Chapter 22

Azlan

I stride straight upto those compound gates and it takes them several slow minutes to work out who I am and why the hell I'm here. I'm still dressed in my fucking suit. No cloak today.

"The enforcer!" someone yells. And then all hell breaks loose, magic shooting in all directions. I deflect and batter it away, not even breaking stride as I blow the compound gates clean away, and walk straight through into the heart of the Wolves of Night's lair.

I'm angry. I've never been so angry and it's hot and scalding and raw in my veins; my magic feeling stronger, more deadly than it ever did before.

Several men rush at me at once but I send them all scattering like dominoes and I keep walking, aware of Winnie and Stone deflecting and firing magic behind me.

I swing my gaze around. Where is she?

I grab the next fucker who comes for me by the scruff of his neck, and lift him clean off his feet.

"Where is she? Where's the girl?"

He looks at me with utter confusion.

"Girl?" he repeats. "There is no girl."

He's lying. She has to be here somewhere.

"Where's Barone? Where's Renzo Barone?"

"Barone?" He looks just as confused. "Missing. He hasn't been seen in days."

"And where was he last seen?" I yell at him as magic whistles right above our heads, making the hair on his head swoosh backwards. Another follows on its heels, narrowly missing the man's ear.

He gulps and attempts to struggle free.

"I asked you a question," I say, shaking him so hard his bones rattle.

"At the attack. At the attack on the academy."

So he was there. We were right.

"And where is he now? Where did he take her?"

"Who?" he says, looking utterly confused.

I throw him to the floor and he hits it so hard, he's knocked unconscious.

I survey the rest of the men. Scraps and scrabblers. This isn't the heart of the Wolves of Night. These are the remains.

"Who's in charge?" I yell out, sweeping my arms around and disabling all the magic in the fingertips of the few magicals lurking among the gang members.

It's easy, like whipping candy from a baby, my magic so much stronger, it's laughable.

Desperate looks flitter among the gaggle of men – chickens with their heads cut off. Without their leader they don't know what they're doing.

I turn to Stone and Winnie.

"We need to search this place. We need to be certain she's not here."

"Azlan," Phoenix says, taking a hold of my arms. "I can read these men's minds."

Right, mind reading. I'm a fucking fool. "And?"

He shakes his head, pain in his eyes. "She's not here. Barone's not here either. They haven't been here at all." He lowers his voice to a whisper. "Barone hasn't been seen nor heard from since the attack on the academy."

"You think he's dead?" I ask him, watching the desperate men.

Phoenix shrugs. "No. I still think Barone has her."

"Then what are you fucking standing there for, Phoenix," I snap. "Read one of these fucker's minds and work out where he's taken her."

Phoenix gives me a look that says he'd like to strangle me, but answers my demand calmly. "You think I haven't done that already? Not one of these men here knows a thing about the assassin, other than he's off his fucking rocker."

I groan, and scrub my hand against my eyes. It makes sense. The assassin has always operated as a lone wolf. No friends, no family, no associates. It's one of the many reasons it's been so hard to track him down.

"It's okay," my friend says. "We'll find her."

But I'm not so sure, a sense of desperation grips me around the throat and I struggle to breathe. Every time I attempt to reach her, I fail. She's too damn far away and not knowing – not knowing she's safe is like torture.

I stomp back the way we came, halfway through the broken gateway, when Stone calls out to me.

"Azlan, wait!"

"What?" I call back. I can't bear it. Can't bear the possibility, the suspense.

He doesn't answer me and I peer over my shoulder to find Stone towering over a kneeling man, Winnie hovering at his shoulder.

"Something about a girl," Stone says, eyes fixed on the quaking man. "I saw something in your mind about a girl. Tell me or I'll force it out." He grins. "Probably taking most of your senses with me. Do you fancy being a quivering, mumbling wreck for the rest of your life?"

The man stares up at him, confusion on his face.

"If you're looking for her, you already know."

"Know what?" Phoenix says as I storm towards them.

The man eyes me nervously. "Haven't you heard? There's a new bounty on that girl's head. That's the one you're looking for, right? The one that killed Lowsky's brother. They want her captured and brought in alive."

Phoenix glances at me. His face is as stone-like as his name but I read the concern in his eyes.

"Who?" I grunt. "Who's offering the reward? The," I cringe, "Lord Protector?"

"I hear there's more than one offering such a reward."

"Who else?" Stone asks.

