Chapter 24: Chapter 24

“Caden, take Ash to the principal and ask for his information to be altered such that it’s right and if there is any opposition, feel free to use my name. He is under my protection. Is that clear?” Cole said.

“Yes, crystal clear, since he hasn’t killed anyone yet, he is still innocent,” Caden pointed out before leading Ash away from them.

“So who are you going to take to the dance at the end of the festival?” Jason asked me.

“I haven’t decided yet... and what do you mean by ‘end of the festival,’?”

“Oh, you didn’t know. The festival lasts a whole day. Students from different classes present projects and really important people attend the festival. If something is flashy enough, someone can get themselves a scholarship. It’s one of the biggest events in the school, no, the city. Security is also tough on that day as hunters from the hunters’ agency are hired to patrol the school and keep civilians out of trouble,” he explained. ‘Why would Katie miss an event such as that one?’ the thought echoed through Cole’s mind as they walked into the school. The bell rang for the start of the first lesson as they got in.

................

Katie got home to get what it was that she would need at school. That included a bag of her books. Katie’s parents did not ask many questions about where she had been considering there had been an attack the day before and instead gave her a new full bottle of pills. “Keep these on your person at all times,” Uncle Tom said to her.

.....

“I can’t do that. They are known now, the rogue that was put into a Prometheus evaluation. He passed it,” her aunt gasped, covering her mouth. It was almost unheard of for a rogue to pass that test and this was big news.

“That must be a special wolf indeed. Or maybe... No, it’s normal for a rogue to pass that test as long as they are determined to escape that life. Something must have inspired him to turn away from that life of darkness. He’s lucky,” Aunt Marie said.

Katie went to the kitchen and prepared a quick breakfast, her guardians following her expectantly, “So are you going to tell us what happened?”

“There was a lot of death in the air and the fact that the rogues that attacked us were all kids below eighteen years old. They were using the same pills that I have to conceal their presence in the school and pass for humans. They were spies for the rogue king. I wasn’t able to find out exactly who they were as we just killed most of them,” Katie began, telling them the entire story of how the wolves ambushed them and how he captured them. He told them about Shaemus’ weird behaviour but left out his suspicions. Their reactions to that information were something she wasn’t looking forward to and decided to withhold it while he carried out his own investigation.

She sipped her tea keeping her eyes away from their expectant faces intentionally leaving out the events of the rest of the night, “I can’t say much more after that. I gave Shaemus a punishment of joining the night patrol of hunters for a week.”

“So you are going to leave out everything else that happened, huh. It’s fine... we just want to make something clear. We made some research, your wolf will come out gradually on Sunday and the pain of the transformation trying to force itself will continue to ravage you tirelessly. You have to keep your emotions in check through that time. A minor slip up could result in you biting someone’s head off. By seven in the evening, you should be at the cabin deep in the woods where we have gotten the underground bunker ready to contain you during the transformation and through the whole night. There is no telling if you will go on a rampage when you shift, so that is a precaution that we are going to have to take. I am hoping we can make it through the night and everything will be better in the morning,” Uncle Tom said.

“Okay then, I will enjoy the festival until 6:30 that night and head straight here,” she said to them and continued her breakfast. “Don’t you guys have to go to work or something like that?”

“Yes, we do...” Aunt Marie said nervously, “but come on, you have to tell us something about what happened last night. Fine, at least just me, Tom can go away and leave to talk girl to girl.”

“Since when is gossip a thing in this family?” Katie asked, her voice going up several octaves. This was new in this family... a thorough examination of the behaviour made sense. The Chase family was good when it came to following their intuition and this told her that they could feel something happened.

“I slept in the same bed as Cole Lycaon,” this jaw-dropping news had both of her guardians stunned. Katie noisily sipped her cup of coffee for dramatic effect while she savoured the silence in the room. ‘It doesn’t get better than this...’

“Umm... where do we start? Why? How? When? All these questions are valid. Tell us everything...”

“You what?” someone yelled. This was when it was just registering in Uncle Tom’s head that he was supposed to react to this.

“Honey, the moment passed... honey...”

“What do you mean in the same bed? You slept with him! Oh my God, you’re only seventeen...” he began ignoring his wife’s attempts at stopping him completely.

“And there he goes,” Aunt Marie face-palmed while listening to her husband fly off the handle. There was nothing that could be said to snap him out of it now as she had already tried. She could only listen as Katie herself tried to correct him but fall into even more traps that her husband kept on setting, the story becoming more and more ridiculous the longer the ridiculously one-sided conversation dragged on.

“Did he break you? That guy is huge,” Aunt Marie burst out laughing at that point. Katie’s face was starting to turn red under the pressure of her harassing father figure. This was a trait that both females knew about quite well where he would choose a moment to attack someone using their words against them and spinning everything they said in favour of making the story completely repulsive and embarrassing. It was easy to eventually slip up and say the wrong words when he did this and when that happened it only helped in making the situation all the worse.

“I’m not continuing this,” Katie started yelling while running to the sofa to pick up her bag pack, “It’s because of you my coffee started tasting funny.”

“Sweetheart, don’t forget your phone,” Aunt Marie reminded Katie amidst her now dying laughs.

“I got it, thanks.”

“Get back here, we are still talking...” he yelled back at Katie before the front door slammed shut, “Katie... Katie... This conversation is not over.”

“She’s gone honey,” Aunt Marie spoke up, her husband beginning his own series of laughs on the floor. His wife simply rolled her eyes at him, “You can be such a child, you know that.”

“I was only messing with her,” he tried amidst his laughter.

“Even after she tried her best to word her statement carefully,” she replied.

“Oh, come on, she set that trap for herself and you know it. There is almost nothing in the world at that point that could save her. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity....”

“You’re unbelievable,” she facepalmed walking past the counter and into the kitchen to wash up after Katie. It took some time before the laughter seized. Tom, however, did not stand up from his spot on the ground.

He simply lay their spread-eagled and spoke up, his voice low and serious, “You think she found out.”

“She probably feels the bond, but she doesn’t know what it is. The same applies to that Royal, otherwise, he would know what it was and tell her. The pills can’t block it completely, but the more they grow close to one another, the more feelings they’ll start to develop,” she explained.

“He could not have come at a more opportune time. She will need him in the days to come,” Uncle Tom said.

“That much is true. I could not have asked for a better turn of events. Our initial plan would have proved to be too much of a gamble, not to mention, it could have cost many people their lives,” she said.

“That’s true as well,” he confirmed. The two shared an untold secret of how they were meant to initially handle her transformation on her birthday that was more hectic. No one in the entire world had known that the coming of Cole Lycaon had been the biggest stroke of luck that had avoided the death of countless innocents.