Chapter Nineteen

~ Vanya ~

I stared at the green shard of meteor sitting on a white cloth on Remy"s hand with a growing sense of panic. "You didn"t touch it with your hand, did you?"

"I"m not that stupid."

"Where did you find this?"

"Yeri and I were upstream above the hot springs. There was a cave up there we wanted to investigate as a possible bug-out spot. I found this inside it."

I glanced up at Remy. "Inside?"

Remy nodded.

"Then it"s probably not part of the meteor."

"Yeah, see, that"s what I thought, too, but there are more of them inside the cave and on the ground outside."

"Can you show me?"

Remy blinked at me. "Okay."

I did two things before I headed for the front door of the cabin. I grabbed my work gloves and a duffle bag. I didn"t want to touch whatever those shiny green stone things were and I didn"t want anyone else to touch them either.

"Give me your piece."

Remy blinked at me again. "Huh?"

I opened the duffle bag. "Put it in here, but make sure none of it touches your skin." That"s how we ended up in this situation in the first place.

Remy carefully dropped the green stone into the duffle bag, along with the white cloth, and then rubbed his hands together.

"Now," I directed, "take me to these caves."

We had only been back at camp for a week, but finding a safe place to hide if anyone ever came up here looking for us had been deemed a number one priority. Fixing up the cabins was number two. The cold season might be a couple of months off, but waiting until the last second to be prepared was just stupid.

Since Remy and Yeri knew nothing about construction, they had been sent out to search while the rest of us stayed behind to update the cabins and get them ready for winter.

We hurried outside, but instead of taking off to go cave exploring, I was stopped by the appearance of Charlie and Cindy standing in camp. Charlie had elected to stay behind at the university so I had to wonder why he was suddenly here.

"Hey, guys," I said as casually as I could manage, "we weren"t expecting to see you two here."

"Hey." Charlie waved.

Cindy didn"t seem to be saying much, but she did wave.

"We brought some news," Charlie said. "Brad"s father showed up at the hospital where they were holding Brad and tried to get him released."

I chuckled when Remy rolled his eyes.

"We figured that might happen."

"Yeah, well," Charlie continued, "when his father went to talk to him, Brad attacked him. He almost killed the guy. They had to send Brad"s father to the emergency room due to his injuries."

I was pretty sure the chill that just ran through my body was my blood going cold. "Was Brad...?"

Charlie shook his head. "No, security got to him in time and the doctors there shot him up with tranquilizers. After all the shit he was spouting about wolf shifters and shit, they decided to lock him up for good. Since his father washed his hands of Brad after he got out of the hospital, it"s likely that he won"t be getting out."

"But, still..." If they tested his blood, there was no telling what might happen.

"Funny thing about that." Charlie rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced down at Cindy. "Seems the only thing in his system was some street level psychedelic drugs, which explains the hallucinations."

I was surprised when Remy"s eyes narrowed.

"Cindy, doesn"t your sister work at the hospital?" Remy asked.

"You know she does," Cindy replied.

I wasn"t sure where this was going, but I was curious. "Is that how you got your information?"

Cindy crossed her arms, his chin jutting out. "You know she can"t give our patient information. It"s against the law and unethical."

"Margot told us," Charlie said. "Apparently, she was there to see the whole thing."

"Is she going to be a problem?" I asked.

"No, she"s totally convinced Brad is off his rocker. Right now, she is trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life and how to hide the fact that the guy she was shagging is a loon."

"Is she really pregnant?" Remy asked.

I stilled, having forgotten that part.

Charlie nodded. "She is, but she"s like three months pregnant."

That was a huge relief. That meant she had gotten pregnant before we all transformed. "We should still probably keep an eye on her just in case."

"Levi said he would," Charlie said before glancing at Cindy and then to me and Remy. "We were kind of hoping you"d let us stay up here."

My eyebrows lifted. "Both of you?"

"Cindy knows, man," Charlie said.

