True to his word, Tucker was in the armchair next to me when I opened my eyes. He rose quickly when he noticed that I was conscious. Ben sat across from him and grinned at me when I looked at him.
"You," he began, "are fucking insane."
I laughed and sat up. My head felt like it was bursting through my skull, but otherwise, I felt fresh. My mind was still reeling from the fact that I'd saved two children using some type of energy that came and went through my body like a vessel. I tried to reach out to it but there was nothing, the energy had gone. It was there when I needed it, but no more.
"What happened to Jonah and Pilar?"
Tucker smiled, one of those rare smiles that I didn't usually see. Something inside me stirred.
"They're okay," he said, "because of you."
"I meant, how were they attacked?"
Ben shifted in his seat and lowered his eyes. "The hunters ambushed the Denvers pack. They have a camp in the woods and the hunters found it. We don't know how. They have a witch that cloaks it, but the hunters must have found some way around it. They lost a lot of people. Jonah and Pilar were among the lucky ones."
All three of us were silent as my heart sank at his words. So many emotions flowed through me, filling me with rage and sadness. Then, I realized something.
My face paled. "A camp in the woods?"
"Yeah," Ben began, "most of the Denvers pack focuses on the nature of the wolf. A lot of packs do that, actually. Live in the woods, I mean."
A camp in the woods was where I'd seen the vision of their father. It must have been the Denvers camp. I filed that information away in my head. I needed to tell them to take me there, but I had to do something first.
"Is my family here?" I whispered.
"Your brother and Owein came home a little while ago, but they're upstairs."
Taking my lip between my teeth, my eyes searched Tucker's face. His eyes narrowed as he realized I was holding something back.
"Alice Galloway," I blurted out, "have you met her?"
"Rose's sister?" Ben asked.
I nodded but didn't take my eyes off of Tucker's face. He looked confused and I hated myself for what I was going to tell him.
"No, I've never met her. Rose talks about her though, apparently, she travels a lot. Why?"
Deep breath.
"She's a hunter...and I think she's working with Owein."
"That's impossible-"
"She was the redhead in my vision. The one he was telling to get mistletoe."
The silence overcame us again. Tucker's face was guarded, his emotions hidden. I blinked and he was gone, storming out the front door. Ben and I looked at each other, not speaking. He seemed to be wrapping his head around the new information.
"He's not very good at dealing with his feelings, is he?" I remarked, looking after his older brother.
Ben let out a tired laugh, nodding his head a little. Silence filled the space between us but he broke it as he looked at the ground.
"Gray's okay."
My heart sank for the second time. How did I become friends with people who were targets of a bunch of homicidal murderers? My fingers worked on their own as they dialed the number. He picked up on the third ring.
"Lou, hi. I was going to call you in a second. I just heard what you did," Gray's voice sounded rushed and solemn.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I wasn't there when it happened but I wish I was."
My face turned into confusion even though he couldn't see it.
"Why?"
"I would've stopped them- I could've stopped them."
Something about the way his voice broke over the last word made my heart go out to him. I couldn't imagine the kind of loss he was experiencing right now. There wasn't a lot I could say to make it better but I wanted to. His loss made me feel powerless. What do you say to someone whose family members had been ripped away from them?
I could only see Tucker holding Elias' limp body in my head with torment and anguish plaguing his face. If Gray was experiencing anything like that, there was nothing I could do to help.
"Gray," I muttered into the phone, "I'm sorry."
He was silent for a moment. I heard voices in the background. Wherever he was, it sounded chaotic. He let out a heavy breath over the phone and I could practically see the fair-haired boy sighing.
"There's nothing you could've done."
I was about to respond when he interrupted me.
"But," he began sharply, "you can tell the Joy boys that their alpha won't get away with this."
"Wh- what?"
Ben seemed to notice that my demeanor had shifted. He leaned forward in the armchair and examined my facial expression carefully. I must have looked green because I felt like I was going to be sick all over the expensive rug in the living room.
Gray's voice had shifted from the sad, resigned voice he answered the phone with. Now, listening to him, there was venom and rage in his tone.
"When the hunters came, there was an alpha with them and my mom knows it was Owein," he spat but then his voice softened, almost as if he were whispering. "Look, Lou. I know you have some weird bond with the Joys, but please consider what side you're on. Even their father knew to stay away from Owein. Look at the pack they chose and what they've done to innocent people."
The silence on the phone was palpable. I couldn't respond.
"There's a war coming and you're on the wrong side."
That was all that I heard from Gray when Ben snatched the phone from my grip and ended the call. He must have heard the whole thing. I gaped at him and the news that Gray had just shared. I looked up at my fuming best friend and Gray's warning sounded in my head.
