha holds me tightly like she’s never going to let me go, and without an end in sight I finally let my body relax.
I melt into her, suddenly feeling all of the emotions I realize I must have been repressing.
“You’re so brave,” Agatha says, rubbing my back. “You’re doing the right thing.”
After another minute she pulls away, moving back to her pot.
Mal looks up but doesn’t stand. She’s pressing the end of a stick into the grass at her feet.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t make a fuss,” she says. “My knees aren’t what they used to be.”
“It’s good to see you, Mal,” I say, and she gestures to a couple of logs on either side of the fire.
“Please, sit.”
We do, as Agatha begins spooning portions of stew into metal bowls.
“You probably know why we’re here,” I say, but Mal waves off my comment.
“Eat first. Then rest. You’ve been traveling for a long time. We’ll talk business in the morning.”
Agatha hands me a bowl, and Omar, who has fallen right back into his assisting ways, has taken it upon himself to break up a long baguette of crusty white bread.
He hands me a chunk. And while I want to get straight to it, to convince Mal to help us recruit the rogues, the delicious scent of the stew has my mouth so flooded I’m not sure I’d even be able to form coherent sentences.
So instead, I do as Mal says and focus on eating.
The stew is warming and filling, and as I guzzle my portion, I suddenly realize just how hungry I was. And not just for food, for the sense of hearty comfort it provides.
“This stew is amazing,” I mumble, mouth full, then I look around and realize not everyone I expected to be here is present. “Where’s Kairos? Is he in the house?”
Mal’s head drops, her lips twitching like she’s not sure what to say.
“Kairos has moved on to the Lunar Plane,” Agatha says for her friend. “I came as soon as I heard.”
My heart aches for Mal.
“Oh, I’m so, so sorry.”
Mal lifts her chin, her voice breaking as she says, “Thank you.”
By my side, Omar has stopped eating and is staring into his bowl.
“How did he . . . ?” he says. “If it’s okay to ask.”
Mal half shrugs, half twists her head on her shoulders, like she’s shaking off a shiver.
“Just his time,” she says, and for the first time I take a proper look at her.
Her face has aged in the year or so since I saw her last. The grooves around her mouth and chin are more pronounced, her eyes seem to droop, her hair that was once styled in two tight braids now hangs in a single loose twist over a shoulder.
It’s whiter than I remember as well. Her shoulders are curled forward.
It’s like this past year she’s been weighed down, pulled to the ground, whether by grief or something else I don’t know.
“Mal, I’m so sorry,” Mia says, and Olivia nods in agreement.
“What can you do?” Mal says, then pressing on her stick with one hand and against her knee with the other, she rises. “Agatha, can you show our guests to their rooms? I’m gonna turn in early.”
Agatha nods.
“We’ll talk more in the morning, Blood Wolf,” Mal says. “I know you’ve plenty to say, but for now I’ll say good night.”
“Good night,” I say. “And Mal?”
She’s already turning to leave but waits a beat for me to continue.
“It really is a pleasure to see you again.”
Slowly, she nods, then makes her way up to the house.
I glance at Agatha, wondering if she’ll fill us in, but she simply smiles and gestures with her bowl. “Eat up,” she says. “You’ll feel strong as a timber wolf in the morning.”
We’re each shown to a bedroom leading off the creaky second-floor landing. Agatha doesn’t turn any lights on as she deposits us in our separate lodgings. There’ll be time to take in the old-school Louisianan architecture in the morning.
My room is quintessential country house, with a wire-frame bed in the middle, a chunky wooden dresser off to one side with a drooping potted plant on top, and a creepy-looking rocking chair in a corner.
I’m wiped from a long day of premonitions and driving but I want to check in with Jasper, so I make myself comfortable, sitting crisscross applesauce on the comforter.
“Hey Jasp,” I say. “You there?”
I wait a moment then feel him connecting with me, like connecting with Bluetooth.
“Max, what’s up? Are you okay?”
“I’m good. I’m at Mal’s place. It’s huge and gorgeous. Though definitely haunted.”
“Good, I’m glad. Not about the haunting, but that you made it.”
“Kairos is dead,” I say, wondering if I should have maybe sugarcoated the news a little better.
Jasper waits a beat, then responds. “I’m sorry.”
“What were you doing?”
“Aisha is here,” he says. “She brought noodles. She says hi.”
“Say hi back.”
“Will do.”
“How have you been, any updates?”
“It’s been quiet, thank the moon gods. No new attacks. Luckily, Dad hasn’t gotten any worse either.”
“That’s good.” I’m trying my darndest to be positive.
“I just hope he holds on until . . . Did you speak with Mal about the Howl yet?”
“Not yet.” I pause for a minute, running my hands over the seams in the quilt. “I’m worried, Jasp. Mal doesn’t look good. She seems, I don’t know, sort of defeated. Not like the woman we met at the Sanc.”
“You think it’s because of Kairos?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Do you think you can convince her?”
The gingham curtains are pulled back around the peeling window frame. Through the mottled glass the crescent moon is shining. I stare out at it in this half-formed state. Part lit up like a glow-in-the-dark croissant and part in shadow.
That’s sort of how I feel right now. There’s a sliver of hope, but a whole lot of doubt.
“I don’t know, Jasp. I don’t know.”