Chapter 29

-Pax-

The room was so void of sound that I could hear Rowan's heart pounding in his chest. I was sitting on the kitchen bench with Farley next to me. He told me it was alright for me to sit up there, as long as I was careful of the toaster which rested far back on the bench.

"Who was it?" Iris asked, a very appreciated interruption to the quiet. "Why did they do it?"

The ceiling started to creak; Caspian was probably walking around upstairs. I had jumped when the front door opened, the sudden loud noise had given me a fright, so Caspian probably heard it too.

"It was the beta of the Herbrogh pack", Rowan exclaimed. He brushed against my foot as he came into the kitchen, placing something on the bench. "The alpha is apparently furious with him, but they're not going to deny the rumour. It's spread too far and now everybody knows who's responsible."

"Then how come my mam didn't know?" Farley asked, his voice vibrated the bench. "Surely she would know if a member of her old pack had contact with them?"

"I'm not sure," Iris said. "Dillion has been very quiet the past few months. Maybe something happened between them?"

I had heard of the pack before meeting Farley. Kian would talk about Dillion a lot; he was one of the best alphas when it came to strategy and war. Their pack was unmatched, and they tended to act more like an army rather than a pack. The Herbrogh pack didn't have a permanent residence, preferring a nomadic lifestyle.

"I don't know," Rowan answered. "The pack's still together." Objects were placed on the bench, I could only distinguish some fruit, but I'm sure I'd be able to find out what he bought later. "What do you think, Caspian?"

"I want to know how you found it out," Caspian asked from the top of the stairs. "Who did you have to interrogate?" The stairs started to creak.

"Just the little twerps who frequent the corner shop," Rowan said, I could feel the shrug of his shoulders within his voice. "They know everything. What's the other ones called? Channon and Channing? I think those are the twerp's idols." I didn't know who Rowan was talking about, but the names Channon and Channing rang a bell.

I must have had a confused expression on my face as Farley leant on my shoulder. "Channon and Channing are from Ralph and Aiden's pack," he whispered to me. "They're identical twins, and they're even more trouble than Rowan."

I made a noise of acknowledgement and nodded my head. "Thanks." I whispered back to him.

"How do they know?" Clementine's voice chimed in. I had been too distracted by Farley; I hadn't even noticed her. "They could've just made it up."

"Oh yes," Rowan said, his voice muffled by some sort of food. "Because two eleven year olds are going to lie about who started a rando rumour. I don't think that they'd have any reason to."

"It doesn't matter too much who started it," Iris said. "What are we going to do? It's only a matter of time before someone comes here and demands to see the body."

The body. Those words sent shivers down my spine and made every muscle in my body tense all at once. Many people believed me to be dead. That might have solved a problem for us, but it caused many more. I had wished that I wasn't born a black wolf, or that there were more of my kind so that we could find comfort in each other. We wouldn't be able to lie about me being dead for any amount of time. People would come and demand to see the corpse of a black wolf, my corpse.

"Rowan, I still need your login details," Iris' voice grew quieter and was disturbed by Rowan's grunts and complaints. Something knocked my foot again, causing me to hold onto Farley's shoulder for stability.

"Alright, alright. It's not my thumb, you don't have to take my hand off." The twins were now in the living room.

I was still leaning on Farley's shoulder. He rocked side to side awkwardly and started to get shorter.

"What are you doing?" I asked with my brows furrowed.

"Making it easier for you to lean on me." His voice wasn't quite right; he was grinning.

"Aren't I taller than you?" I asked with a huff. The shoulder I was leaning on rose and then fell again.

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm the taller one," Farley said, the grin still in his voice. "Maybe you just remember wrong, that tends to happen when you're old."

"I am less than a year older than you," I exclaimed. I actually wasn't sure if I was right or not; but I was close enough to the point.

"No, see? You're remembering wrong."

I gave his shoulder a hard squeeze before taking my hand back. "Well then, this old man still has more strength than he should at this age."

Farley laughed and then moved towards the sink, turning the tap on. "I'm doing dishes, wanna help?"

I nodded my head and hopped off the counter. I'd be grateful for any distraction right now. I was grateful for any ounce of usefulness I could be.

"That's the photo they used?" Caspian said from over Iris and Rowan's shoulder. "It looks nothing more than a badly photoshopped ad for animal cruelty."

The idea of photoshop was intriguing, but I didn't pay that much mind as I listened to the conversation. They had successfully found a webpage which told them about the rumour, although the person didn't show their actual name. Their username was similar to what was apparently called a 'keyboard smash', the concept made a lot more sense to me than 'photoshop' did. The username was 'FMHBFCRD', I felt like it meant something more than just random letters being smashed, but I could be incredibly wrong.

"It says that they couldn't find the actual corpse," Iris pointed out. "At least they know it's terrible."

Farley and I were sitting on Caspian's bed, he was holding one of my hands and letting me play with his fingers to distract myself. He shivered once in a while; I'm assuming when I tickled his hand. Iris, Rowan, and Caspian were by Caspian's desk, which held Iris' computer. Clementine was in between the two groups, apparently she was slightly long-sighted and so couldn't see too well if she was close to the screen.

"This is a popular forum," Clementine noted. "It doesn't surprise me that your mother found out about it so soon. There's so many comments."

"Most of them want to find your corpse," Rowan said. "There's a few saying that it's all lies. They didn't know that your parents had a child. I don't know how you can keep that sort of thing secret."

"Easy for werewolves, you just go on a trip for several months," Caspian informed. "Then who knows? You could say you bumped into another pack or something like that. I still don't understand how black wolves could be extinct."

"Maybe they're all just hiding?" I suggested. "I would if I had the sense."

