16. Mai

Chapter sixteen

Mai

I had the feeling that my best chance of getting Lark to open up was if Maxwell was there, but there was no way Ryan was leaving me alone with Maxwell. So, I led the four of us to the study. Lark was stuck to Maxwell’s side, her small hand back to gripping his jacket. Again, I got the impression she was anchoring him to her so she could protect him more easily. Her eyes skated across me and Ryan nervously. She didn’t trust us. Smart kid.

Ryan closed the door, locking out the sound of Tucker and Ben arguing over what game they were going to play next.

How to approach this? I could go in in Alpha-mode, be authoritative, and demand some answers. I knew that was probably how Ryan would handle this. Sofia’s words to trust my instincts echoed in my mind.

Lark’s eyes, wide with uncertainty, flicked toward the towering walls of shelves behind me, taking in the sheer volume of books. She didn’t move, but her posture shifted ever so slightly. Ah, she was curious. That was a good sign.

“I work here a lot. So did my brother when it was his study. We both like to read. What about you, Lark? Do you read?”

Lark lowered her eyes and shook her head. “My mom was teaching me to read, before …” She swallowed, shot a quick look at Maxwell, then continued, “Ronnie is teaching me now. I’m no good at it. But I want to read big books. Smart people read big books.”

I tilted my head to one side. “People get smart in different ways. I know lots of smart people who don’t read books.”

She scrunched up her face, as if thinking about this. “But I like books. I want to be one of the smart people who get their smarts from books.”

Maybe we should create a library for the Three Rivers kids? I’d have to talk to Wally and Thomas about it; something like that would be right up their street.

“Well, you’re welcome to borrow any of the books here, anytime.”

She jerked her head toward me. “Really?”

I smiled back at her. “Yes, really.”

She stood frozen for a moment, then dashed toward the bookshelves, her eye scanning over the books. None of these were children’s books, but I had a feeling that didn’t matter to her right now. The fact that she had been given access to all these books was what was important.

Ryan sat down on the couch near the window. He was distancing himself as much as possible. Giving me space to try to talk to Lark. I shot him a grateful look. He knew we were short on time, but we couldn’t rush this.

“Lark, Maxwell told us about your parents and sister.”

I watched as her little body stiffened.

“You know, I lost my parents when I was young too.”

Lark turned to face me as surprise flickered over her expression for a brief second.

“It’s hard to talk about,” I continued. “But I also know that sometimes, it can help.”

She glared at me. “Will talking bring them back?”

“No—“

“So, what’s the point?”

I looked at her and saw a kid barely hanging on. She had stuffed her grief into a box and slammed the lid on it. There was no way she wanted to risk opening it back up. I knew because that was exactly what I’d done.

“You know, Ryan lost his mom at the same time my parents died, and I found it helps me to know that he really understands how I feel.”

Lark’s eyes flickered to Ryan and then back to me.

“I know it’s scary to talk about the bad things.” I kept my voice calm. “Scary to feel those emotions. But I promise you, Lark, you’re safe here. We want to help—you and Ronnie and Maxwell here. And whether you tell us more now or not, we’ll protect you, but it would help us to do that if we knew what happened.”

She softened just a little, and I could almost see something begin to crack.

“No one’s going to hurt you here,” I added softly. “No one’s going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I … I don’t …” Her voice was angry and fragile at the same time. She looked at Maxwell, who reached down and gave a quick squeeze to her shoulder.

Finally, Lark took a breath. “My Pack …” she trailed off.

Okay, maybe she needed a little nudge to get started. “Do you know the name of your Pack? Or your Alphas?”

She stopped and swallowed hard. “Yes. We’re … they’re the Knox Pack. My old Alphas. Gabrielle and Artie. That’s their names. They said my parents had been specially chosen to try a new medication, that if they took it, they would be in the first wave of a new type of Shifter.”

My stomach tightened. “Lark, do you remember what the medication looked like?”

“They were pills. Red pills. And they … they had these little waves on them. I thought they should be blue, not red, ‘coz of the waves on them. If they were blue, they would look like an ocean. I don’t think it was one of the smart people who made them red.”

Fuck! Red pills. With a wave.

Ripple.

If Lark’s Alphas were involved in the ripple trade and were experimenting on their own Pack, the situation was even more dangerous than we’d imagined.

I smiled gently at Lark. “No, I don’t think it was one of the smart people either.”

“My mom, she didn’t want to but, Gabrielle and Artie said it was for the good of the Pack. That it would help us all be stronger. Dad told her they had to obey.”

“So they took them?”

She nodded. “It was only supposed to be one pill a day, but soon they were taking three or four.”

I shot a glance at Ryan. His jaw was tight. He knew, like I did, what that amount of ripple would do to a Shifter.

“What happened after they took them?” I asked gently.

