Spitta didn't seem to be too far away. After a short night to rest, we had reached the proximity of the dreaded town the next day by the time the Sun began its descent.
Running with the six wolves was uneasy at times, especially when it was my turn to carry the bag. The sunburned item kept dangling against my chest, pulling at my teeth and generally worsening my mood.
After we had crossed the border of Fire Moon, we dared to run for a little while longer, before we decided to switch back to our human forms and mask our scent with whatever ground there was. I didn't allow myself to think about the other things we were covering ourselves with.
Kai - the wolf I recognized from training - had explained that we only covered our scent in Fire Moon itself. If we would march in there with Wise Moon ground on us, and Fire Moon ground and our own Death Moon scent, it would be even easier to be spotted.
And since Wise Moon hadn't allied themselves with anyone in this war, we deemed it safe enough to pass their grounds quickly, without masking ourselves.
Staying out of this war, perhaps had been the wisest thing to do.
The short night we had rested, had been a cold one. Though my thick fur covered me well, and the cold breezes of the nightly wind didn't bother me too much, the impending doom that was awaiting me, surely did.
I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye to Lotta and Jerr. I had just left - and I would never see them again.
Aven wanted me to fight, now. He had made that very clear. If I was to go there anyway, I could fight with them. Why else would I die on that battlefield?
I didn't want to go. It felt like my life had only just begun - and now it would end so soon?
The closer we got to Spitta, the heavier my steps became. The more my body and my mind seemed to fight me on this - urging me to go back, not to meddle in this bloody war. Not to give up my life.
Not to let it end in the place I ran away from.
But then every time, I saw Benjamin's face. I heard his laughter, I saw him kissing his wife whenever she would come into the bar. However busy it was, if Vi would show her face, Benjamin would greet her with a kiss.
I'd see him scolding Sam for whatever stupidity that boy would have performed. I saw him comforting Laura after her friend had called her a mean word in the town square.
I couldn't let them die.
So every moment we spent in our group of seven - just behind that part of the river with the sharp bend - felt like agony.
Even if the men treated me cordially, they were not the company I wanted in my last days.
And when we huddled close together at night, to face the harsh coldness of the night, all I could think was that I wished it was Jerr laying beside me. How I missed his touch - and knowing I would probably never feel it again.
The three days we were waiting there were blurry and uneventful. One of the men would go out to check out the town's borders as closely as they could every day, but they all came back with the same news: whispers were floating around the streets that something bad was happening. That Beckett was acting strange, preparing himself for Moons know what.
We knew what he was preparing for. It made it painfully obvious that those innocent people would meet horrible ends. They would fight battles they had nothing to do with. They would lay down their lives in streets they despised, just as much as I had hated living there.
All of us who lived in Spitta's slums seemed to be cursed. Wherever we would go, we would always meet our end in this dreaded town. There was no escaping it. There was no escaping Beckett.
It was on the second night since we had arrived, that a slight jab in my side woke me up.
"Whatever it is you need to do, I'd do it now," Kai told me.
And that was all I needed to make my way to the river, to find that sharp bend and find my way back into the slums. The place that for a very long time, had been my home.
I finally smelled what Jerr and Aven had been talking about. The air that covered this town... reminded me of rot and everything dying. There was something that hung in the air - something sour and bitter, but I couldn't quite place it.
I supposed that by living and breathing here every day, I had gotten used to the smell. And I also guessed that all slums smelled this horrid, though I was sure that the rest of this town wouldn't necessarily be a lot better.
My heart felt small when I crawled into the first street, yet it was pounding like it was caged and needed to break free of its chains.
Tomorrow, this place would also be covered in blood.
I shook the shivers off my back, letting my troubles drift away into the streets as I started moving. I had no time for this, I needed to get to Benjamin, yet I couldn't get my legs to stop shaking.
I had the advantage of the night on my side. While our Moon's light didn't matter to wolves, if I used my surroundings correctly, for humans I could become invisible.
And that is what I did. I stuck to the shadows as much as I could, sticking against the walls - trying to ignore whatever else covered them.
Getting through the slums wouldn't be tricky - I knew it here, and I knew no wolves ever came here.
The hard part would be to reach Benjamin. I decided I'd go to his house first, hoping he would be there. Because if he was still working the night in The Dancing Wolf, I wouldn't know how to get to him.
I kept sneaking my way into the streets - halting whenever I heard voices nearing me. I tried melting into the walls, remembering the instructions Loic had given me in Apicya.
Alley after alley, I headed towards the street where I hoped I would find Benjamin.
I skipped over a clear puddle, thanking our Moons this one existed of leftover rain. But even though the water was clear - the reflection that floated in it wasn't. I had only caught a quick glance as I hopped over it, but I barely recognized myself. My entire face and hair were caked with mud and feces, which I had thankfully stopped smelling ages ago.
But that I didn't notice it anymore, didn't mean that Benjamin wouldn't. And the first time he'd see me since I had changed my life, would be like this.
My gut wrenched at the thought. But there was nowhere I could clean myself, without drawing attention. Even at night, the old fountain at the town square always had drunken people lingering about - and I figured that now it would be even worse, given that Beckett would probably be expecting us soon. He'd up his patrols in the areas where he would expect an attack the most - and I was oddly surprised that he hadn't covered the slums.
And then a familiar little alley came into view - one that I had sworn I would never set foot in again.
