Chapter 64
The True Spy
LIAM
Six Years Ago
Chris paces in front of the large screen in the conference room. “Play it again. Can you slow it down?” We’ve watched the video call over and over for the past hour and a half.
The Alpha King and Anders left the conference room probably to have a very heated discussion. Elias went with them to mediate, but he looked just as pissed off as the other two.
Shakti left briefly with Jessica but returned with Emily.
Emily whispers to me, “Aunt Tater is with Jessica, and Sixes went to see what the Knight twins are doing with the recruits and their new magic abilities.”
“Is leaving her alone with Aunt Tater a good idea?” Luke asks from the opposite side of me.
“Jessica is too upset to leave her room right now.”
“How are you doing?” I ask her quietly.
“Let’s focus on figuring out how to get Shadow back.” She turns toward the big screen.
Deep down, I know she’s worried about Shadow. I want to ask her about Shadow and Jessica, why she never mentioned anything to me since I talk to her practically every day. Then again, we don’t talk about Jessica.
I don’t want to keep pining over a girl I can’t have. That kiss we shared a year and a half ago was the only thing I allowed myself. Secretly, foolishly, I convinced myself that our bond was strong enough to withstand some time and distance. When I returned, I thought she would be waiting for me.
Apparently, she moved on, which still confuses me.
I went to that recruit’s room to find her and tell her about Chris’s strategy plan.
I stood in the hall, waiting for her, and I saw her kiss that recruit.
Then, they left the room, hand in hand. I hid in the darkness of the hall so they didn’t see me.
I didn’t expect the aching pain in my heart, seeing her with that kid.
Now, instead of a broken heart, I’m angry. She’s on camera all over the campus, making out with Shadow, who also has been sneaking into her room at night. What the hell is she doing? It’s evident that he cares about her, or he wouldn’t have stepped down from being Young Alpha.
“Stop! Go back a little more. More. Stop. Right there. Do you see it?” Emily asks the rest of the room.
Shakti leans forward in her seat. “Can you zoom in?”
“What the fuck?” Sodie exclaims. He turns to his brother Skunk, who, without another word, vanishes.
“That fucking traitorous bitch!” Shakti cries. “Get Nathan and Anders in here now!” she orders.
Squirrel flashes out of the room.
“Charlie, get Marty!”
Swallowing hard, Charlie stands from his seat.
“Shit,” Luke mutters. He angles his head toward me. “He and Marty are best friends.”
“I don’t understand. What does Marty have to do with the nurse?”
Luke wrinkles his face in disgust. “Mimi is Marty’s mother.”
My eyebrows raise in surprise. “There has to be some kind of explanation for her being there.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look good for her. I wondered how they got Jessica’s medical records. I guess…” Luke juts his chin toward the screen, frozen to show Mimi standing in the background. “That answers my question.”
Skunk confiscates the clinic nurse’s notes from her office, including her laptop.
Once everyone regroups, papers are strewn across the conference room table as Shakti tears into the chart.
Anger and disappointment swirl around her.
Someone from their own pack messed with her child. Naturally, she wants blood.
Emily sits between Darwin and Squirrel as she combs through Mimi’s computer. Marty’s hands tremble as he reviews the handwritten notes that Charlie passes to him.
“Duck is bringing your stepfather in for questioning,” Chris tells Marty.
“And Terrell?” the Luna Queen asks, not bothering to look up from the chart notes.
“My stepbrother is currently away at college,” Marty grits out. “I wouldn’t be surprise if you find my mother’s mate already two sheets to the wind.”
Luke leans in. “Mimi’s mate is a useless drunk and a compulsive gambler.
In his prime, he was a professional football player in the Northern A territory.
According to gossip news, he got into debt with a bookie and was forced to throw a game as repayment.
When the league found out, they fired him, and his reputation was ruined.
Since he’s been home, none of his jobs last long.
Mimi provides for the family, putting his son, Terrell, through college.
She probably also pays for his habits. That’s why Marty never stayed with the guards full-time.
The pay for a supervisor’s position at the dairy is more than a lower-tier guard or trainer makes.
Shadow must have negotiated his pay so he could come on board. ”
“So what happens to Marty’s position now?”
“I don’t need superpowers to know he’s telling the truth. He had no idea his mother was involved.”
“I want her executed for treason,” the Luna Queen sneers.
The King gently touches her arm. “Shakti...”
She pulls away. “Don’t, Nathan. I won’t sit through a trial so she can lie and claim innocence.
I want her dead!” she snaps. “Look at this! Did you read this? What more proof do you need?” she questions the Leads, waving a file in the air.
“I always wondered how Jessica managed to escape the clinic, spend an entire day without medical care, only to wake up back in the clinic in worse condition than she was in the day before. All of those failed surgeries. Nothing ever made sense, until now.”
We learn that the nurse gave her wolfsbane through her IV.
Wolfsbane, when given to a shifter, slows down our metabolism and inhibits our ability to shift and heal.
When given to a shifter who hasn’t transitioned yet, it makes them almost completely human.
That’s how it started. No one knew that Sodie was slowly healing her, when he could.
It’s why she had some good days and some bad ones.
When the nurse discovered Jessica wasn’t going to die from the wolfsbane alone, she added ground-up glass to her shakes.
Jessica drank three to almost six of those a day.
Now we understand why she got so sick that day she threw up blood.
