Chapter 41
Amber's pov
I swear it must be Murphy's Law that when I'm exhausted is when I'll need to be more focused than ever.
I fully expected all the notifications showing me that Malcomb texted Zane and said he needed to see him ASAP. What I didn't expect, was for that asshole to try to hack back into our computer system at one in the damn morning.
Being pulled out of a dead sleep was grating on my nerves. My eyes didn't want to focus, and my fingers weren't moving as fast over the keyboard as I would like. If this keeps up, even I won't be able to stop him this time.
Of course, this was the point in time that it dawns on me that I don't need to stop him. I've been wasting my time and effort for the last half an hour to keep him out of a program that I built specifically for him. I groan at my own stupidity, and Micah comes up behind me and rubs my shoulders.
"What's wrong love?" He asks.
"I'm an idiot is what's wrong," I say but don't elaborate. I was so focused on staying one step ahead of this asshole, that I forgot I already was.
I push my chair back, and watch Malcomb access the rest of the school files he was after. Go ahead pal, take them all. Have fun finding what you're looking for.
The only problem with this is that he's here for a reason. He hasn't tried to get back in for two weeks now, so it's suspicious that he chose tonight to do it. This leads me to believe that he must be on to us, or at the very least he suspects our involvement.
I wish I knew what was discussed in the meeting that he called Zane in for. I know it had to do with him finding out that Jason was dead, but what they talked about would be useful information to have.
Malcomb was at least smart enough not to discuss it through text or email, I'll give him that much.
There was a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach though. He was scrambling to figure things out, and his sights were set on us.
My decision to put off working on an antidote may have been premature. I made that call while I was upset, and stressed about what my formula did. While I still think it's important that we do more studies on the wolf gene, maybe we could do both. If I could get more helping hands in my lab, it should be feasible.
"Can I make you tea?" Micah offers pulling me out of my own head.
"No thanks, I need to be able to go back to sleep," I inform him.
"Isn't tea supposed to help with that?" He says in a manner that suggests I'm supposed to know this. Time for some much-needed education on the subject.
"Actually..." I pause for dramatic effect, "Tea has more caffeine per milligram." He looks at me confused and I chuckle. "Tea leaves have about 3.6 percent caffeine in them and unbrewed coffee beans have only around 1.1 to 2 percent caffeine."
"Weren't you just saying a minute ago that you were an idiot?" Then under his breath, he mutters, "I swear only you would actually know something like this."
"Watch yourself" I threaten. "Or you'll be needing to find another date for the ceremony tomorrow."
"Well it just so happens that I hear Clueless is going stag, so I'll take him." And with that, he waltzes out of the room.
I turn my attention back to my computer and briefly consider countering his attack with one of my own. I could make his entire computer go haywire, possibly have it start popping up porn site ads, or something of that nature. Unfortunately, that would only confirm for him that someone here at Moonwalker was exactly who he was looking for.
Still, the satisfaction of having him know that I was smarter than him was appealing to me more and more. One day, it would happen, but that day is not today.
"I'll be waiting in our room" Micah yells out.
"What for?" I yell back.
"For you to come to apologize for hurting my feelings." He cracks up towards the end, ruining the serious tone he was going for.
"Ya, I'll get right on that" I mutter, knowing he likely heard me anyways.
After Malcomb finishes taking all the files he didn't get last time, he pokes around the system a bit more. He makes it look like he's just browsing in general, but I know he's on a mission. Otherwise, he would have left. What more could he possibly want?
He clicks on our missing wolves file, not that there was anything to see there, except a blank folder, then he clicks on new pack members. Hmmm, this is interesting. I was going to leave this file empty too, but decided against it. I made a few fake profiles, going back four to seven years ago. The names were bogus, but I don't think he'll be able to figure that out anytime soon.
Then a thought occurs to me, was he looking for Ryan and Noah? It seems awfully convenient for him to be searching this particular file without someone in mind already.
I decide that it's time to give some pushback, or else he might get suspicious about why he's been able to roam about freely. I freeze his cursor several times, and when he tries to open new folders I send out the 'error' message. Within a few minutes he retreats willingly and I follow him back. I'm curious to see what he's up to.
He has no clue that I'm on his computer screen with him, hanging in the background like a silent predator. The first thing he does is pulls up Azariah's school records. Shit! Then of course once he sees that she's not who he's looking for, he types in Woods. Double shit!!
Although I don't know why I'm surprised. You'd have to be an idiot to not suspect her and I. We worked at the Ambersy lab for a couple of months, and I was personally responsible for booting him out the last time he broke into our system. Even the most basic of idiots could put two and two together.
I let my fingers hover over my keyboard, relishing in the familiar feeling of them. It would be all too easy for me to just type the words 'fuck you' and have it pop up randomly all over his computer screen. Every time he types something in, the message would come up over and over again. A smile stretches across my lips at the thought, and I have to remove my fingers from the keys before I give in.
