AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a harsh laugh, she shook head and wiped her eyes. “This place is haunted, hon. Sometimes I think we’d be better burning it all down and starting anew.” She gripped my forearms just beneath my elbows and gave a firm squeeze. “If you never came back, we wouldn’t blame you at all.”
* * *
Before leaving, we cleared our departure from Portersmith with Special Agent Cordova over the phone. She’d had the same idea as Clinton and Aubrey: Melony could be working together with Samuel, which meant one of the other packs in the area might be harboring her. So, Cordova was off doing her best to interrogate the other East Coast packs, to about as much effect.
Thankfully, she didn’t buy Captain Booker’s story that Xander and I might have had something to do with the boys’ abductions—not that the theory ever had any legs to stand on in the first place.
“I can send some agents to escort you home,” Cordova offered, “but with the number of reporters swarming around, it might be better if you keep a low profile.”
We agreed about that. Xander traded his truck for one of Clinton classic cars, a midnight blue Impala. In return, Clinton and Aubrey, disguised like us as they best could be, left in Xander’s truck just before we did, drawing the reporters away. As for Xander and me, we donned the closest thing to disguises we could get away with: dark sunglasses, a ball cap for Xander, and a silk scarf to cover my hair.
When we left Portersmith, I didn’t even glance in the rear-view mirror to see it one last time.
Aubrey was right. It was haunted, by our time there, by the terrible things we’d been through, and most of all, by Samuel Morrow.
If we never saw it again, I was pretty sure I’d be okay.
The ride back to Evergreen was as silent as it was strange.
The strangeness, at least, I could explain.
We’d spent most of my pregnancy at Portersmith, plus a month of recovery afterward. After so long away, it was uncanny to see theWelcome to Evergreensign. Normally, I didn’t even see it.
I’d arrived in Evergreen as a fourteen-year-old, cast off so my mother could cosplay as a young, childless newlywed. Went away for college. Came right back. Evergreen wasn’t a place I left often.
Xander turned before we hit town, taking the backstreets instead of staying on the main road.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Save for a few feeble initial attempts at conversation on Xander’s part at the start of the drive, it was the first thing either of us had said to each other since leaving Portersmith. Even when we stopped for groceries, we hadn’t spoken. I’d placed the things I wanted into the cart, and Xander tossed in his own selections. When the cashier asked us cash or credit, Xander had pulled his wallet and paid without making a sound.
I hoped we were headed to Nana Jordan’s—a place that always welcomed me back no matter how long I’d been away—or to the Havishford House, the picturesque colonial of my dreams. I’d purchased the house just in time to abandon it for our own safety, for all the good that had done us.
The universe had delivered its message to me loud and clear, repeatedly. Now that my sons had been taken from me, I was finally ready to accept it.
No matter where we went, we weren’t safe, so we might as well go somewhere that felt like home.
Before I could get my hopes up too much, though, Xander dashed them.
“The lodge,” he said, hanging a left. “I don’t think I can stomach the way they’ll force smiles and give us pity waves when they see us drive by.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t considered that. We’d been away just long enough for me to forget that even on the best of days, Xander was small-town famous. Any alpha of any shifter pack always was. Our return to Evergreen should have been a triumph. Instead, we were coming back with our tails between our legs.
“Are you disappointed?”
“No,” I half-lied. “The lodge is fine. What should I expect when we get there?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s waiting for us? Full house? Or an empty one?” The pack liked to band together when tragedy struck.
“Empty,” Xander confirmed. “For tonight. I thought… it might be a good idea. The pack will want to see us. Tomorrow, we’ll have to let them. Dylan says things have gone to shit while we’ve been away.” He shrugged. “If you want, I can still ask them to come over. You know they’d love that. I just thought you might like a little time alone tonight.”
I frowned. Alone from the others or alone from him? I wanted to reach out and take his hand, but something stopped me.
“No,” I said, folding my hands in my lap instead. “An empty house is fine.”
* * *