My eyes snapped to the woman.

She shrugged as if that earth shattering news was no big deal. "I saw you all shift into wolves while we were still up here camping."

"And you didn"t say anything?" I asked.

"It"s not like that is something easy to bring up in conversation," she insisted in a sarcastic tone. "Hey, here"s a beer, and by the way, do you need flea powder? I mean, how do you work that into a conversation?"

She had a point.

"You know you can"t tell anyone, right?" I had to be sure. "If people learned of this, they"d come for us."

"I"m not going to tell anyone." Cindy glanced at Charlie. "I can"t."

My eyebrows shot back up when I saw the smile that came to Charlie"s face. "You two are...uh..."

Charlie"s smile grew into a grin. "We are."

A soft flush turned Cindy"s cheeks rosy.

It was cute.

"And you both want to stay?"

"Being back in town is hard, man," Charlie said. "The smells alone were driving me insane. I constantly felt like people were watching me, just waiting for me to fuzz out."

That was disheartening.

"Really watching you or..."

"No, not really. Like, I don"t think people suspected I could shift or anything like that, but the feeling I got being around all of them was almost claustrophobic. I just couldn"t stand it anymore. I told Cindy I was headed up here and she asked if she could come along."

"Did you two take the term off?" Remy asked.

They both nodded.

"We figured that would be the best idea," Cindy said. "My parents weren"t real thrilled with it until they learned I was going off with Charlie so we could get to know each other better."

Charlie snickered. "When her mom found out I was in med school, I thought she was going to try and get us married right there and then."

"Did you bring your stuff?" I asked.

"Yeah," Charlie replied before gesturing over his shoulder. "All of our stuff is back in the car. We wanted to make sure we could stay before packing it up here."

I glanced at Remy. When he nodded, I said, "Okay, you can stay. You know where your cabin is. Hudson has an ATV with a small trailer. He can go down with one of you, help you hide your car, and then pack your stuff back up here."

Remy"s money had really come in handy and made bringing stuff up to the campground a little easier. It still took about an hour to get back to the vehicles, but there were a whole lot less trips.

"Remy and I have something we need to go do so we"ll see you all when we get back," I continued. "Hudson, maybe you and Yeri can fill Charlie and Cindy in on what we"ve been doing to the cabins to get prepared for winter. They are going to need to get started on their cabin."

Hudson gave a single nod. "I"ll take care of it."

"Hudson is in charge until I get back."

I didn"t wait for anyone to argue with me. I grabbed Remy"s arm and started leading him away from the campground and toward the hot springs.

"Why did you say Hudson is in charge?" Remy asked.

"Reflex, I guess. Hudson was my second-in-command on our recon unit. When I wasn"t around, he was in charge. In dangerous situations like that, there always needs to be a clear line of command."

"So, if you"re the alpha and Hudson is your beta in this command structure, what does that make me? And if you say omega, I might have to hurt you."

I chuckled as I grabbed Remy and pulled him in for a quick hug. "You can be co-alpha."

"You know that they have a name for that, right?"

"Oh?"

"It"s called alpha mate."

Alpha mate?

I kind of liked that.

"Then you can be my alpha mate."

Remy wagged his eyebrows at me. "That sounds fun."

Yeah, it kind of did.

"So, where is this cave you found?" I asked when we reached the hot springs.

"Just up here," Remy replied. "I"m surprised you and Yeri never found it when you were camping up here."

I kind of was, too. Yeri and I had been over almost every inch of these woods growing up, but apparently we had missed something. As kids, we would have been stoked to find a cave.

We walked past the hot springs for about five minutes until we came to a sheer rock wall that looked as if it went over three stories, and this was where Remy stopped.

I grimaced as I glanced up. "We have to climb up there?"

I wasn"t afraid of heights, but climbing something like this was not something I was prepared for. If I had known, I would have brought climbing equipment at the very least.

"No, it"s over here."