Hopefully, my modified grades would keep him off our trail for a bit longer. We needed more time to come up with a solution on how to deal with him. Micah says his father and the other Alpha's, Finn excluded, were resistant to the idea of taking the fight to him. Which is single-handedly the stupidest thing I've heard. Why exactly were we just sitting here waiting for them to make the next move?
We knew that Ambersy pack wasn't in on it as a whole, but the same couldn't be said for Snowmoon. We need to strike while we still had the element of surprise, and considering tonight's events, I'd say our window of opportunity was diminishing rapidly.
The one thing that's been bothering me lately, was why did Zane take Azariah to Ambersy and ask her to help them by teaching the surgical unit. Either he was cocky enough to think that they wouldn't get exposed until they came after all of us, or he planned to try to bring her into the fold with them.
My money is on option two.
"Amber" Micah yells out yet again. "I'm still waiting."
"Sorry. I'm just thinking up the proper way to go about this apology. Why don't you hold your breath until I get in there." I fire back at him.
I hear his feet hit the floor, and I have to suppress a giggle. The soft thudding of them making their way down the hall has me biting my lip to stop the inevitable giggle that's seconds away from bursting free. When they suddenly stop, I sit still as a stone, waiting for whatever he's got planned.
After a good twenty seconds, curiosity gets the best of me, and I turn in my chair to look towards the hallway. I immediately see Micah, just leaning against the wall, staring back at me. Fear of biting clean through my lip has me releasing it, and although I'm able to keep the laugh at bay, I couldn't stop the grin.
He continues to just stare at me, so I finally break the silence. "You're kinda creeping me out. You realize I have new darts for my gun right?" I let the threat linger in the room. "With the new and improved tranquilizer strength at that," I add on.
He finally smirks back at me, "You realize that the gun and the darts are in your room right?" He grins even bigger now. "And you'll have to get past me to get to them."
My computer chimes and I look back over at it to discover that Malcomb has logged off of his. Might as well put mine in sleep mode, and try to get past Micah to get to my bed.
When I stand up my back stiffens, and I end up hunched over fighting not to fall on my face. I brace my hands on my knees and wait for it to pass.
"Are you pretending to be stiff so you can sneak past me when I move? Or do you need my assistance, old lady?" The big jerk asks me.
I try to straighten myself up, but a spasm overtakes my back, and I end up falling onto my knee's Better than on my face. Micah comes over and quickly places a hand on my lower back. He wraps one hand around to my front, just under the navel but above my goods. He slowly straightens me out, and once my upper body is aligned with his, the spasm starts to dissipate
"I'm too young for this shit to be happening," I say more to myself than him.
"It would appear that your body doesn't agree with that statement." He hooks his hands under my armpits and takes me with him as he stands.
Micah comes around in front of me, then reaches down and wraps an arm under my ass, and lifts me so that my body remains in a straight line. He carries me back to our room gently, then lays me down on the bed, and rolls me so I'm on my front.
"If you don't offer up that apology soon, I might suffocate." He jokes while lifting my cotton Spaghetti strap tank top.
He places both hands on my lower back and starts to rub circles with his thumbs, and moves in an upward direction. Once he's at my mid-back, he stops and moves his hands down to my lower back again. He repeats this motion several times, until the knot that was there releases.
"Fine. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I wish I could lie and say it won't happen again, but we both know it will." I snicker at him.
"You know something" He moves over to his side of the bed and I turn my face to look at him. "You're a bloody handful. Everyone thinks you're all sweet and innocent, but they don't see the real you. The one that smart mouths me."
"Guess you should have taken more time in selecting your mate because you're stuck with me now." I point out.
Micah's nostrils flare, and he opens his mouth, flashing his teeth in a menacing smile at me. I'm not sure why he thinks this show of aggression is going to subdue me, but I chuckle at the display letting him know I'm not intimidated. Not that I necessarily think he was trying to intimidate me, but he was certainly trying to get a rise out of me.
"Kihe" I sing his name. When I see the flash of silver in his eyes, I continue. "Micah's trying to pick on me, have a talk with him would ya."
Micah squeezes his eyes shut, then groans. He picks his head up and rests it in the palm of his hand, while his elbow supports it. When his eyes open, there's a mischievous glint in them.
"Tell me something, did it hurt?" He asks.
Being leery of this question I hesitate to answer him. "Ummm, did what hurt exactly."
"When you broke through the earth's crust, ascending from hell," He says in a serious tone.
I burst out laughing and have to bury my face into the pillow to stop myself. He was so going to pay for that comment. Maybe not tonight, but definitely one day.
