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We had to get out of here.
I turned back as I headed toward the living room. “Oh—do you have some apple cider I could use? I like it as a rinse for my hair. Makes it shiny.”
Karissa brightened, always happy to help. “Of course!”
I gathered Dylan up, despite his protests, and carried him off to our bedroom. I put him in the bath to help hide his scent, washing his hair with apple cider vinegar.
He complained about the scent when I mixed it with unscented lotion and rubbed it down his lanky little boy limbs. “It’s stinky!”
“I know it stinks now,” I said, helping him into his darkest pair of pajamas. “But it fades, and it’s perfect for an adventure. We might play hide and seek tonight, Dylan. And you know how well wolves can smell when they’re trying to find someone.”
He nodded as if that made perfect sense. His serious little face was adorable to me, and I covered his forehead in kisses until he squirmed away.
Then while he was watching a television show before sleep, I sat on the bathroom sink and scrolled through the messages on my cell phone.
Aiden really had texted me, and Joshua had texted back setting up the meeting.
But there were other, earlier text messages.
Someone had texted an unnamed number from this phone.
You have to promise me you won’t hurt anyone else in the King pack
Just Stone as revenge for what he did to our pack
It wasn’t anyone else’s fault
But I’ve run all over their territory. This is how their patrols work…
There’s a gap in their patrol route by the old stone bridge. That’s where you should pick me up and where your best chance is to come in…
Shit, the old stone bridge was where Joshua had set up my meeting with Aiden.
Horror swept through me as I understood.
Joshua had either texted the Longroad pack to help them attack us—or he was just pretending and texting some random number to set me up. But who was even left to attack the King pack? The Longroad pack had been decimated; Aiden had said half the men in the pack were dead.
Either way… Stone would read these as a chilling admission of guilt.
And beneath that, a text from a number that was labeled as Rose in my phone. It wasn’t her number, but there was a string of texts from her.
Hey big sis! I miss you so much
Well, that didn’t fit Rose, and the distance that had grown between us for the last five years. But I wished that was the way my sister really talked to me. There was a lot of chatter back and forth, stuff that would identify Rose as my sister even if I changed the contact.
Fuck Joshua. Just like Cliff, that bastard was going to find out just how murdery I could be.
And then…
Aiden told me what he did to Brennan. I’m so sorry. Does that mean you won’t help us after all?
And my number had texted back:I’ll always be there for you, sis
Fuck, fuck, fuck. My fingers shook as I tried to frantically erase the text messages.
But even though I erased each one, I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I backed out, Joshua would find a way to get these messages to Stone. My eyes blurred frantically as I deleted the last one and flung the phone away from me as if it were cursed. It hit the tile with a thud, and then I scooped it up again almost immediately to check the messages again and be sure they were really gone.
Leaving the door open so I’d hear Dylan if he stirred, I frantically took my own shower and scrubbed my skin and hair with apple cider vinegar. It would help block our scent in the woods. Stone wouldn’t know if it was us for sure, and the vinegar might be its own scent, but it was hard for wolves to track. It hurt our noses. It seemed so fucking flimsy, but it was all I had right now.