Lark scowled. “They … changed. They stopped being my mom and dad. They didn’t want anything to do with me. They didn’t want to teach me reading or math. They didn’t want to play. They stopped shopping and wouldn’t make me food. I don’t know what I did to make them hate me. All they wanted was more pills.”

Her lips trembled as tears pooled in her eyes. She was trying hard to keep them in.

I reached out and took her hand. She didn’t pull away. “You did nothing wrong, Lark. They didn’t hate you. They loved you. It was the pills. They made them into different people, but it had nothing to do with you, I promise.”

Tears spilled out of her eyes and streamed down her face. She pulled the end of her sleeve over her free hand and used it to angrily swipe away the tears.

“Lark, is that how they died? They stopped eating?”

She shook her head. She wiped at her face again. “My mom, dad … they were saying things. Things about not being bound to the Pack anymore … about their bonds being impure.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maxwell frown.

“The Alphas … they came to our house.” Lark’s voice trembled now. “They talked to my parents, told them to stop taking the pills. But my parents … they refused. Said they needed the pills. That it was the only thing that made them feel right. Then the Alphas went outside and …”

Lark hesitated, defiance and fear dancing behind her eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They made a phone call. I … I snuck out and heard Artie on the phone. The other person … they told Artie to get rid of anyone who had taken the pills.”

They were cleaning up their mess … eradicating anyone who’d taken ripple. Alphas were supposed to protect their Pack, not use them as guinea pigs.

Lark’s eyes darted toward the nearest window. “He went back inside, and Dad started shouting. I … got scared. So I ran. I didn’t know where I was going; I just wanted to get away.”

“You did the right thing,” I said. “You were smart. That’s how you survived.”

She looked up, not quite meeting my gaze but keeping her teary eyes fixed on my nose. “But I left them. I heard their screams. I left them to … to die.”

“No, sweetheart. There was nothing you could have done. If you had stayed, you wouldn’t be here with us. Your parents, the ones they were before they took the pills, they would be so proud of you. You got yourself safe, and that was the most important thing you could have done.”

Lark sniffed. “I ran into the forest. My wolf wanted out, so I let her. I Shifted. We knew they would come looking. That they could track me through the Pack bonds. So we went over the boundaries, the ones my dad told me never to cross.”

“You did the right thing,” I repeated. I didn’t want her to feel guilty about any of this. “How far did you get?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “After a while, I found a road. I was so tired … I didn’t care where it took me. I just … I wanted to be somewhere safe where they couldn’t track me. I thought maybe the smell from the cars would confuse them.”

Smart kid.

“That’s when Ronnie found me. He … nearly ran me over with his bike. I was scared, but I was too tired to run anymore. He picked me up, put me in Tito’s side-car with a blanket, and took me to his place.”

“Tito?” I asked Maxwell.

“A patch holder. He’s a good guy. Been there since ever since I can remember.”

“Tito is nice. He and Ronnie, they brought me food and kept me warm. I stayed as a wolf for a few days,” she continued, her words coming faster now. “I didn’t want to Shift back. But when no one came looking for me, I thought …”

“You thought you were safe?”

She nodded. “When I Shifted back, Ronnie asked me about what happened. I told him. He knew my Alphas. Said he would take care of it and that I could stay with him as long as I wanted. He said he could take me to a new Pack, to be with my kind. But I don’t want to. I want to stay with Ronnie. He makes me safe. I didn’t get a choice in what my parents did or their dying. I want a choice in this! I want to stay with Ronnie, and when I’m smart enough and big enough, I’m going to go back and kill them.”

I wanted to tell her that revenge was not the answer, but hadn’t I felt the same way after my parents died? I’d blamed Oliver, our old Alpha, and his schemes for getting my parents killed, and I’d hated him for it. Hell, it had started my brother, Jem, on his path to challenging Oliver and taking over the Pack.

Lark had felt safe, happy, with her parents and her Pack. Then her Alphas had forced ripple on her mom and dad, and she’d watched them change almost overnight into drug addicts and then heard her Alphas, the ones supposed to protect her, kill them. She’d had no control over what had happened. She either accepted it, accepted she was powerless, or she bided her time and plotted her revenge. At least that way, she would feel she had some agency over her life. That she could get justice for what had happened. Her anger was fueling her right now, helping her get through this. I wasn’t going to take that away from her.

Where had her Pack even gotten ripple from? Who ordered Artie to cover his tracks? If Gabrielle and Artie were involved in this drug, it was likely they had contact with witches, too. What the hell were we facing? Because, face it, we would. There was no way we were giving up Lark now.

I locked eyes with Ryan. “They’ll need to get rid of anyone who knows the truth. They will come for her—“

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see Esme calling.

“Esme?”

“There are witches in Three Rivers, Mai! They’re coming!”