Chapter 24

Sophia Hope

The sight of Alex looming over me strikes fear in me for a second.

He couldn't have…

He puts his finger on his lips and shakes his head, a silent gesture for me not to speak. Crouching beside me, he picks up the phone and ends the call before releasing my mouth.

My heart is already crawling into my chest, my breathing short and uneven.

His voice is low when he finally speaks. "There are people watching the house, ready to make a move. What possessed you to turn on the kitchen light?"

I stare at him, my body feeling cold. "How are you here? Don't tell me it was you—"

He gives me an annoyed look. "Of course it wasn't me. I saw you out in the woods, and I followed you. You looked upset. And when you got here, I was going to stop you from coming inside because I could smell the blood from a mile away. I got distracted by the men outside."

"They killed Rita." My eyes well up again.

Alex puts his arm around me, pressing his lips to my temple. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you lost your friend, Sophia. But you can't stay here. I have a feeling this is a trap."

I look up at him, alarmed. "What do you mean?"

He glances toward the window, his expression grim. "They seem to be waiting for someone to arrive. Maybe you. They referred to a female; I overheard a little bit. We need to get going."

"She knew about the Silver Wolf." I look back at Rita's face. "That's why I came here. She said somebody knows, and the Silver Wolf isn't a myth. She's real. Rita wanted me to get here as fast as I could. She was very scared. I've never heard her sound so frightened."

Alex goes still. "Are you telling me she knew who the Silver Wolf is? Her identity?"

"That's what it sounded like. You think she was killed because of that?"

He looks around the study, his eyes sharp. "Somebody must have tapped her phone. Let's bring it with us. See if you can find anything else." He takes Rita's body from me and gently lowers the dead woman to the ground. Despite the urgency of the situation, Alex's voice is gentle when he asks, "Are you sure you're up for this?"

I nod my head in a jerky movement. Even when his entire pack's lives are on the line, Alex is sensitive to my feelings. He helps me to my feet and moves to the desk to start looking around. I pocket Rita's phone and search the rest of the room for clues about the identity of the Silver Wolf. Alex digs through the drawers and finds nothing. The same goes for me with the shelves at the other end of the room.

"There's a second cell phone in her bedroom." I suddenly remember. "It's black. She got a little defensive when I brought it up." Before Alex can say anything, I hurry to the door. "I'll go get it."

It's strange walking through this house knowing that Rita will never do so again. My throat chokes up, and I wipe my eyes. This is not the time to allow my grief to take over.

The bedroom door is closed, and when I open it, I see another ghastly sight.

A broken moan leaves my lips.

"Oh, Buster. Oh, no."

The faithful dog is long gone, gashes all over his body. He must've tried his best to defend his mistress. I don't know why, but Buster's death hits me even harder than Rita's.

I wish I could just harden my heart, do what has to be done, and leave, but I can't stop the tears from coming out. Bile churns in my stomach, and I stagger toward the poor creature.

"Not you, too."

My vision is blurry with tears as I look around. This room smells like Rita. Her scent is everywhere. My footsteps are heavy as I go to the bedside table drawer and take out the black phone. There are a few more bottles of the same potion that I drank the last time I was here. I don't know why, but I pocket them as well.

I turn to leave but stop in the doorway. I slowly walk over to Buster, crouch next to him, and stroke his head one last time, whispering, "Good boy. You were a very good dog."

My heart feels like it's going to burst as I head back to the study. Alex is standing by the window, peering outside.

"We have to leave. They're coming!"

He moves to the door, grabbing my wrist in the process to pull me with him. But as I pass the wastebasket, Rita's last words come back to me.

"Wait!"

Fortunately, Rita always lined her trash cans with plastic bags to make it easier for her to empty them. I scoop up the plastic bag, garbage and all, and take off at a run.

Alex hurries after me. "What are you doing?"

"Never mind. Let's go!"

He shifts as he rushes out the door. Lifting me with his teeth, he swings me onto his back. I don't know if somebody's chasing us, but Alex is moving so fast that I dig my hands into his fur and close my eyes, holding on for dear life.

The wind whips my cheeks as Alex takes us far away from Rita and her cottage. Burying my face in his fur, I let myself cry. My shoulders shake with fierce sobs.

Why would someone do this to her? She was harmless. She couldn't fight anymore. Even when Rita shifted into her animal form, she had to be supported by someone. A few months ago, I came across her in her wolf form, in her yard. She told me she missed running in the forest and feeling the wind on her face. The few times she had attempted to run with the pack had been spectacular failures. Nobody had been unkind to her for needing help; they had tried to support her, but her pride had stopped her from taking part again.

