40. Annette

Chapter forty

Annette

*AURELIA*

W hen Eric, Val, and I arrive at the pack, Arden has already dealt with most of the paperwork, got a therapist and doctor involved, and made preparations to have Annette brought to the Council later, to stay until she can return home to her own pack. We all want to give her the time she needs, but unfortunately, we don't have time.

Annette is a sweet young girl. Shockingly young. I knew her age from our research, but seeing her in person brings home how young she truly is. Something about her scent seems off too. They probably mess with their victim's scent so they can't be tracked. She clings to Valerie and me, in particular, probably feeling safer with us because we are women.

To my surprise, Annette herself is more than eager to help us, almost anxiously so. "You need to save her," she sobs while clinging to Val.

"Who, sweetheart?"

"Meg," she mutters. "They call her Azurite, but her name is Meg. She told me she's forgetting her name and who she is, that she's losing herself. She was so nice to me."

Arden's eyes cloud over in worry. "Probably developing Stockholm Syndrome," he mutters. "I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."

"Will you help us?" Valerie asks gently. "I know it's difficult, Annette, but we—"

"YES, I will help!" she blurts out. "I just want Meg to be safe. I will do whatever!"

"We need you to tell us what happened," Val says. "Can you do that? Can you talk with these two nice guys?" She gestures towards Eric and Arden.

Annette looks anxious, so I make sure to reassure her. "Valerie and I can stay with you."

"And my dad?" she asks. "Is he…"

"He is on his way," I reassure her gently. "We called him immediately, and he jumped into his car right away. Your alpha is with him."

"Are they far away?" she asks anxiously. "Please be honest."

"We are close to Paris," Valerie answers honestly. "I know your pack is further away, sweetie, but don't worry, we will make sure to watch out for you until your dad is here."

Annette takes a deep breath. "I want to talk," she says. "Now. For Meg."

I honestly feel relieved that she is so compliant. I thought we would need to work with a therapist maybe or give her more time, but she is desperate to help us. Her worries are probably pushing her forward. The shock and trauma will come later.

The alpha of the pack we are currently in offers us his living room so we can have some privacy. "Thank you for the generous offer, Alpha Florent," Eric says smoothly.

"Of course, Prince Eric. Let's hope we can finally put an end to these kidnappings."

Eric nods at him before we all retreat to his living room. Fresh beverages and sandwiches are prepared for us. Annette hasn't eaten yet, too anxious to do so, but with Eric around us, I can feel the air getting lighter, and Annette's anxiety seems to subside slightly. She starts digging into a sandwich while I set my phone up to record the meeting. "I hope that's okay for you, Annette?"

"Yes, I don't mind."

"Well then." Arden smiles nervously. I can almost feel his nerves through the bond. This is important to him, but at the same time he doesn't want to hurt this teenage girl more than necessary by forcing her to relieve the worst hours of her life. "Can you tell us how you were kidnapped, Annette?"

Annette nods. "Dad and I were visiting the nearest town to our village to run some errands. We always do them together. It's just the both of us, you know? We split up, and I went grocery shopping while he went to the hardware store. I was finished sooner than he was and was waiting for him in a small alley." She pauses. "That was stupid, wasn't it?"

"No," Eric tells her. "Nothing that happened is your fault, Annette. You didn't make any poor decisions. They did. They chose to abduct you and take you away."

"Okay," she says quietly. "Two masked men were suddenly behind me, and then everything happened so fast. They pulled something over my head, and there was something in it that made me lose consciousness. Before I did, I heard them talk about how they got another gem for their collection."

Gems , here it is again.

"I can't remember anything from there on until I woke up," she admits. "I was in a room with a bed. The windows were locked. I couldn't even look outside, and the doors were locked too. I was so scared. Then, there was Meg. One guy brought her to me; he was scary." A shiver runs through her body. "So scary. Meg was shocked when she saw me and said something about me being so young, and she told Night—that's his name—that he swore to never abduct someone so young, like they did with her."

He indeed has kept her for all those years.

"Night got furious, and he hit her," Annette mutters, her fingers clenching. "He dragged her out of the room, and then I didn't see her for a couple of days. When she came back, she looked like she was even skinnier, and the skin around her neck was burnt. They probably restrained her with silver or something. It… it also looked like she got beaten."

"We will make sure to get Meg out of there," Arden says earnestly. "She has been with them for so long."

"I… I had the feeling she was special to them," Annette says.

"How so?" Arden wants to know.

"Not to all of the men, but to Night. I think he is their leader or something. But he is the one who keeps dragging Meg around. The others never even looked at her. I think they were scared to do so. Meg is the only one not locked in a room."

"Is she allowed to roam freely?" Arden wants to know. "Is she working with them?"

"No, I think she is only allowed in two or three rooms, and they send her to the new gems to care for them. That's how they call us. And Night, he sometimes touched her head or her arm, and when they branded me, she had to be there, too."

"They branded you?" Arden asks.

Annette nods, showing him her wrist. There is a bandage around it, as the pack doctor checked her thoroughly and made sure to patch her up. She removes the dressing and there it is. Just like our previous victims, a tattoo branded into her skin. It's inflamed and must hurt a lot.

"May I take a photo of it?" Arden asks her. "I want to send it to my friend. He will look up what it says."

Annette nods.

"What about the other guys?"

"Well, there is Junior," she says. "I think he and Night are friends or something. They are both tall and strong. Junior is probably the nicest," she admits but grimaces while saying so. "But the bar is low. And then there is PJ. He is skinny and has blond hair and is creepy. Recently there has been a new guy, too, but I don't know his name."

