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Remus scowled. “Are you two just going to keep speaking as vaguely as possible, or is someone going to clue me in about who we’re talking about?”
My father grimaced and looked over at his older son. “Maverick Denton. One of Eli’s best friends growing up. He left Longbow at eighteen to join the British Army.”
“Banished?” Remus clarified.
My father snorted. “We’re from England, not the moon, Remus. Yes, wolves who choose to join human organizations are banished. We aren’t supposed to keep in touch.” His eyes slid to me.
I bared my teeth, unable to help myself. “I haven’t spoken to him in nine years,” I rumbled. “But we were at a dead end, and…” I stopped myself before I could incriminate either of us any further.
Nic rumbled and tipped his head. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I’m not interested in punishing those who help when they’re asked.” He nodded towards the file. “Tell us what you learned, Eli.”
I paused, narrowing my eyes at the man for a moment, but my father didn’t seem to intent on trapping me. Remus wasn’t pushing the issue, either. I flipped a page and leaned over, relieved to simply explain the details Mav had shared with me.
11
IRIS
The Woods
???, ???
Ihad no idea how I kept going, except I couldn’t let myself get caught again. I couldn’t let Bella get taken by those people, either, especially after her parents…
The thought of Bella’s parents made my breath catch in my throat every single time. I didn’t even know theirnames. They’d never introduced themselves, and I hadn’t had time to ask. Bella was probably too young to know her parents had names beyond Mom and Dad, and I didn’t want to upset her any further by asking.
As it was, she was hungry, tired, and terribly confused — she hadn’t stopped asking me when we were meeting back up with her parents. The last thing I wanted was to explain to this child that we would not meet up with her parents. That we never would. She had been generally cooperative so far, despite the fact that we had nothing to eat and had to drink water out of a stream. It was one of the worst ideas I’ve had in a while, but it was that or nothing, and I could only hope her wolf was stronger than mine.
I was so weak right now that there was no way I could shift, even if I didn’t have issues bringing my wolf forward on my own. I had no idea if Bella was able to shift herself; I was so tired, I couldn’t remember exactly at what age my parents had taught me to shift. There were so many questions, and I didn’t have any of the answers.
All I knew was that we couldn’t go back, or we’d never get any answers. We might never even be found. We’d just be faces on someone else’s wall after someone else’s sister went missing and some other private detective got hired somewhere down the road.
Would Eli keep looking for me?
I’d ghosted him in the middle of the night. That wasn’t exactly a great note to leave things on, and I regretted not saying anything now. I regretted letting my fear get the best of me, but…
Bella whimpered and I glanced down at the child in my arms. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t say anything. Outside of occasionally asking “Mama?” or “Papa?”, she hadn’t said anything at all to me. My experience with children, much less this young, was minimal. I was sure she felt as physically crappy as I did, if not worse.
“Okay,” I sighed, hugging her a little closer. “We’ll look for another stream, yeah?”
I could only imagine how thirsty she was. Bella just made another small noise and rubbed at her eyes. “You can go to sleep if you want,” I murmured, stepping carefully over a log. “But we can’t stop yet.”
I traveled as long as I could. I tried to travel when the sun wasn’t too high, and I tried to stay in the shade as much as I could. Bella would walk sometimes, but she got tired quickly, and I wasn’t strong enough to carry her and move quickly. We took more breaks than I would have liked, and frankly, I wasn’t sure how I kept going. My wolf had been present the entire time, brushing up against the surface on occasion. I could have sworn she was trying to support me the only way she knew how, and…
I didn’t know what to do about that.
We stopped in the middle of the day, finding a shady outcropping to keep as cool as possible. Late September was still hot as sin in Texas, but at least it wasn’t July or August. Bella fell asleep almost immediately against me. It was all I could do not to fall asleep alongside her; the last thing I wanted was for someone to sneak up on us. I had no idea how much distance I’d put between us and the Project Night Moon facility, but I didn’t want to find out.
Maybe I’ll sleep for just a few minutes.
Later that night,we came across a hunting cabin. I didn’t cherish the idea of breaking in, but I didn’t know what else to do. It was clear it hadn’t been set up yet for the year, and I imagined the owner wouldn’t be too upset, but we needed water. We needed food.
I really hoped there were canned goods inside.
Thankfully, Bella did not protest when I set her down. I didn’t have my lock-picking set with me, of course, but the lock was so simple, I managed to jiggle it open within a few minutes.
“Guess they don’t get many visitors out this way,” I said tiredly, offering my traveling companion a little smile. Bella just looked up at me before staring into the dark house, biting her lip.