When I've gotten myself under control, I flip over so my back is to him. "I don't have to put up with this shit." I declare.
His hand snakes around my midsection, and he pulls me backward till I'm pressed firmly up against him. "Pretty sure you do." He then kisses all along my shoulder and up towards my mating mark.
Pressing my ear down into my shoulder before he gets to his destination, I scold him some more. "Knock it off. We need to get some sleep so we don't look like death warmed over tomorrow."
"I was just trying to give you a kiss goodnight. Sheesh." He grumbles but doesn't let me go. If anything he just pulls me impossibly closer.
The fact that he's twice as wide as me, and over a foot taller, makes me feel safe and secure. After a few minutes, his breathing evens out, letting me know he's already asleep.
How the hell does he do it? I wish I could fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow. But unfortunately, it takes at least thirty position changes, three or four flips of my pillow, and a prayer before I pass out.
*******************
I wake up to an empty bed. Figuring Micah was in the kitchen making breakfast, I get up and go to find him.
Instead of finding him, I find a note he left on the counter. It says that he needed to go help Jace with some last minute stuff, and that he'll see me at the ceremony.
I start the coffee maker, then go jump in the shower. Before I got in the clock said it was 8:10am, but when I get out it says 12:12pm. How the hell did I lose four hours?
I race around the house, grabbing my garmet bag, shoes, make-up and whatever else I can think of. When I make my way back through the kitchen, I notice that no coffee brewed, even though I clearly remember hitting start on the machine.
I call Azariah once I'm getting in my car, but she doesn't pick up. She's probably mad that I'm a couple hours late. We were supposed to have our nails done, then our hair at her mothers house. Afterwards, lunch was being catered in, then we'd move on to the getting dressed part of our day.
I'm the worlds worst friend!! It's not until I'm almost pulling up to her parents house that I notice I didn't see one single person, or even a car, on my drive here. Everyone must be setting up for the big event that's set to take place around six tonight.
I grab all my stuff, then run up to the front door and knock. I end up knocking several more times, without anyone coming to let me in. I try the handle, and the door opens so I just let myself in. She must be really pissed with me if she won't answer my calls or open the door up to me.
I search the entire downstairs, and when I find it's empty, I go upstairs. I head straight for Azariah's old room, and when I enter it, it's also empty. Her dress however was hanging on the back of the closet door, already taken out of it's bag.
Pulling my phone out, I try calling Micah, but to my shock, he also doesn't answer. So I try Jace, and again, no answer. Now that the bad feeling has settled into every bone in my body, I start calling everyone that's in my phone's contact list.
But just like I expected, nobody picks up. Not one single person. I head back downstairs and out the front door, then just stand there, and try to figure out what to do from here.
I feel like I'm in the middle of the twilight zone, with no coffee in my system to boot.
The next twenty minutes I wonder around the town, going from the local diner, to the coffee shop, hell I even stop by my parents house.
Not once do I run into anyone. With having nothing left to do, I go get my car then head over to Jace and Azariah's house. Taking the back steps two at a time, I rush to the patio door and just open it. Why bother knocking.
Clueless immediately comes running to me, then he darts through my legs and out the open door. Looks like even the cat doesn't wanna be near me.
Knowing that both Jace and Azariah will be upset that he's gotten out, I turn and chase after him. I never would have thought that something with legs as short as his could run so fast. I'm winded by the time I enter the woods that he disappeared into.
Clueless moves so fast that I can't keep up with him no matter how hard I try. Every time I just about lose sight of him, he stops and turns back to look at me. The weird feeling rolling around in the pit of my stomach intensifies, and I slow down to the point that I'm only walking quickly.
Up ahead I can see an opening, and beyond there's a large open field that I have no recollection of being here before. I take slow tentative steps towards it, the uneasy feeling at an all time high.
When I break through the tree line I discover that the open area is in fact a valley, with steep drop offs on each side. Clueless is sitting on the edge meowing his little heart out. Reaching down to pick him up, I notice the floor of the valley is covered with red and light pink colored flowers.
Except the shapes of the flowers make no sense, it was almost like looking at a flowing river, that couldn't decide which direction it wanted to go. The kitten uses my distraction to his advantage and claws my hand making me drop him. He races over to a spot that doesn't just drop off, and he starts running down to the bottom, as if on a mission.
Running over to the spot he started his descent, I attempt to go down after him, without thinking about how I was going to get back up. By the fourth or fifth step, the loose dirt under my foot gives away, and I end riding on my ass the rest of the way down.
When I'm almost at the bottom, I notice that the flowers weren't flowers at all. The pack members that I was so desperately trying to find earlier were scattered everywhere. They were all covered in blood, some torn up badly while others were missing limbs. The entire valley floor was covered with every male, female and child from Moonwalker pack.