"Can you work with one of my assistants to draw a phantom picture of them?" Eric asks.

"Yes, if that helps, I will do it," she says.

"You mentioned gems," Arden says.

"Yeah," she starts before he can even form a question. "They are so weird about that, or rather Night is. I think the others just don't really mind. He called me Opal, and when I said my name was Annette, he got mad and hit me. Meg then told me to not say my name in front of him but that she would make sure I wouldn't forget it. She kept calling me Annette."

"What did they call Meg again?" Arden asks.

"Azurite," Annette answers promptly. "Night always kept saying how she is special, his most beautiful, special gem." Another shiver goes down her spine. "He was obsessed with her."

"Annette," Eric starts. "This might sound weird to you now, but did you ever donate blood?"

"No," she says promptly.

"Did you visit the city hospital recently, here in Paris?" he continues.

Annette stares at him. "Now that you mention it," she mutters. "We went there with my school class. It was a two-day trip to Paris, and it was amazing. It was my first trip away from the pack, just with my friends from school. Our teacher did this science project with us, and we went to the hospital to get our blood group checked. Guess what? I was a super rare blood group!"

"I see," Eric smiles. "Thank you."

"Oh," her head perks up again. "I forgot to mention something. The guys were all tattooed. Night had his on his neck."

"Do you know what the tattoo said?"

"No, they were runes, I think. I couldn't read them."

"Do you think you could reconstruct them?" Arden asks.

"I don't think it will be accurate, but I could try."

Annette starts to scribble something on a paper, but she doesn't look content with the outcome. "It's all I could come up with," she mutters. "The only thing I'm certain of are the little flowers."

"That's perfect," Valerie reassures her. "It's more than we expected. You are a fantastic help, Annette."

Her eyes light up. "If you want, I can draw an outline of the place too."

"That would be a great help," Eric agrees.

Annette continues to explain details of the place she was kept, how it was built, what it looked like, and how they changed her looks for the auction. Eventually, she looks so exhausted that we decide to call it quits. We got more information from her than expected.

"Annette, do you think you can find the place again?" Eric asks eventually.

"Yes," she says.

We sent the recording to Gustave to share it with the others. Not even a minute later, Gustave calls us. "The tattoo on Annette's wrist," he says. "I looked it up. It means Opal."

"I thought so," Arden answers, while putting his phone on speaker so we can listen in.

"And there is something else," he says. "When she mentioned the tattoo on his neck, I don't know… something hit a nerve."

Arden straightens his back. "Wait a moment. You remember it from somewhere?"

"There was something," Gustave mutters. "A picture…"

"You saw it before?" Arden asks.

"Yes," he mutters. "I am sure I did. I just don't know where."

"Then try to find out where and how you spotted the image," Arden commands.

"I-I am not as good as you are," Gustave admits. "I've tried working with a memory palace, but I don't have an eidetic memory, I—"

"Gustave, you still have an IQ that puts you on par with other geniuses," Arden says. "You just don't have confidence. You saw that image, I didn't. I can't help you retrieve this memory, but I have full faith in your abilities."

"I will try," Gustave promises. "I… I hope I won't disappoint you."

We can hear Nox in the background. "I took a closer look at the rune that Annette drew. Something about it strikes a memory in me, too."

"Guys, what's going on with you?" I ask. "Both of you being on high alert."

"Well, thank you." Nox chuckles. "The thing is, it's not the rune itself that I remember, but the little roses around it."

"You both need to go down memory lane," Arden instructs.

"Shouldn't I come with you to go to the hideout of our culprits?" Nox asks.

"No," Arden says promptly. "Because I doubt we will find anything there."

"Pretty sure they moved places already," Eric agrees.

"You have a point," Nox admits.

"And you are more helpful with trying to remember where you saw that rune," I encourage him.

"You know what's weird," Val says. "All the time when Annette talked, she was able to describe the men perfectly. They never hid anything from her. They didn't disguise themselves aside from the one time they kidnapped her."

"That's because they don't expect their victims to leave this place alive," Arden says quietly. "They don't care."

It's silent once he says it, mainly because we all know it's the truth. The gravity of his words is written all over Arden's face, making me reach out to take his hand. He is so strong and always seems to have a logical approach to everything, but he has feelings, too, and I know this whole ordeal our victims have gone through is lying heavily on his mind and soul.

We are still standing around in silence when the door opens again, and Annette comes rushing in. The luna is following her. After she told us where she ran from, we sent her to the pack's kind luna, to keep an eye on her until her father arrives.

"I remember something else," Annette blurts out, almost stumbling over her own words. "It was on my first night there before I met Meg. I think it was PJ and Junior talking. I listened but didn't understand what they were talking about."

"What did they say?" Arden wants to know, his curiosity clearly piqued.

"PJ asked why Night is so obsessed with that skanky little omega. I think he was talking about Meg. Junior then told him to never say anything like that to Night, or he would end up dead. He then said something about Night and his father having a fallout years ago, and that the first Azurite died." She pauses. "I think Junior said that Night got rid of his own father to make sure to find and retrieve his own Azurite."

"They were talking about Meg's mother," Arden exclaims. "Goddess, that's crazy. She was on the run from—"

"From Night's father, probably," Eric mutters.

"We need to find out who this man is," Arden says.

"He is right," Eric says. "Everyone, go to work immediately. Arden, Aurelia, and I will go to the hideout." He turns to his mate. "Val, may I ask you to stay here in case Annette or our guys at headquarters remember something?"

"Yes, of course," she agrees easily. "I will keep you updated. Be careful."