She didn't deserve to die like this.

I'm sure Buster tried his best to defend her. There were deep claw marks in his sides, and from the way he was lying in the bedroom, it was obvious somebody had tossed him in there. Neither Rita's nor Buster's last moments should have been like that, with them feeling helpless, unable to protect each other. I can't imagine what Rita must have felt as her faithful companion was killed in front of her.

My wolf is howling in misery within me. I cling to Alex, lost in the storm of emotions. We finally come to a stop, and Alex shifts back into his human form with me still on his back. He gently sets me down on the grass next to a stream. Taking my hands, he carefully washes the blood off them in the flowing water, not uttering a single word. My eyes are dry now, but I feel empty and numb.

He sits down across from me. "I'm sorry, Sophia."

"Yeah." My voice is tired. "So am I." He doesn't say anything further, letting me sort through my thoughts. After a couple of minutes, I sigh and look at him. "Did you find anything in the study?"

He appears hesitant to reply, but then he reaches into his pocket bringing out several small slips of paper dyed in a very particular color. "She was in communication with somebody. She was working for them."

I snatch the papers from him in disbelief. "What are you saying? Rita moved here for her retirement. She wasn't working."

But when I look at the papers, I recognize the style. People who work closely with the pack security and the Alpha communicate on pieces of parchment like the ones Alex found. I stare at them in disbelief. Why did Rita lie to me? Even if she was still working for the pack security, there was no reason to lie to me.

Unless she wanted to get close to me for some reason.

The thought comes to me unbidden. Now that I think about it, when Rita first came to town, I ran into her at the bar. My shift had just started, and she was sitting at the bar by herself. She struck up the most random conversation with me, and after a while she ended up buying a drink, and she spent quite a bit of time there before leaving. I later found out that she had been sitting there for hours even before I showed up. I never thought much about it, but what if there had been a reason for her to do that?

My tongue darts out to wet my lips nervously. What am I thinking? Why would Rita wait around just to get close to me? I'm not anyone important.

I look at the papers again. They have no dates on them. I read them out loud:

"No contact."

"First contact established."

"Trust exercises with subject."

"Started administering doses."

"Subject is compliant to doses. Trust has been established."

None of this makes sense to me. Who was Rita monitoring? What doses? I wonder if Elsa knew about this; the two of them were very close. Confused and alarmed now, I murmur, "What are these messages about?"

"She was a spy," Alex says thoughtfully. "Do you have any idea who she was spying on?"

I shake my head mutely.

"Did you find the other phone you were talking about?"

I take Rita's black cell phone out of my pocket and hand it over to Alex. He opens it and then curses. "It's one of those."

"One of those what?"

He grimaces as he fiddles with the phone. "Messages delete every twenty-four hours. It's a new technology out on the market. My own pack security uses it. It's also password-protected, and if you try the wrong password even once, all the phone's data is automatically deleted."

He closes the flip phone, looking irritated. "Well, this was a dead end."

"Here. Give it to me."

Alex's eyes narrow. "Don't try a random password. I just told you, if you put in the wrong one—"

"Rita used the same password for everything," I explain, looking at Alex. "I don't know if she was a spy or not, but even her bank password was the same as her email password. She never really adapted to technology. My gut says that she didn't take the security aspects of this phone very seriously."

I type in the name "Elmer," but before I can press enter, I can feel the tension emitting from Alex.

Becoming exasperated now, I say, "Even if the password is wrong, you said the messages would delete after twenty-four hours. Do you or your people know a way to hack into this phone?"

He lets out a gust of air. "These phones are not hackable. Maybe you're right. We've got nothing to lose."

I press enter, and almost instantly, the screen changes.

"I'm in."

Alex gives me a surprised look. Clearly, he hadn't expected it to work.

"Who's Elmer?"

"Rita's deceased husband. He died on the front lines."

I start to scroll through the phone. The inbox is empty aside from one message. There is no number or name indicating who sent it, but the message by itself is strange.

"If you try to double cross me, remember that I know what happened to Elmer. Give me the identity of that man. This isn't the time to let your morality shine. Of course, there are ways I can get what I want from you."

I hand the phone to Alex after reading the message aloud. "You were right. She was up to something here. And retirement wasn't it."

Alex is tapping buttons on the phone, and I look over his shoulder to see what he's doing. He opens a folder, and there's another message—one that I missed.

"You shouldn't have warned her."

Short and simple. But an ominous warning.

I feel sick to my stomach. "What was Rita involved in?"