Farley's hand tightened on my own. "We could do that, you know?" he said quietly. "We could just escape for a few months."

"No, you can't," Caspian interrupted. "That would make everyone even more suspicious. We need to figure out who this is, they clearly know that you're a black wolf." His voice became clearer, the chair he was on squeaked. "Could it be someone from Kian's pack? Or Kian?"

I puffed up my cheeks and shrugged. "Kian wouldn't, I don't think he knows about technology enough to do that. Anyone else in the pack is a suspect though. Other than Alder."

Farley snorted. "Yes, because a seven-year-old would be able to do that."

The rest of the pack gave some sort of laugh.

"He could be the one to have done it, if we judge this wonderful piece of artwork," Rowan commented. "Maybe Kian could be teaming up with another pack? Rasmus' maybe?"

"If they were to team up, Rasmus would definitely be the main suspect," Clementine said. Her voice was filled with disgust. "I hate that man."

"We know," Iris said softly. "Especially when you use that tone."

There was some communication which I couldn't grasp, but the next person to talk was Farley. "We can probably assume that they're from Kian's pack. You lasted too long in the pack without them knowing you were a black wolf. Nobody else could know."

I didn't know if he was trying to convince me or himself, but it was sounding more likely.

"You're right. Nobody else knows that I am a black wolf. Nobody else would know who my parents are..." I trailed off. There were some people who would know. The people who killed my parents was still out there, somewhere. I didn't know how they died, if it was a fierce battle or if it was a silent assassination.

"I could go and ask?" Clementine suggested.

"No," Caspian responded immediately. "It's far too dangerous. They already know that you live here,"

"Not the entire pack," Clementine argued. "Let me do this, I can handle myself."

"There's nothing stopping them from describing you to the rest of their pack," Iris pointed out. "You'd be walking right into their hands."

"That doesn't matter, I've still the best option," Clementine said.

Caspian was silent for a few moments. "Pax, can you give Clementine the details about Kian's pack? Their training strategies and schedule?"

I nodded once, not knowing exactly where he was, but the dangerous aura radiating from in front of me was threatening. I almost wanted to sprint away.

"Good, we need to go into this as prepared as we can be."

None of us could relax; the thought of Clementine being in danger was something none of us enjoyed. I had tried my best to tell her of the schedule Kian and the pack kept. Though, I feared I was slightly out of date. I wasn't sure if Kian had changed the schedule again now that I wasn't there.

We were also frightened that anybody could come onto the street and attack the house. It wouldn't have been difficult to track Caspian's pack down, knowing what street they lived on, or even what area they lived in. It was easy to track people when you were aiming to get information.

Rowan and Iris were playing some kind of board game which I didn't understand. They had said that they'd teach me at some point, but that day wouldn't be today.

A shrill ringing cut through the air. Farley was out of his seat before I could open my mouth and was answering the phone.

"Hello? What? Yes. Okay." He hung up the phone, as the distorted voices stopped speaking. "Pax, we've got to go." My hand was grasped in his before I knew it. I already had my trainers on, just as a precaution.

"What's wrong?" Iris asked, her light feet following us to the door.

Farley paused, nearly making me run into him. "Clementine's nearly home. You guys should be in your wolf forms." He opened the door and jumped down the stairs. "The plan failed."

A different annoying sound reached my ears. "Hello?" Iris said into the phone. That was the last word I picked up as we ran down the street.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I wasn't able to prepare for the run, so my breathing was heavy, and my throat burned. "What happened?"

"We're going in the opposite direction of the house," Farley said. I held back a snort, any direction starting from the house would be the opposite direction. "Apparently, the ones who were on patrol were Cedar and Finn."

That was strange. Cedar and Finn rarely worked together. It was all because of their strengths and weaknesses. They were both incredibly strong wolves, so it made no sense for them to be working together. Besides that, they weren't the biggest fans of each other. It was only natural for the beta to have something against other members of the pack, who could easily take their place. Cedar and Finn were excellent examples of that.

"Is Clementine, okay?" I didn't know what else to ask, but I wanted to keep talking. That was also a bad idea; they could probably recognise my voice.

"Well, she was talking fine," Farley's voice shook. We had run quite the distance by now. We had changed from pavement to dirt to pavement again. The sound of our feet slapping against the ground constantly shifted from loud pavestones to muffling soil, but the pace never changed.

"Okay," I said. I gave up trying to talk. I focused on my breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth. It was a lot easier said than done. Air didn't want to leave my throat.

I could focus on the unknown. I could focus on the fact that I didn't know where I was, or what I was doing. I didn't know who was on the streets surrounding me, nor the ones following me.

"Pax?" Farley's voice snapped me out of my tumbling thoughts. He was standing still behind me, my hand still in his grasp. My arm hurt slightly; I must've tried to make him keep running. "We shouldn't have come this way."

I rocked on my heels. "What way?" I asked quietly.

I didn't know what he was doing, but he suddenly laughed. "Sorry, I forgot that you've not been here before. I really should've told you where we were going."

I shrugged my shoulder. "It's okay, you were in a hurry." He didn't respond. "So, where are we?"

He coughed. "Oh, sorry. We're near my house. But I think I know where we could go."

His house? We were so close to the place he grew up. For all I knew, we could be standing in front of his front door, his parents might be able to see us from the window. I didn't think that it was so close to the packhouse, but I still didn't know where we were.

"Where?" I asked, swinging our hands. I didn't want to linger if these thoughts continued to invade my brain.

"An old friend's house."

THANK YOU FOR READING!

I hope that you guys are doing well :D

Question of the chapter is 'Are you guys any good at photoshop? or does it look like Alder had a go?'

I don't think I've ever tried photoshop, but given my limited capabilities with programmes such as paint, I don't think I'd do very well at all :')