"I don't know. It's just a rumor I heard from some of the other men. I don't even know if it's true."

Stone stares straight into the kneeling man's eyes and I know he's checking to see if the man is lying or not.

"Where are those men now?"

"No idea. They left."

"Why?"

"Probably out searching for the girl too."

"What … what reward are they offering for her capture?" Winnie asks from behind me.

The man mutters a figure.

Winnie gasps and that concern in Phoenix's eyes turns to alarm.

We're not the only ones who are going to be out looking for her and that reward is a very strong incentive for all the lowlifes and scumbags out there. Our urgency to find her just racked up tenfold.

"Why the fuckhasn't she tried to contact us?" I say with irritation as we make our way back to the hidden car, taking a round about route through the trees, even though the members of the Wolves of Night seem to possess no desire to attack or engage us. In fact, they seem mighty happy to let us leave.

"The communication lines have been down," Phoenix points out.

"They're back up now," I say gruffly.

"Yes," Phoenix says patiently as if talking to a particularly obtuse child, "but she could be dealing with two situations. She may have realized that there are people out hunting for her, in which case getting on the end of her cell and broadcasting to the world her location would be stupid. Who knows who might be tracking her phone." He looks at me pointedly, reminding me that, yeah, I'd done exactly that myself. "Or," he swallows, his face distorting, "she's being held captive and has no way of getting to a communication device."

"She could still try to reach us through the bond," I say sulkily, kicking at the dead leaves on the ground.

It's damn cold out here in the wastelands, and my toes and fingers are frozen stiff.

"Azlan," Stone says, this time with a little more frustration. "You can feel how great the distance is. For all we know she may be trying to reach us, like we've been trying to reach her, and failing."

"Those men hadn't seen her or Renzo," Winnie says, from my other side. She's been silent since we left, obviously mulling things over. "If he's handed her in, collected the reward, wouldn't we have heard? Wouldn't those men have heard?"

"We don't even know who is looking for her," Phoenix points out.

"My uncle – my uncle will be looking for her," I say with certainty. The man is shrewd. He'll have figured things out by now and he'll be keen to investigate the girl and her capabilities, her powers. He'll want to know if she's a threat or something he can use to his own advantage.

"Christopher Kennedy?" Winnie asks.

"The Lord fucking Protector himself," I say with disgust.

"If he had her, Tristan would know and he would have let us know."

"Tristan can't be trusted," I say.

Winnie considers this for a moment. "I think he can be. I think he wouldn't want Rhi to fall into his father's hands."

"You didn't see how lovesick the guy was acting these last few weeks, Az. I think Winnie is right."

I'm not so sure but I listen as Winnie continues thinking aloud.

"So if Barone hasn't handed her in–"

"He's probably torturing her somewhere," I snap.

"No, I think St … Professor Stone may be right. I think she could be on the run, hiding from those who are chasing her."

"Miss Wence," my friend says with a genuine smile. "While I'm honored with the level of respect you continue to show me, I think it time we dispense with the formalities, you may call me Stone. Or perhaps you'd prefer the nickname you and Rhianna devised for me?"

Winnie's cheeks pinken in the cold.

"What was it?" I say.

"Where would she go?" Winnie asks, clearly changing the subject. "If she were on the run, where would she go?"

We're quiet again as we consider this, the frozen leaves crunching beneath our boots.

"The only place she knew other than the academy was her home," Phoenix says.

"She wouldn't be stupid enough to return there," I say. "It would be too dangerous. Too many people know it was her home."

"Didn't she already go back there once?" Phoenix points out. "Even with an assassin on her tail."

"She had her reasons," Winnie says in her friend's defense, "and we dealt with said assassin, thank you very much." Winnie glares at us both. "I think we should go back there."

"I'm telling you, it's too dangerous. And she won't be there."

"And I'm telling you, it's the only potential lead we have. And even if Rhi isn't there, there might be other clues – hints of other places she knows, people she may have gone to for help."

"There are no such people," Phoenix says. "She was all alone."

We walk on. The forest is quiet. The ground hard. The air turning more and more frigid.

All alone. She was all alone. I've spent much of my adult life alone, hunting, chasing, pursuing. It's been a lonely job but I've always had Phoenix and Ellie to come back to. I've never been properly alone in the world. I can't imagine what that must have felt like, how she must have felt.

It makes the guilt for the way we treated her ten times worse.

Well, she's not alone anymore. She has us and we're going to find her.

"Okay," I say at last. "We'll go check out her house."