Alex is silent as he searches the phone for other messages. Unfortunately, these two are the only ones we find.

"What number did she call you from tonight?" Alex asks me.

"Her house phone. She had a landline in her study. Why?"

"I have a feeling this second message is referring to you. What time did you get the call?"

"I remember it was almost exactly eleven o'clock," I reply slowly.

"This message probably came seconds later." Alex shows me the timestamp on the second message. "Her phones must be tapped. The first message arrives at ten thirty p.m. tonight. She calls you half an hour later. Then the second message arrives. Right after she convinces you to come to her house."

"She died because of me?" The realization has me trembling in both shock and grief. "This was my fault?"

"Don't be so quick to divert the blame onto yourself," Alex says, trying to comfort me. "Whatever she was involved in was dangerous, and she knew what she was doing wasn't right. The first message basically told her to ignore her morals. What I want to know is why she called you. What exactly did she say?"

I close my eyes as I try to recall our conversation. "She sounded frightened. And she told me that there were some things I didn't know. She also said that she had lied about the Silver Wolf. You see, we ran into each other in town this afternoon, and I mentioned—No…" I correct myself as I remember the last time I saw Rita alive. "I had written down the information you and I had found about the Silver Wolf on a piece of paper. It slipped out of my bag, and Rita saw it. She wanted to know why I was looking into the Silver Wolf, and then she referred to her as a legend. Rita got really agitated about it."

"This was when you ran into her in town?" Alex questions me, his voice sharp.

I nod. "She seemed upset that I had any information about the Silver Wolf. But later, on the phone, she kept saying that everybody was lying to me and that everything was a lie. Then she mentioned somebody. A male. She didn't tell me his name, but she said that he ‘knew' and that she didn't mean to tell him. It was almost like she was apologizing. I tried to get her to explain who she was talking about, but she just kept telling me to come see her and to come through the woods. She said she didn't have much time."

I say all this in a rush, without even catching my breath. Alex finally stops me. "Breathe. Take your time. What did she say about the Silver Wolf?"

I take a trembling breath and let it out slowly. "She said the Silver Wolf is real. She said she had lied about her. I think she knew the identity of the Silver Wolf, and she wanted to tell me."

Alex presses his lips together, his expression cool. "Somebody wanted to shut her up. Somebody else is also looking for the Silver Wolf."

"I don't think that's it." I go over Rita's words in my head, trying to analyze them. "I think Rita came to this town to look for the Silver Wolf, and she managed to uncover her identity. It would make sense that you're not the only one looking for the Silver Wolf, but I have a feeling she wasn't talking about the wolf when she said, ‘he knows' and that she ‘didn't mean to tell him.' I think it was something else."

Alex studies me. "Like what?"

"I don't know." I shake my head, trying to figure this all out. "But one thing I am sure of is that anyone listening in wouldn't have thought I knew the Silver Wolf's identity. Because on our call, Rita only told me that the wolf is real. She never mentioned her name."

"And her attacker probably killed her to keep her silent," Alex says grimly, finishing my train of thought. "He knew she was going to tell you."

I stare at the burner phone, an itch in my brain. "But in the first text message, it says, ‘ Give me the identity of that man.' The sender wanted to know who a certain man is." I look at Alex with wide eyes. "You don't think the Silver Wolf could be male, do you?"

"No!" Alex responds instantly. "Everything we've managed to uncover about the Silver Wolf points to it being a female."

"Then, who was the sender of that message referring to?" I ask quietly.

"I don't have an answer for that, but I will tell you that when I saw the front of the cottage, there were several people lying in wait. The smell of Rita's blood would have reached them like it did me, so they knew what had taken place inside. I don't know why you didn't smell it. But I have a feeling they were waiting for you to show up. Either because they wanted to pin the murder on you or they wanted to capture and kill you."

I swallow. I did smell the blood; I just didn't pay attention to it. I was so single-mindedly focused on getting to Rita's that I just pushed it to the back of my mind. "Did you recognize any of them?"

Alex's expression hardens. "One. He's a member of your pack security team. The others were concealed in the darkness. I could only make out their silhouettes."

The pack security team? Alex's words shock me. But should they really? Aside from Drew, all of them have always been incredibly self-serving individuals. They're not exactly well-liked among the townspeople. And since Alpha Black doesn't visit Oakrest, their chances of promotions within the pack hierarchy are nonexistent.

"Maybe one of the pack security team members is a spy, like Rita." I try to push down my fear and focus on the situation at hand. "Maybe he's working for the person who killed Rita."