Was I on the wrong side?
The Joys seemed to be innocent in this equation. They were the ones being attacked, not doing the attacking. As far as I knew.
I shook my head to myself and cleared my thoughts. Of course, I trusted them. I felt in my bones that they were good. Truly and chaotically good.
"It's Owein-" I began to say but Ben held up a hand.
He pointed upstairs and I tuned in to the sound of creaking footsteps over my head. Audibly, I swallowed as I sensed darkness looming. The darkness had surrounded the Joy boys from the moment I met them, but now I wondered if it had always been Owein. Their lives seemed to be so entwined with his that, maybe, he was the disease in their lives. A tumor.
And the way to get rid of a tumor was to cut it out.
Ben's eyes connected with my own and I reached out my hand. The memories were on the edge of my mind, I felt them as though they were tipping over a ledge. All I needed was the touch of Ben's palm to my own to let the memories and images descend from my mind to Ben's.
He gasped a little as the memories of my visions of his father, of the ley lines, of Tucker illuminated behind his eyelids. I showed him all of the things I couldn't say aloud for fear of the alpha only a staircase away.
Ben pulled away as if I'd electrocuted him. "Holy shit."
"Sorry, I didn't really know how that would affect you. I've never done that before."
I smiled sheepishly at him, but he continued to look at me in pure and utter shock.
"I don't think anybody has ever done that before."
"Oh please, I'm sure your dad could do loads of things like that."
Ben shook his head. "Lou, my dad could only sense things. He could heal the occasional broken bone," he seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. "But you- the things that you can do, the healing you've done- it's not normal, even in our terms."
As much as I wanted to focus on what he said, there were more important things to be done. Preparations to be made. Mysteries to be solved. The reason why I had such unusual powers for a daemon was not the question at the top of my list. I brushed off Ben's amazement and focused on the matter at hand. The beginning of a war.
"We need to go to the Denvers campsite."
***
"No. No. Absolutely not. You are not going anywhere near that campsite."
Tucker did not seem to like the plan that Ben and I had devised earlier that evening. I was dying to ask him what he did about his girlfriend's murder-y older sister, but something told me that my questions would put him in an even worse mood than the one he was in right now.
"I'm sorry, when did you start to think that you were the boss of me?"
"It's not safe."
"See, that's interesting and all, but I'm still not hearing the reason why you think you can tell me what to do, Tucker Joy?"
Elias made a low whistle and looked back and forth between Tucker and I's stare down. Three of the five Joy boys were gathered in their small living room as I told them everything I'd found and everything I suspected. Elias was the only one who hadn't had any idea of the things that had been going on. Slowly, I'd explained that I suspected Owein of employing the hunters, including Alice Galloway, to cause a rift between the once peaceful packs.
"What makes you think that Owein wanted to cause a pack war?" Elias had asked.
I could only shrug. "I don't know. Power, I guess? I'm not sure it really matters."
All three boys had questions that I wasn't sure I could answer, but I knew what I had to do to get the answers. The method, however, was what Tucker had an issue with.
"I-" he groaned a little, "I don't want to tell you what to do. It's just...it's not safe, Lou. They were just attacked by a group of hunters. It could happen again."
"It won't."
"How do you..." Tucker looked at me, then rolled his eyes. "Never mind, I don't even want to know."
Ben swallowed a laugh but I smirked a little. The oldest Joy boy eyed the two of us warily. I didn't need his permission to go, but in a strange way, I think I wanted his help.
"Some of the members might be defensive-"
"Okay."
"People aren't used to daemons who can heal people the way you do-"
"Okay."
"It will be dangerous for Ben too-"
Ben chimed in. "Okay."
Tucker groaned and ran his fingers through his hair in barely contained anguish. Ben and I eyed each other. Elias seemed to be enjoying the exchange with his arms crossed in front of him and a shit-eating grin on his face. The boy hardly seemed to take anything seriously. He'd practically been killed a week ago and you could barely tell the difference. Tucker, on the other hand, took everything too seriously.
I brought my eyes to meet Tucker's and they were so dark that I wondered if there was any color in them at all or if they were just pits. The brown sometimes seemed to shift and morph into the dark blue eyes of the wolf. It usually happened when he was angry, and it was happening now. I sensed his stubbornness on this matter and saw the fear he was trying to hide behind his eyes.
"I need answers," I barely whispered.
There was a moment of silence between us as he searched my face with his dark eyes, hints of gold shining in the irises. Slowly, they began to shift back into the soft brown that they usually were and he shook his head a little bit.
"Fine," he sighed, resigned. "But I'm going with you."