by Lola Gabriel
“Not as long as you might think, actually.” Scout paused slightly. “As a matter of fact, I can’t remember how she became a member. We’ve asked her a few things about her past, but she’s always been vague about her life before the pack.”
“Does Creek not like her or something?” Rayven asked, recalling how it had seemed to her like they were ready to shift and attack one another at the simplest mistake.
Scout let out a pensive hum. “You caught on to that, huh?”
Rayven almost sighed in relief. She was glad she hadn’t just imagined it. “So what’s the deal between them?”
“Creek doesn’t trust Kala,” Scout answered. “Not at all. He thinks she’s hiding something.”
“Well, what if she is?” Rayven asked. “Everyone’s got secrets.”
“Dangerous secrets,” Scout said. “I don’t know why Kala doesn’t like talking about her past, but I’ve never wanted to push too hard.”
“Yeah,” Rayven agreed. Maybe something traumatic had happened to Kala, and her way of coping with it was to pretend it hadn’t happened, the way she had pretended Creek hadn’t been trying to murder her with his eyes.
“You shouldn’t worry about that. They both know this pack would fall apart if their personal issues got the best of them.” Scout kissed the top of her head, and Rayven couldn’t help thinking back to the night Scout had told her about his family being split apart, how he had so fervently tried to assure her he didn’t care about his brothers or their whereabouts.
I’ve never wanted to push too hard, Scout had just said.
Maybe his way of dealing with his own past is to pretend it doesn’t bother him anymore, she thought.
Rayven pushed herself up to hover above him and kissed Scout on the mouth, hoping she could convey how much he meant to her, how much she wanted him to be okay, how much she wanted him to trust her and know she would never judge him. Scout grabbed her waist and kissed her back with a hungry intensity that made her shudder, their kisses growing heated between them. When Scout slipped between her legs, Rayven gasped his name against his lips, and all she wanted was to keep him exactly where he was forever.
A strange sound woke Rayven, and she glanced at her phone as she sat up in bed. It was just after midnight, and Scout was sound asleep beside her. She didn’t want to wake him, so she slipped out of bed and put on one of his long-sleeved shirts. She left the bedroom and walked along the long hallway, an icy chill running down her spine at the eerie darkness surrounding her. The kitchen felt a lot emptier than Rayven would’ve liked, and she rushed to grab a bottle of water from the fridge and turn back to return to the bedroom.
She heard the mysterious noise again. It came from the back door, the very same door through which she had entered Scout’s home for the first time, changing her life in more ways than one.
The sound echoed in the deafening silence once more, and Rayven thought it sounded like nails scraping on wood.
She ran through the living area towards the door, nearly launching herself at it, and yanked it open. The only thing she was able to see was the large scratch marks on the door…
Quite long and widely spaced.
A horrified gasp ripped its way out of her throat, despite her attempts to swallow it down, as she backed away from the door. “Scout! Scout!”
She heard the thumping of Scout’s footsteps throughout the house until they stopped, and she whirled around to find him standing behind her, rushing to her side.
“Rayven?” she heard him ask, his arms embracing her. “Rayven, what’s wrong?”
“Look.” Rayven gestured with her head to the door. Scout pulled away from her and stepped forward, narrowing his eyes at the scratch marks on the wood.
“They’re identical to the ones in the alley,” he murmured.
“He was here,” Rayven said as Scout slammed the door shut and locked it behind him. “He knows where I am.”
“We’ll take you to the Vault,” he said. “Kala and Onyx were right; it’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to hide,” she argued. “I want to take down whoever this person is, and I want to do it as soon as possible. I won’t let him taunt us like this!”
“That’s exactly what he wants,” Scout told her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “To lure you out so you’ll be an easy target.” Rayven looked away from him, knowing he was right. Still, she didn’t want to just hide in a safe house and do nothing else. It didn’t seem fair to her that Scout and Onyx were apparently fine with risking their lives while they expected her to stay out of danger.
Scout squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. “Listen, how about we deal with this in the morning? Creek, Onyx, and I will go get supplies tomorrow, just in case, and then we can talk about the Vault. Okay?”
“I don’t think a few hours of sleep will change my mind, Scout,” Rayven said. “What about Onyx? What about you? You two are the only family I have left. I can’t lose either of you, and if something were to happen—”
“Hey, hey.” Scout pulled her into his arms, comfortingly rubbing his hand on her back. “You’re not going to lose either of us, Rayven. I promise you that.”
Rayven hugged him with all her might. She nodded and inhaled, deeply breathing in the scent of him, unable to stand even the thought of losing him.
Even though there was no place where she felt safer than in Scout’s arms, dread and paranoia still crept up inside her, tainting the back of her mind with fear of what was to come. Despite knowing that she and Onyx were as prepared as they could possibly be, Rayven realized that things might not go according to plan. The upcoming confrontation with the extractor might not end well. Someone was bound to get hurt, and she didn’t want that person to be Onyx, or Scout, or god forbid, anyone else in the pack.