I turned to see Remy walking away from the cliff face toward a large pile of rocks the size of cars. They were piled high just down the hill from where I was standing. He walked right between them and then disappeared from sight.

My heart lurched. "Remy?"

I hurried after him, but I had to turn sideways to get through the narrow passage between the rocks. Remy was waiting for me in a small circle of rocks and brush.

"Don"t do that!"

"Do what?" Remy asked.

"Don"t disappear like that." I swear my heart had climbed into my throat. "Stay where I can see you."

Remy blinked at me. "Okay, Vanya."

I was a little embarrassed about how quickly I had freaked out, but the thought of anyone hurting Remy gutted me.

"Show me what you found."

"Oh." Remy spun and pointed to the ground. "These are the ones I found outside the cave."

There weren"t many of the shiny green stone like objects, only about ten, but that was more than enough. I set the duffle bag on the ground and pulled out my gloves. After pulling them on, I carefully picked up each piece and placed them in the duffle bag.

"Why are we collecting these things?"

"Because I think they are part of the meteor that exploded that night. I don"t want anyone else to touch them." It was better to gather them all up and hide them away. "If you come across more, I don"t want you to touch them. Just let me know and I"ll come collect them."

"I am a big boy, Vanya. I hope you realize that."

"I know that," I replied quickly. "I just don"t want anything happening to you. We already know what that meteor did to us. I don"t know what another exposure could do."

"Fine," Remy huffed, but I didn"t really think he was angry with me. "The cave is over here through the bushes."

I zipped the duffle bag closed before following Remy into the darkened interior of the cave he had found. I wasn"t too worried about being able to see inside the cave since my eyesight had improved.

The opening wasn"t that big. I had to duck down to get through. While I could stand up once I got inside, a quick sweep of the interior showed that after a few feet the entrance area we were standing in opened up into a much larger part of the cave.

There was a lot of rock on the ground at the entrance of the cave, but further in it all turned to sand. I glanced slowly from side to side and up and down. At this point, I wasn"t even looking for more of the green rocks, I was just looking.

It was a rather large room. The walls were clearly all rock, but I couldn"t tell if this place had been carved out by man or if it was a natural formation.

"This place is amazing."

"Right?" Remy bounced a little bit in front of me. "I figure if we can get some supplies in here, we could hole up in here for several days without even having to leave."

"We"d need water, baby."

"That"s the best part." Pure excitement laced Remy"s voice. "Come with me."

I hadn"t realized that the cave went even further back until Remy dragged me there. Underground like this, I wasn"t sure of our direction, but it felt as if we were moving under the cliff the farther inside the cave we walked.

"You came all the way back here?"

"Yeri and I both did."

I was not thrilled with that.

I noticed a lot of smaller caves off the larger one, making little rooms almost. When we had more time, we needed to come back and explore all of them and make sure we found any remaining green stones.

"This is what I wanted to show you," Remy said as we turned corner. I expected it to be dark, but it wasn"t. It wasn"t as bright as outside, but I could see this entire section of the cave, and I was stunned.

"It"s like a grotto in here." I"d describe it if I could, but it just wasn"t possible. There was so much green surrounding the entire area—plants and moss and even a few small trees—with a large pool of crystal clear water right in the middle.

"I think it"s some sort of luminescence."

"Huh?" I glanced at Remy "What?"

"The light." Remy pointed to the ceiling. "I think it"s some sort of luminescent moss or something."

Considering green moss covered a large portion of the walls and ceiling, that made sense.

"I can"t believe a place like this is here and we never found it."

"Do you think we can use it?" Remy asked.

"Yeah." We"d be stupid not to. "We"ll need to explore the rest of it, but yeah. It looks like this place would be perfect for a bug-out spot."

"You want to look around a little more or head back?"

We really needed to come back when we had more time to get a better look at the place, but a little exploring wouldn"t hurt.

I grinned. "Let"swalk around ."