The ground-up glass ate away and nearly ruptured the lining of her stomach.
“How? How can a woman with her own children be so cruel?! I want her dead!” Angry tears streak down the Luna Queen’s face.
“I understand, Shakti, but we can’t just kill her. We need more information. Maybe she can help us identify their leader so we can finish this never-ending war,” the King says softly, rubbing her shoulder.
She shakes her head vehemently.
Chris speculates, “There has to be more to all of this. Why would she leave her notes behind for us to find so easily? We need to figure this out before we cast judgement.” He pauses. “I know it’s hard. I want her to pay just as much as you do, but we need to think rationally about this.”
“Rationally?! She tortured her right in front of our eyes! You have children, Chris. Do you have any idea what it was like? Sitting at her bedside, night after night, watching her suffer? Watching her endure everything and not being able to do a damn thing about it? I have never in all my life felt so weak and helpless. I felt so angry because I couldn’t fix it,” she laments.
“We all were there, Shakti, right there with you. Anders suffered greatly, even though he’s trying not to show it,” Chris adds.
Anders is questioning Dr. York. After his outburst with Jessica, he remained unusually quiet, giving both Elias and Chris full rein on this case.
“Then, why?” she cries.
“Shakti, I promise you, after we sort all of this out, we will execute her and everyone else involved. I’ll help you personally rip their throats out. Let us do our job and let’s focus on getting Shadow back,” Elias promises.
The Queen’s eyes glow red, under a pool of unshed tears. She gives him a reluctant nod. The King squeezes her hand in reassurance.
Luke asks, “How would they even known she had magic in the first place? She was barely alive when she arrived at the clinic. I mean, it was clear they thought she didn’t have magic.”
“My mother,” Marty says, throwing the papers on the table. “She might have sensed something while caring for Jessica.”
“I think I found something,” Darwin interrupts.
“I just finished decrypting the rest of the file. A drug serum was in the works for some time that inhibits the use of magic. They didn’t have a test subject to trial it on, though.
When Jessica didn’t die the first time or, well, second time, they decided to use her as the test subject.
According to some of the communication I uncovered, the drug doesn’t last very long.
Whoever they give it to will need continuous injections to inhibit their use of magic.
Jessica could still use her magic, despite the daily injections, so frequent adjustments had to be made. ”
“Daily injections…” Emily chimes in. “There’s a note here from Mimi that when the subject refused the injections regularly, the use of magic slowly returned. When was the last time Jessica received hormone injections?” Emily asks Shakti.
“A few months ago, maybe longer. She decided she didn’t want them anymore, even if it meant she couldn’t transition.” Shakti slams a file on the table and starts to cry. “Those weren’t hormone injections…”
Nathan draws her into his embrace. “It’s not your fault, Shakti.”
“I made her take them when she didn’t want to!
I asked her to give it a chance, to see if it would make a difference, especially when Mimi convinced me that the endocrinologist thought the new prescription would help.
I was part of all of this. I did this to her.
She trusted me, and I’m the one…” Her body shakes as she sobs into her hands.
Nathan picks her up and takes her outside.
“What else did you find out, Darwin?” Luke says softly.
“They—the Resistance—collectively decided to test the drug on a different subject. According to the chatter, someone within the Larson firm knew the perfect subject to test the vaccine on.”
“So we assume it’s Shadow?” Charlie inquires.
Darwin nods. “I’m going to assume they somehow dosed Shadow with the drug, which is how they’re keeping him captive. I’ve seen him in action. No way they caught him without it.”
Emily nods and clicks on the keyboard.
“Okay. So they created this drug, tested it on Jessica, and now have Shadow. But what’s the bigger picture here?” I ask
Darwin sighs. “From what I’m reading, the Resistance no longer wants to kill magic wielders. They want to collect them. They plan to use some of the victims to perfect their drug and use some of them to… well, make babies.”
“They want to make more magic wielders, when they practically eradicated all living ones already? That doesn’t make sense,” Luke scoffs
“It makes perfect sense, actually, because now they want to create a future Resistance army of magic wielders,” Emily explains. “They plan to sell the strongest magic wielders to the highest bidders within the Resistance.”
“Does that mean they plan to use Shadow as… a stud? What about Jessica?” I ask, blurting out the question as it formulates in my mind.
Emily falls quiet and pushes the laptop away. “They don’t know…”
“They don’t know what they’re going to do with Jessica?” Elias asks.
She shakes her head.
“Emily, what did you find?” I ask.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking. So hear me out.” She rubs her hands over her face. “Shadow is a gifted magic wielder.”
“With the potential to be evil,” Sodie snorts.
Emily shoots him a glare. “Whatever. What they don’t know is that Shadow’s magic isn’t really anything special.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asks.
“His magic isn’t something he was born with, besides transporting.”
“You’re right. He developed his other gifts after the accident,” Chris adds.
We all swivel our heads to look at one another, unsure of the connection.
Emily sees our confusion. “Shadow inherited his brother’s magic and the ability to see magic in others, among other things, after he almost died. I don’t think he can pass that on through his DNA.”
“So…” Elias encourages her to continue.
“They want Shadow to lead this new generation of the Resistance, but who they really want or need is actually Jessica. If they discover what she is capable of—what she can really do now that her magic is no longer hindered by those drugs—who knows what they’ll do to her?
More specifically, who knows what they’ll make her do for them to gain more power? ”