She couldn’t stand knowing that people who cared about her would get hurt because of her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
What she could do was keep the two most important people in her life alive and safe, even at the cost of her own wellbeing.
8
Scout closed the door of his car and waited for Onyx to get out as well. The pair had driven into town to pick up supplies for the house. Even though Rayven had practically begged him to let her go along, he had insisted that it was safer for her to stay at the house. At least that was the best option at the moment, since she still refused to consider going to the Vault. And while Scout had a point, he knew that Rayven must be starting to feel claustrophobic after being cooped up in his house all the time. Sure, playing video games did help her pass the time while he wasn’t home, but they were both aware that she couldn’t spend the entire day, every day in front of the console.
The fact that she didn’t know who she had to look out for only added to her stress and frustration, not to mention that she was worried about him and Onyx, despite Scout’s constant reassurances that everything would be okay.
Scout and Onyx entered the store and spent about half an hour inside, filling up the shopping cart with all the essentials needed for the house. Rayven had given him a list, since she was the one making dinner for them almost every night. She liked to joke that it was only thanks to her that Scout and Onyx were eating properly for once. Scout paid close attention to the list written in her neat handwriting, smiling to himself.
When he and Onyx were done, they headed to the cashier and unpacked their supplies. Scout paid for everything, and they headed back to the car with all the bags, which they loaded into the trunk of Scout’s car. Just as he was about to slam it shut so that they could be on their way back home, he heard a distant voice screaming his name. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Creek rushing over to him and Onyx, his eyes wide and his brow furrowed in worry and shock.
“Scout!” he yelled, coming to a stop in front of him and Onyx. He was gasping for air, and he rested his hands on his knees for a moment to catch his breath. “I… I just got a call from Trek!” Creek panted urgently. “Th
ere was—he saw—”
“Creek, Creek, breathe,” Scout instructed. “What’s wrong? What did Trek see?”
“The Vault!” Creek cried. “The Vault burned down the ground! There’s nothing left!”
Scout’s eyes widened, and he could’ve sworn his heart actually stopped beating in the time it took him to come back to himself, to make himself believe that he hadn’t heard Creek wrong. Their safe house was gone. The only place where Scout had been sure that Rayven would be safe had been burned to the ground.
Someone had burned their safehouse to the ground.
Scout turned to look at Onyx, whose expression mirrored the cold fury Scout felt. “We have to go.”
“I’ll drive,” Onyx said, and Scout threw him the car’s keys.
“Hop in,” he told Creek, who immediately climbed into the backseat. As Onyx turned the ignition and sped off towards Scout’s house, he picked up his phone and dialed Kala’s number.
“Hey, Scout,” Kala greeted him after a few rings.
“Are you doing anything right now?”
“Not really,” she said. “Why?”
“Can you meet us at my house, like, right now? It’s urgent.”
Rather than arguing or asking what was so important, Kala apparently noticed the worry in his voice, because she answered, “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later, Onyx screeched to a stop in the driveway of Scout’s house, and Scout was glad to see that Kala’s car was already parked on the side of the road, with her leaning back against it. As soon as she saw them, she went over to them.
“Scout, is everything okay? What’s going on?” Kala asked.
“The Vault burned down,” Scout answered, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.
“What? How did that happen?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Onyx and Creek carried the bags of groceries and supplies from the trunk of Scout’s car to the house and then, presumably, to the kitchen. Scout and Kala followed, bursting through the door and heading towards the living room.
“We’re going over there right now to hopefully find out exactly what happened,” he said. “We just came by to drop off the supplies we got.”
“Do you want me to come along?” Kala offered.
“No,” Scout said. “I need you to stay here with Rayven.”
“Hey, guys.” Rayven walked into the living area with a smile, which fell from her face as soon as she saw the frowns Scout and Kala wore on theirs. “Um, is something wrong?”
Scout held out his hands to her, and she immediately went over to him to clasp them in her own. “The Vault was attacked.”
“What?” Rayven glanced between him and Kala; then her eyes shifted to Onyx and Creek, who were coming out of the kitchen. “Is everyone okay?”
“As far as we know,” Scout answered. “Onyx, Creek, and I are going to have a look, and Kala’s going to stay here with you. Lock yourselves up, stay on guard, and don’t open the door to anyone unless I call to let you know someone’s coming over.”
“Okay,” Rayven nodded. “We’ll be fine here. You guys be careful, okay?”
“I will,” he promised. He leaned in to kiss her on the lips, his traitorous mind telling him that he should just stay with Rayven himself. Scout pulled away before he could listen to that thought, whirling to walk back to the car with Onyx and Creek.
The trio drove towards the Buffalo Mountain and parked the car in a secluded spot. The last thing they needed was for the police to find it and trace it back to Scout.
Onyx grabbed a backpack from the trunk—which contained a spare change of clothes for each of them, as the ones they were currently wearing would get completely ripped after transforming—and the three of them made their way to the trail that led to the Vault. Or to what was left of it.
