A Gripping Touch

Chapter Nineteen: "I have my father's rifle fully loaded."

Colton

Protect her.

My mother's words echoed through my mind constantly throughout the week.

Protect her, how? By shielding her from the truth? By bringing her father's murderer to justice? By telling her the truth?

I couldn't risk losing her. She would feel empty. I would feel lost. My inner wolf would want to destroy me from the inside out.

Just at the thought of telling her the truth about Ren and losing her, I felt internals claws gripping my organs and digging in. I shook my head and let out a low growl until the claws finally pulled away.

I hadn't changed into wolf form in weeks, and I was in dire need of letting loose for a while. I'd been so consumed by Alyssa that I'd almost forgotten to change. Instead, I'd been trying to stay human as much as possible in the hope that it would bring me closer to her.

However, I hadn't been succeeding in that very well this past week. Rather, I'd been distracted in the mission to try and find Ren.

The wolves that we had sent out to bring him in on Sunday hadn't been able to find him yet. There were signs of him being spotted twenty miles away on Tuesday, so a few members of the pack had run there that night, but it was a dead end.

They found the hut he had been staying in, but he was long gone. There was a stamped-out fire and some old clothes left behind, along with animal carcasses but there was no sign of him still being around.

Since my conversation with Aly on Saturday night, I had made it my upmost priority to bring Ren down and face the consequences of what he did to Anthony. And to Aly.

It was on my mind constantly. I'd been skipping classes and skipping football practise. I'd barely been sleeping as I was always in my office making plans and trying to sketch routes of where he could have gone.

This meant that Aly had been acting increasingly nervous around me, as I'd been nothing but short and snappy with her as I didn't want to let my guard down and end up slipping out any information about Ren.

Plus, by talking to anyone, even Aly, was wasting valuable time that I needed to be spending on searching for my monster of a brother.

It was Friday afternoon and I had made the decision to finally turn up for at least one of my classes today as I had a test. It was Biology, and it came as a second nature for me. I completed the test with twenty minutes to spare and quickly rushed out of the classroom.

The professor didn't try to stop me; he knew there was no point in trying to reason with me by now. As did the rest of the faculty at Tate's high school.

As I was bustling down the hall I saw Aly packing some books from her locker into her bag.

'Hey.' She said, turning to me with a light smile.

Surprisingly, she hadn't treated me much differently since she found out about Ren. In fact, it seemed as though she sympathised with the fact that I had to deal with someone like him in my life.

If only she knew the truth.

I brushed that thought out of my head and turned to look at her. Instantly my heart raced, and my inner wolf was howling. She was wearing a denim pinafore with a white top underneath. It was simple, but she made it so much more than that.

I broke my stare and gave her a half-smile. 'Hey, Aly.'

I heard her let out a sigh of relief. 'You're in school today?'