“Where the hell is Aly?!” She shouts.
Five
Jay
“Where the hell is Aly?!” Anna shouts, staring us all down likeweare holding her captive. I want to rage at that idea considering who really is.
Nic puts both of his hands up, placating, but she walks right past him and starts searching our place. She’s looking everywhere, like we have her stashed under the couch, and she just needs to stare hard enough to see her. Anna pulls up short when she sees our destroyed living room but doesn’t comment. She goes right back to hunting for her best friend. I’m not sure how to explain the scratches or burn marks decorating the room, so I’m glad she doesn’t ask.
“Anna, listen,” Nic tries again.
“No, I’m not leaving until I see her. She’s been gone for days and I haven’t heard from her. She’s not answering any of my calls or messages and I know that means she’s in trouble. The fact that you’re all standing here without her confirms it. I don’t want to hear your excuses, I want my best friend!” She sounds enraged and if my heart wasn’t broken and I could feel anything besides pain, I would be grateful she’s such an incredible friend. She’s walking into what she perceives as a dangerous situation for Aly.
Currently, she’s just a problem. How are we going to explain this to her? Stop her from going to the police, maybe even reporting us. I’m pretty sure we will end up behind bars being investigated if she tells them the five guys she’s dating were the last to see her, at the very least it won’t be good. Humans tend to balk at the idea of multiple men in one woman’s life. If we are busy dealing with that, we won’t be finding Aly and that’s all that matters. She’s my world and I won’t let anything get in the way of getting her back.
“Anna! Calm down! She’s not here,” Jeremy snaps at her, and she finally pays attention to what we’re saying.
“Then where the hell is she?” She demands. She’s screaming so loud I hope a neighbor doesn’t come over to check.
I hate that we are about to lie to her but it’s better for everyone if she’s not concerned and seeking Aly on her own. We need her to go back to her normal life and leave us to find her on our own.
“Her parents showed up and dragged her home, they probably took her phone. We can’t get a hold of her either,” Nic explains.
It’s a great explanation, I hope she buys it. It’s close enough to the truth, just not the whole story.
“Her parents came and got her?” Anna asks, sounding skeptical. I have no idea how much Aly has talked to Anna about her relationship with her parents.
“Yes, we hope she’s back soon, but she’s with her parents now,” Nic says again.
“Then what happened here?” She asks, indicating the room. It’s torn up from my wolf, there are holes in the walls and a table is flipped over. It looks like a tornado came through the room, destroying everything.
“We got in a fight,” Jeremy says, not offering more explanation than that.
“If you hear from her will you let us know? We miss her too,” Jax’s soft voice breaks at the end and Anna softens towards us.
She glances at Ajax with pity before taking in what a mess we all are. I know we are all an absolute disaster, more than a normal person would be but hopefully she thinks we are lost without her. Which we are, just on a bigger scale. She nods then heads for the door and lets herself out.
We wait a minute before I ask, “do you think she believed us?”
“At the very least she felt bad for us,” Jax says.
“She smelled suspicious, even when she left,” I confess.
“Well, we did our best. It’s not like we could tell her the truth. Hey Anna, your best friend was actually taken by her parents and is being held captive. We are doing everything we can to get her back but you can’t tell anyone including the authorities because we are supernatural! That would have gone over so well,” Kiran says, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
Jeremy scoffs his agreement.
I hear a heart rate pick up and I curse myself for being so careless. I’m too strung out, I didn’t even use my senses to make sure she was actually gone. A rookie mistake but I’m not surprised I made it considering I can’t think straight with my mate gone.
Before I can warn the guys, Anna presses the door all the way open and stares at us with piercing eyes.
“Tell me everything.”
We all freeze, having no idea how to handle this. If anyone was going to tell Anna, it should have been Aly. But we’ve basically spilled the beans since she was ease dropping so what else can we do?
Jeremy ignores Anna and focuses on Nic. “We could do a memory spell.”
Nic shakes his head immediately, “those are dangerous and could have side effects.”
