Epilogue
Darrin
I stare at her house .
It’s unfair that she’s done this. Cruel. Unforgiving. Angela Cross is my burden to bear, but I don’t want. The others will suspect I’m flying off to hunt her down, but my method of locating this human is different.
Nobody knows Angela like I do.
Why does a human live among the dragons? She has no real talent: no reasonable skills. She’s just here, around. She’s always hanging around, and she always has been. I don’t think people even really remember when Angela came to Thunderstorm, but I remember.
“What have you done, Angie?” I whisper, stepping into her home. The door is unlocked. She doesn’t even have a deadbolt. Angela has always been way too trusting, too kind. I love this about her, and I hate this about her.
The house is small. It’s a single-story, one bedroom home. Her living room is spotless, but her bedroom is a mess. Her bed isn’t made. She’s got a dresser in the corner with open drawers. Clothing hangs from each drawer. There’s also a pile on the floor.
“No computer,” I say out loud. She packed. Wherever she went, she was prepared. Angela knew she wasn’t coming back.
Or did she?
I reach the side of her bed and stare at the nightstand. There’s a picture there of the two of us. It’s a photo I haven’t seen in years, and it’s all I can do to keep from tearing up when I lift it. Young Darrin and Young Angela stare back at me. My arm is slung over her shoulder in the photo, and she’s got this big, toothless grin.
When she came to the clan, I’d never met anyone like her. I didn’t know any humans. All I knew was that her parents had died, and she’d been sent to live with her Aunt Mary, who happened to be a shifter in our clan. Angela’s parents, a shifter couple in Rawr County, had adopted her as an infant. They’d been promised a shifter child, but she’d been human. They’d loved her anyway, and so had Mary.
Angela and I spent so many hours together as kids exploring the woods surrounding Thunderstorm that the thought of her betrayal hits me even harder.
“Why?” I whisper as I stare at the picture. I don’t take any more time to look, though. Instead, I leave. I walk away from her house without turning back, and I head directly for the edge of Thunderstorm. I leap over the newly-erected walls that failed to keep us safe, and I run through the forest until I reach the waterfall where I kissed her for the first time.
It feels like it was ages ago.
It was a lifetime ago.
Quietly, I make my way to the waterfall. There’s a small space where I can wiggle just behind the drape of water flowing down. No one knows about the secret cave back here. No one but me and Angela, anyway.
She’s not here, but she’s been here. There’s a small backpack in the corner, as well as a flashlight. Angela is a human, so she can’t see very well in the darkness. Not like shifters.
“Where did you go?” I whisper. Anger pulses through my veins. I’m missing something, but I don’t know what it is. I should be able to hunt her, to find her, but before I can finish exploring the cave, I hear a noise.
I turn around, and my jaw drops.
This changes everything.
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T HE STORY CONTINUES in The Thunderstorm Clan, Book 1.