The Unforgiving Moon

14.

This was it. This was the moment I had anticipated, the betrayal that would overturn me, undo me, break me beyond repair.

It had been played perfectly—Lotta had been given back to me, she had come to save me, I had trusted her, I had touched her, she had been real.

But she hadn't been her. She had been changed, she had been turned, she had betrayed me, because she had gotten me out of one cursed place, just to take me to another. She had freed me of the claws of a monster, only to deliver me into the beak of a second one, a worse one.

I crumbled as I scattered back, my wounds raw against the uneven edges of the cave behind me. I felt some of the cuts open again, and some new ones found their way onto my back as I scraped against the stone, trying to get away from this person who I thought I knew, who I believed I could trust, who—

"Calm down, Sari," Lotta said, her voice hinting at worry. "We'll be safe there, I can hide—"

"No," I rasped.

She scooted closer to me, and her hand carefully reached out to me. Slowly, cautiously, so I could flinch away if I wanted to.

But her fingers felt warm against my leg, through the broken and torn clothes, and her kindness resurfaced, and truly this couldn't be—

"We have to," she said. "No one is going to hurt you, they won't even know you're there until we're gone again."

"Please," I begged.

"I'm sorry that I'm putting you through this, Sari," she said. "But I need your help, and we're running out of time."

"For what?"

I had so many questions burning on my tongue, but barely any found their way out as my head was spinning, my hands were trembling, my breath was hitching.

"For Aven," she said, and my world came crashing down.

I must have misheard her. She must have spoken another name, another word, another—

"He's still alive," she continued. "At least I think he is."

"Wh- What?"

Her second hand gently landed on my leg as she spoke. "I've stayed there the entire time. I don't think Beckett has killed Aven—"

"How do you know that?" I demanded, interrupting her, stopping her from spewing words that caused burns and fires and death.

She gulped. "After the battle, they put the heads of our fallen wolves on spikes and spread them across the town. It was... horrible."

She looked away for a moment, and I could only imagine what it must've been like, who she must have seen.

"I never saw his. And I don't think Beckett would spare the chance to parade around the fact he'd killed our Alpha. So he must still be alive. He must be."

"He can't be," I whispered.

"You don't know that," she objected.

I looked at her, at those wild, brown eyes I'd missed so much and still could barely believe I was seeing her, that she was alive. "I saw him," I said. "He can't be alive."

"You saw him? So you know where he is?"

Where he was. I nodded.

"Moons bless us," she cried out. "I've been trying to look for him, but it's like Beckett made him disappear."

"Beckett killed him."

Her eyes grew stern. "I refuse to believe that until I see his rotting flesh with my own eyes."