"It could be," Alex agrees. "But I'm now worried about your safety. The murderer knows who you are. This could very well have been a trap, planted for you, so that he could get two birds with one stone." Alex gets to his feet, his voice turning tense. "You need to get back home. Now."

"What? Why?" I take his hand when he offers it.

"If a member of your pack security team is involved," Alex says darkly, pulling me up, "they already know that you were in Rita's cottage at some point. If they alert the pack security and mention seeing you there, somebody's bound to pay you a visit. And if you're not in your apartment when they get there, things will not look good for you. So, we have to get you home."

The urgency of the situation dawns on me. Alex is right. If there is a traitor on the security team, he's in an ideal position to implicate me in this murder.

It's as if Alex can read my thoughts because his hand tightens around mine, grim determination in his eyes. "We won't give them the chance."

*** **

My house is a thirty-minute walk from where we stopped to talk. But riding on the back of an Alpha, I reach my building in half the time. One problem remains: how I'm going to get inside. The two men lingering near the back entrance are still there. Only this time, they're on their phones.

"…hasn't left…No, we'll wait. They should be here soon."

I look at Alex, alarmed, and he whispers, "They must have arrived—"

"No, these guys were here when I left. My place was being watched."

Alex's expression turns even darker, if that is possible.

We can't use either the front or the back entrance, so we have to go in the same way I left. If I thought the window in the neighboring building was a tight squeeze for me, it's going to be an even tighter one for Alex's broad shoulders. But for some reason, he's intent on coming with me.

"You should just go!" I hiss at him.

"Fat fucking chance," he growls. "If they plan to attack you in your home, I'm not letting that happen."

"And what if you end up revealing your presence?" I demand, frustrated by his stubbornness. "You need to get out of here!"

However, Alex refuses to listen to me and forces his body through the tiny window. We don't have time to argue, so I have no choice but to let him come with me. On the way up the steps of my building, I sniff my clothes. I can still smell traces of Rita's blood. If the pack security team decides to stop by right now, and they smell it, I'll be in a lot of trouble. After rushing up the steps, I quickly lock the door behind me and Alex, then run to the bathroom, stripping off my clothes on the way.

Alex doesn't question my behavior. I step into the shower and wash off all traces of my presence in the cottage. I didn't remember to bring a change of clothes into the bathroom with me, but when I finish drying off a few minutes later, I notice a set of pajamas waiting for me by the sink. I glance at the door. Alex must've looked for something for me to wear.

Feeling oddly touched, I put on the clothes, and when I open the door, I can hear the sounds of a game show playing on the television. I can also smell roasted chicken.

"What are you doing?" I walk into the living room, wrapping my hair in a towel.

Alex is standing next to the window, peering outside.

"You have three people stationed in front of your building. Do you have any idea why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." I sit down heavily on the couch. The chicken smells amazing, but I have no appetite. "I can't seem to understand a lot of the things that have been happening recently."

"When Rita called you, did you leave immediately?"

Alex's question elicits a curious look from me. "Yeah. I had to put the chicken back in the fridge, but then I left."

"And these people outside, were they there?"

I nod, wondering what he's getting at.

"They may not be here because of the attack, then," Alex murmurs, deep in thought. "There could be another reason you're being watched. But—" His voice cuts off, and he jerks away from the window. "They're moving." Grabbing the television remote, he cranks up the volume. He takes the roasted chicken, breaks off chunks of it, and puts some of it on an empty plate, which he picks up from the coffee table and shoves at me. "Get your hands all messy with this. Now."

"What?" I give him a bewildered look.

"Just trust me," he says urgently.

I am about to do what he said, already understanding where he's coming from, but then I stop, a thought striking me.

"Wait." I run to the bedroom and look through my dressing table for the face masks that I bought once and never bothered to use. I quickly put one on, then hurry back to the couch.

Alex gives me a wide-eyed look. "What is that? Why do you have paper on your face?"

I give him a sly smile. "It's your turn to trust me. Hand over the chicken."

Using my right hand, I handle the chicken roughly until my fingers looks stained, as if I've been eating with them.

"You hide in the bedroom," I instruct Alex. "I've got this. It's not my first time trying to avoid getting in trouble."

He shoots me a wary glance, but he heads toward the bedroom. Moments later, there's a loud rapping on my door.

I pause for a moment; then, I take a deep breath before calling out, "I'm coming!"

I don't bring my plate with me, but with my hair in a towel, a face mask on, and one hand stained with the juices of roasted chicken, one could easily assume I've been home for quite a while.

I open the door and come face to face with two members of the pack security team.