They transformed once they had entered the dense forest that covered the base of the mountain. Scout, a large and graceful light grey wolf with bright green eyes, led the trio; Onyx and Creek, a dark grey wolf with a white patch of fur over his left eye, flanked him protectively as they sprinted through trees and jumped over a stream towards the Vault.
Scout came to a halt when the ruins of their safehouse finally came into view. The Vault was supposed to be safe for a reason—the walls were not only lined with moon opals, but they had also been painted with an opal-based mixture that should’ve made the place impossible to detect by other packs. Now it was just… gone.
He couldn’t believe that there was nothing left of it, and the worst part was that it hadn’t been an accident. Someone had purposely come here and set the place on fire. Why? To send them a message? And if that were the case, what could that message be? That things would only get worse from this moment on?
Scout wanted to blame the Crescents for doing this, but if it had been them, they had a much bigger problem on their hands. If the Crescents had burned down their safehouse, that meant they had known about the safe house and where to find it.
The three of them transitioned back into their human forms and changed into the spare set of clothes they had brought along.
“Did anyone else outside of the pack know the location of the Vault?” Scout asked once he was fully dressed.
“No one,” Creek answered. “I made sure of that. Even humans who accidentally stumbled upon it while hiking would’ve forgotten everything about it.”
Creek was one of the few wolves, perhaps the only wolf, with more than one ability that Scout had met. Above all of them, he possessed the amazing power to remove certain memories, making people forget whatever he wished for them to.
Scout had, on more than one occasion, begged Creek to remove all memories of his family, but Creek had refused him each time.
“You would need them one day, and you know that I can’t give them back. You’d spend your life regretting something and feeling guilty for it, but you wouldn’t remember what it was or why you felt like that. I couldn’t do that to you, Scout,” Creek had told him, hoping Scout would be satisfied with and deterred by his answer.
He wasn’t. In fact, he still hoped that he could convince Creek of going through with it one day.
A shiver ran down Scout’s spine. It was much colder here in the mountains than it was in town, and he wasn’t a fan of the cold as it was.
You’re a summer baby, Scout, and you thrive in it, his mother had told him once when he was younger. He had probably been complaining about the cold, just as he was now. Of course you don’t like the cold. You never have! It used to make you crazy as a baby.
It still does, Mom, he thought to himself, zipping up his jacket.
He had always found it strange that he couldn’t handle the cold as well as the other members of his pack, especially given the fact that he had settled down in Colorado. Now, remembering his mother’s words, it wasn’t as strange.
Scout couldn’t believe he had forgotten something like that. For a moment, he felt the kind of guilt Creek had warned him about, except he knew exactly why he felt guilty.
He shook his head, taking a step towards the smoking ruins of the Vault. He had to focus on the present. He walked closer, trying to find something that would tell him the identity of the culprit, but all he found was rubble and debris and ashes.
Scout heard Onyx sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?”
He didn’t. Creek started doing the same, and Scout had no doubt he would come to the same conclusion as Onyx in a little bit.
“What are you getting, Onyx?” Scout asked.
Onyx crouched down and scoured through the rubble. “They used an accelerant.”
“Can you identify it?”
“I can try,” Onyx answered. His eyes started to glow, and Scout knew he was concentrating all his energy into figuring out exactly what kind of accelerant had been used to burn the entire place down.
Scout walked closer, trying to find something that would tell him the identity of the culprit—footprints, paw prints, any
thing at all—but all he found was rubble and debris and ashes. No matter how much he scanned the area, he came up empty-handed. A strange kind of dread rose up inside him, and he frowned to himself. It wasn’t exactly dread per se, though he wouldn’t know what other word to use to describe it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Creek staring at him with a concerned frown.
“What is it?” Creek asked. “What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” Scout admitted. “It’s… hard to explain.”
“Wanna show me?”
Scout sighed. “I’m not sure you’ll like it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Creek said, and he placed his hand on Scout’s arm. Another one of his abilities was to feel what someone else felt by making direct contact with them, which was useful in situations like this. As soon as Creek’s hand touched his arm, his grey eyes flashed momentarily, widening with the kind of dread currently coursing through Scout’s body. Creek pulled his hand back.
“I think I know what it is!” Onyx announced, and both Creek and Scout turned to him. Onyx’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “It’s… it’s butane.”
“Butane?” Scout repeated. “Where on Earth would someone get—?” His voice immediately trailed off. He thought back to the two canisters of butane he kept hidden in his basement and to the only two people who knew about them. One of them was Creek, who had found them during a pack meeting and wondered what Scout could possibly use them for.
“You never know when you might need to start a campfire with no matches or lighter around,” Scout had joked. “Winters are easier with those around.”
The other person who knew about them… had pulled the information out of his mind.
Scout reached for his phone and dialed Rayven’s number, pacing throughout the remains of the Vault as he waited for her to answer. His call went straight to voicemail.
“Hey, this is Rayven,” came Rayven’s recorded voice. “Sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message!”