Twisting my body as forcefully as I could, I try to stop myself from landing in the bloody massacre that was awaiting me. But much to my dismay, there was nothing for me to take ahold of except dirt and the occasional weed.
I land in the pile of bodies that were directly below me, and once my body comes to a complete stop, I frantically try to stand up so I can get out of here. My clothing becomes instantly covered in blood, and as I try pushing off of someone's torso, I discover that the blood was still warm.
Meaning they died very recently. Then a thought occurs to me...what if they weren't all dead? Could there still be someone alive under this mass of bodies. Better yet, do I have the stomach to go and try digging around to find them?
Clueless's meowing has me looking in his direction, and what I see finally has the tears streaming down my face that refused to fall up until this moment. Standing on shaky legs, I make my way over to him so I can grab his furry little ass, and get the hell out of here.
Azariah's lifeless body was underneath what I assume was Ehron, but it was hard to tell considering his fur was soaked red, with no trace of the blonde wolf to be seen. Clueless was sitting on top of Ehron, and crying his little heart out, desperately trying to get his owner to hear him and wake up.
I have a difficult time reaching him, as I have to make my way over numerous bodies. I also slipped a few times on things that I'd rather not ever speak of again.
The poor kitten finally comes to the conclusion that his owers weren't going to acknowledge him, and he jumps off of Ehron and makes his way over to me. While still crying at that. I scoop him up, and try to ignore the stuff that's stuck to his fur, as I make my way out of the pile of bodies.
Before I reach the slope that I came down, everything finally hits me all at once, and I end up bent over, puking violently all over the corpse's Everytime I try to catch my breath, the stench of death has my stomach lurching all over again.
Eventually I drop down to my knee's, eyes closed, and bawling. I don't understand how this happened. How could everybody I know and love be taken without my knowledge, then brought here and slaughtered.
MICAH! Where the hell is my mate. This thought alone gets me up off my ass and moving again. Maybe he's not here, and somehow survived.
Getting back up the steep slope is way harder than the coming down was. My feet keep slipping, and for every two feet upwards I gain, I slide back down one. This little orange shit wasn't helping matters either. I let him go for all of a second, and he took the opportunity to climb onto my back and sink his claws in to hold onto me.
When I'm about ten feet from making it back up, the most beautiful voice in the whole world calls out to me. "Amber. Holy shit, are you okay? Come on, take my hand."
Micah's panic stricken face peers down at me, and he leans over, stretching his arm as far as it will go. The relief of seeing him alive has me crying even harder. I reach out for him, and he grasps my hand, and pulls me the rest of the way up.
Just as I'm about to pull myself up on flat ground, his eyes go wide and he jumps back. I stare at his shocked face, then notice that someone is standing directly behind him.
Malcomb.
He smiles evily at me, and takes a few steps backwards, out of Micah's reach. I watch in horror as Micah pulls a syringe out of the back of his neck, and looks at it with disbelief. He drops down to his knees, and the first of the shakes and twitching starts.
Once at the top, I crawl my way over to him, and pull him into my arms. "Go" He says to me. "Get out of here, before it's to late."
Malcombs laughter redirects my focus to him. "Come on Amber. Your the smarter of the pair of us. Save your mate." He taunts me.
But that's impossible. Even if I had the courage to just save Kihe, it's impossible. All the formula that I made is back at my lab. Even if we both ran full speed back, we'd never make it in time.
I stare into Micah's eyes, and realize something. I would totally use it. If I had a dose right here and now, I would use it to at least save one of them.
"You have two choices right now Amber. Join me, by my side as my mate, or let Micah go to the Moon Goddess as the male who killed his mate. Your choice." He points at his wrist, as if to indicate that my time was ticking away.
Clueless chooses this moment to snuggle in between myself and Micah, purring up a storm. If I were to die, who was going to look after him? Kihe would probably eat him the second the drug does what it's intended to.
I look between Micah, Clueless and Malcomb, unsure of what the answer here is. If only I was smart enough to carry a dose or two of AKAL with me.
Joining Malcomb was never going to happen, so I guess I just sit here and wait to die.
***************
I bolt upright in bed, clutching the blankets tightly in my hands. My pulse was hammering faster than ever, and I struggle to catch my breath.
My eyes immediately go to Micah's side of the bed, and when I find it empty I clasp a hand over my mouth to stop the scream that wants to escape. Throwing the blankets off of myself I jump up and am about to leave the room to go find him when my eyes land on the clock.
8:10 am.
Full-blown panic overtakes me, and I race down the hall praying my mate is still home.
"Something chasing you, or are you starving?" Micah laughs as I come running full tilt into the kitchen.
Grabbing him around the waist, I hold on as if my life depends on it. Or his does. Maybe both.
Either way, I'm smart enough to know that I need to make a stop before heading to Azariah's mom's house later today.