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“Well, he went missing for three days. And then, this morning, he shows up again, out of nowhere, with no memory of where he’d gone, nor what he did.” Gillian’s bottom lip quivered as she spoke, visibly fighting back tears. “He keeps mumbling about some imaginary friend, who apparently asked him to do things.”
Things?
Gillian gazed at her son, swallowing back another sob. He, however, was staring at us with bewildered eyes and parched lips. It was true, she was scaring him.
She began talking again, but I held up a hand and she quieted. Studying the boy, I went to crouch before him, looking deep into his eyes. Gunnar’s description of how Lily’s had looked still haunted me, but I saw none of it as I gazed into his. Perfectly normal brown eyes, albeit a bit teary. He had light brown, curly hair and a cluster of freckles covering the bridge of his nose, his face a cascade of different browns.
The boy looked back at me with the same level of curiosity. I could see the poor kid was clueless, perplexed. He wanted to help his mother, but didn’t know why she was so emotional. After a while, he started looking around me, to the room, growing increasingly nervous.
I took a seat right there on the rug, crossing my legs and ushering him to do the same. He mirrored me and sat down, crossing his own scrawny legs under him and glancing up for his mother’s approval.
“Your mom says you’ve recently made a new friend? Is that true?” I asked, trying to get him to focus on me.
The boy nodded, his eyes darting between me and his mother.
“Can you tell me about him? Or was it a her?”
“Yes, sir, uh-Alpha, sir,” he said, fidgeting with his shoe laces, “I met him yesterday.”
As soon as the word ‘yesterday’ left his mouth, Gillian began crying again, wailing like a dying animal.
I groaned internally, glancing at Gunnar. This wasn’t going to work, not with her looming over him like that.
Violet, will you please come and escort Gillian out of the infirmary while we question her son? I mind-linked Gunnar’s sister.
On my way.
Violet was our go-to whenever it came to comforting, and calming. Generally anything requiring emotional support. Usually, it would be the Luna’s job, but since we didn’t have one for such a long time, Violet somehow stepped in. She showed up moments later, sporting a warm smile and an apron. She was also covered in flour and even had some smudges of it on her nose. She greeted me first, then Gunnar, who openly snickered at her, tapping his nose with one finger. When she lifted her hand to her own and saw the white powder rubbing off on her fingers, she simply shrugged.
“Your mate is trying to teach me to bake bread.”
Gunnar’s snicker turned into a full on chuckle. “Poor baby,” he said and I wasn’t entirely sure if he was talking about Mia or Violet. It could have gone either way. Mia was an excellent chef, but a monster in the kitchen.
“Come along Gillian, you look like you could use a nice cup of tea,” Violet said, placing her arm gently around the sobbing woman’s shoulders and guiding her out of the room. Before she stepped out, however, she glanced over her shoulder and flipped her brother off.
When the two women finally closed the door behind them, it was only me, Gunnar and the little boy left in the room. Gunnar leaned against one of the walls, with his arms crossed, while I remained sitting cross-legged on the rug, facing the boy, who luckily hadn’t seen the two siblings’ interaction.
“So?” I asked, breaking the silence, “tell us a little more about your new friend. Maybe we could be friends with him too?”
The boy frowned, tilting his head as he looked at me. “Aren’t you too old to be making new friends?” he asked, his voice dead serious.
Gunnar broke out in rowdy laughter, so sudden it startled the boy, making him jump, wide eyes darting to my Beta. I scowled up at him, resisting the urge to smile myself. The boy certainly had a strange idea of grownups.
“What? Can’t a guy make some new friends?” I whined, playfully shrugging my shoulders. I needed to get him to relax again. To open up to us.
He shook his head, deciding to ignore Gunnar. “Grownups already know everyone. They don’t make new friends.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. I could see how it made perfect sense in a boy’s mind. Hell, I remember seeing my own father greet people from strange places as though he knew them personally.
“Okay, so how did you make your new friend then?” I asked, hoping to get this conversation over with so I could get back to Lily and finish what we’d started.
The boy leaned in towards me and whispered behind his hand, “my new friend needed help on a special quest, and he asked me to help him.”
I wasn’t any good with kids, but having seen Violet do it numerous times before, I copied what I remembered and leaned in too, whispering back, “what was the special quest?”
The boy hesitated for a moment, quickly glancing up at Gunnar, who immediately acted as though he was busy with something else. When the boy was satisfied Gunnar wasn’t paying attention to us, he leaned in again whispering, “he needed to borrow my body to go somewhere and meet with someone.”
He might as well have dumped a bucket of icy water over my head. The blood in my veins froze, my heart skipping a beat. “Did you say he needed your body?”
The boy nodded quickly.
Panic and dread slammed into me, mixing together in my gut. I looked up, locking eyes with Gunnar. My wolf was howling in protest, begging me to get my ass off the floor and run to my mate’s side. Gathering courage from who knows where, I leaned in again and whispered, “did your friend say who he was going to meet with?”
“He didn’t say who it was, but he did say that he was going to meet with a special lady.”
That was it. The panic I had felt when we first lost Lily flooded my mind. I couldn’t let this happen, not again. Whatever the hell it was, it clearly wasn’t over. Without wasting another second, I jumped up and ran. Out of the room, up the hall, sprinting up the stairs, linking Gunnar as I went. I couldn’t link Lily since I haven’t marked her yet. Another fucking fail on my behalf.
Terror, raw and urgent propelled me to move faster, to push harder. I needed to get to her, before he did.