I stopped dead in my tracks, and I could've sworn that my heart stopped beating for an entire moment, as I stared at the wooden door that had long shielded me from the outside horrors.
My legs started moving toward the hovel that I once called home before my mind decided whether I wanted to see it again or not.
And my hands mindlessly reached for the doorknob, forcing the old, wooden structure to open with unease. The door slowly creaked open, a sound that filled me with nothing but empty memories.
I only needed to take one step inside, to know that nothing had changed. The three chairs around the small table stood in the exact position I seemed to have left them, my bed under the roof still unmade.
I didn't let myself have the time to register this old place, that one time, long ago, had consisted of a house. Before all the holes decorated the roof, and the windows didn't hold any useful purpose anymore.
Because I didn't have time to break down.
I turned the sink open and was surprised by a rarity: clear water streamed out of it. Of course, now that I wasn't living here anymore, Beckett probably didn't see the point of looping this place out of clean water.
I hasted getting all this masking off my face and decided to leave the rest of me untouched. I didn't want to leave my scent so exposed, and I also didn't have any more time to waste.
Our Moon surely neared her peak, and I knew Aven wouldn't wait much longer for his attack.
As soon as I was done, I made my way back out. And once I closed the door behind me, I knew that this time, it was for good.
Finding my way to Benjamin's house wasn't hard. Although I had never really gone in, in the last years - to keep his family out of Beckett's warpath, I still remembered the little apartment from when I used to visit with my father.
I stared up at the window on the second floor, in the back of the alley. Thankfully, he didn't live very far from the Dancing Wolf. Though he lived in a better part of town, he was still close enough to the slums to ward off the wolves. The only beings that roamed around here were drunk humans, and those could be smelled and heard from miles away.
Deeming my surroundings safe, I made it out of the shadows and hopped onto a little wall on my left. When I still lived here, I never could have done this.
I also never would have succeeded in my next jump, up to the window of the second floor.
I barely made it now, clinging onto the brick windowsill with both hands. I was thankful for Feytan's ruthlessness that now allowed me to pull myself up, and safely land on the windowsill, instead of back down on the ground.
Our Moons favored me tonight, and after a short struggle, the stiff old window slowly slid open, letting the cold air flow freely in the living room.
I tried to be as quiet as I could when I landed, nearly missing a small yellow couch as my feet found the floor.
I immediately smelled him. He smelled warm, kind, and welcoming. He smelled like everything good in the world.
I didn't even need to make my way over to his room. I heard some shuffling coming from his bedroom - assuming my entrance through his window had woken him up. Or perhaps he had only just returned home from work, and he hadn't fallen asleep yet.
He stepped into the living room with a lit candle in one hand and a metal bar in his other. He was well prepared to fight me off - it seemed I wasn't the first intruder he'd dealt with.
"Who is-" his eyes widened, and the next thing I heard was metal clanging on the floor. "Sari," he breathed.
"Benjamin," I breathed back, and before I knew it, I flung myself in his arms.
The tears I had been holding back started to flow out of me as his arms firmly gripped me, and I felt his shaky breath against my hair.
"What are... What are you doing here?" he asked, letting me go only for his hands to grip my face. "I thought you had left Spitta."
"I had- I have," I said, with a trembling voice. "It's a long story."
"How have you been? You look so good." I saw his hands shaking too when they reached for his face.
"I am better," I said. "I am good." There was so much I wanted to tell him. So much I needed to tell him. I wanted him to know that I came out stronger, that I was okay. I wanted to tell him all about my new life - about the adventures I had experienced.
But there was no time, I realized as my heart began speeding up again. "You need to leave," I blurted out.
"What?" he asked, clearly confused.
"You need to leave," I repeated. "There's not enough time to explain it all, but you need to take Vi, Sam, and Laura and you need to go."
"What's going on, Sari?" he asked, his voice breaking a little. And before I could answer, he asked another question with a voice so small, I could sense desperation and fear hiding behind it. "What have you gotten yourself into?"
There was no time to tell them. "I will explain it all later, I promise. But you need to trust me and go. Take your family and leave this place. Now."
"I trust you, Sari," he said, picking up the candle he had placed on the side table earlier. "But what's going on? I can help-"
"You can't. Not with this. But I need you to leave. I need to know you're safe. Please," I breathed.
"Sari, no, listen to me. I can help-"
"Benjamin, please. The best thing you can do for me right now is to leave and get yourselves out of here."
His hands clasped my face, wiping the endless stream of tears away. "Sari, listen to me," he repeated. "I can help."
"I know you want to, but please listen to me, Benjamin," I pleaded.
"No, you listen to me," he argued. "I will get them out. I will wake them up and get them out. But I can help you, Sari. And your Alpha."
"No, you can't," I said again, my pleas more desperate with every ask. We were wasting time here, discussing this useless thing.
"Sari, yes, I can," he insisted, his hands ruffling his subtly greying hair.
"No-" I began murmuring, but he interrupted me before I could finish my cry.
"Sari, I know. I know. And I'm not the only one."
A/N: Oof, what a reunion. Also, I am dropping one of the rare author's notes to let you know that we are now officially less than 10 chapters away from finishing book one. I'm so excited about it!
If you enjoyed this chapter, please feel free to vote / comment. It always brightens my day to receive notifications from my readers! <3