Jon growled but pulled back, glaring at Robby.

  I looked over at Gwen, who had a couple of things in her hands she must have picked from outside. One was purple, one looked like straw or weeds, and one was a white bell-shaped flower. I had no idea what any of these things were, but Gwen seemed to, and she was tearing them apart and putting them into what looked like a special bowl I hadn’t noticed her pull out before.

  “So,” Robby said, glancing over at Jon once he positioned himself next to Gwen, “what’s the plan, furball?”

  Jon’s jaw ticked but he managed to keep any snarky insults to himself. “It’s not that complicated,” he said. “As soon as we can, we leave.”

  “That’s the plan?” Robby asked doubtfully, arching a brow. “You know, I’m not so sure I trust you to run operations here.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask you to come along,” he said.

  “Someone has to watch your ass,” Robby replied.

  “Boys,” Gwen said, looking up from the bowl. “I need you, Robby, to get my amethyst and my clear quartz from the room. Jon, I need you to try and have a more positive vibration, okay? I can’t have any negative energy throwing off the location.”

  I nearly laughed. Jon and a positive vibration? I wasn’t sure it was possible.

  “Robby,” Jon called, just as Robby emerged from the door. “Since I’m supposed to be positive and shit: to answer your question, we leave as fast as we can, we kill the old man, and then we leave. That’s it. That’s the plan.”

  Robby nodded. “I can do that.”

  If only it were as easy as it sounded.

  Chapter 24

  The goodbye was quick.

  There was no lingering, no teary eyes. There were no promises of hurrying or anything else.

  Jon pulled me to him, kissed my forehead, and left. That was it. That was his form of goodbye.

  Gwen promised she’d watch over everyone and Robby kissed my cheek.

  I was alone.

  I had no idea where Gwen was going to scry. I thought for sure she was going to do it here, before they left, so they had a destination before they piled into the car. But maybe she didn’t do that on purpose. Maybe she went out of her way to scry somewhere else so I wouldn’t know where they were going in the first place.

  For the first few minutes, I did nothing but pace up and down the living room of the cottage. Nervous energy bundled up inside of me, causing my heart to skip every few beats. I tried to ignore it, tried to think about something else, but I couldn’t. It was too difficult for me to do.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “You have to get a grip on yourself because this isn’t healthy. You’re going to burn a hole through the carpet and stress yourself out. You need to figure out a way to distract yourself. Immediately.”

  But how?

  The advice was sound. Of course it was. But it wasn’t like Robby had a television where I could plop down onto a couch and watch. I could look around for a book or two, but even that would be difficult to get sucked into since I highly doubted Robby was into serial killer biographies or young adult fantasy.

  What about your article?

  I stopped pacing and teased that thought out slightly.

  My article.

  I hadn’t planned on writing one, but maybe I needed to. Since this was supposed to be it, no matter what, maybe I needed to figure out some kind of way to get the information here to the public.

  But how would I go about doing that? I didn’t have a laptop. I wasn’t sure if Robby did, considering how paranoid he was.

  But no.

  This was Robby, and his entire career was built on using a computer to break into someone else’s stuff. There had to be one here.

  I stopped pacing and went into the bedroom. Besides a small desk and the bed itself, there was no furniture for me to be aware of. I looked in the desk, in every drawer, but I couldn’t find it. I looked in the closet, in the corners, and on top until my fingers brushed a smooth, flat surface…

  And there it was.

  I pulled out the laptop. It was an older model. I would be surprised if it even worked, but the least I could do was try. I brought it to the desk in the room and plugged it in before booting it up.

  My cell phone blared. I wasn’t surprised to find that it was Robby himself.

  “Did you just open up my laptop?” he asked.

  “How would you even know that?” I retorted as the login screen came on and a password box popped up. “What’s your password?”

  “That hasn’t changed.”

  I hesitated. I knew what his passwords were from when we were dating. It was his middle name combined with mine and our anniversary with an exclamation point after it. I typed it in and was immediately welcomed to the screen.

  I didn’t want to say anything in regards to that. Robby was much more careful than allowing the same password to linger on his devices for more than two or three months, usually faster than that. This was probably an oversight since he hadn’t been to the cabin in a while and hadn’t had the chance to update it.

  At least, that was what I hoped.

  I didn’t want to read too much into the fact that this password lingered or that it even meant anything.

  “Okay,” I forced myself to say. “Thanks.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “You know just going online –”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I have this story I need to get out. I have no intention of connecting to anything. Even if I did, it’s not like there’s any wifi around anyway.”

  “There are satellites,” Robby said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Do I know how to connect to those?” I asked.

  “Fair point.”

  Another hanging silence lingered between us. There was too much I wanted to ask, and they couldn’t have been gone for more than ten minutes. I started fiddling with my cross as I opened up a Word Doc before double-checking that the laptop hadn’t already connected me automatically to something without me knowing about it.

  “How are you guys?” I asked, deciding to fill the silence.

  “You know, we just left a few minutes ago,” Robby said. “Miss us already?”

  I could hear Jon mutter something in the background and I rolled my eyes. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll go. But I just want it noted that you called me, okay?”

  “To make sure my computer was okay.”

  “Great.”

  “Hey, Lara,” Robby said.

  “What?”

  “We miss you too.”

  I grunted and hung up the phone before I thought to do anything else. It was stupid, but there was that voice in my head, the one that said there was a chance they might not all come back. Maybe they would, and I would hold onto that for as long as I could.

  But they might not come back, and that was something I didn’t want to ruin with words.

  Instead, I set the phone down and looked at the blank sheet of paper. It was both exciting and terrifying to stare at it, and I hoped to fill it with black text as quickly as possible.

  I just didn’t know what to write.

  Every story needed to matter. It needed to be about something worth reading about. I tried opening the story with information on my grandfather, with Jon, with the experiments. But why would people care about something that didn’t actually relate to them?

  No. I had to do something else.

  I had to make it about something else.

  If I had a child, what would I tell him or her about what happened? What would I want them to know?

  I blew out a shaky breath and brought my fingers to the keyboard. And then, I began to type.

  When I was a child, my parents died in what seemed like an innocuous car crash. In fact, it was anything but.

  I wrote for two hours. The second I made it personal, the second I tore down the carefully guarded secrets I had been living with my entire life, the words poured out of me in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was like magic, like being in this zone I always wanted to stay within.

  My fingers started to ache after those two hours so I decided to take a break and pad over to the kitchen. I stretched out my neck, my back, and my stomach instantly started to rumble the second I gave it any opportunity because apparently I had been ignoring it before. I peered into the kitchen and frowned when I didn’t see anything I liked. I closed the fridge, went to the pantry, and grabbed a tangerine instead.

  I sighed. It was exceptionally quiet. I began to peel the fruit, glancing around. I still couldn’t believe Robby had this place, and thank God he did. I wasn’t sure where we would be if he didn’t. I pulled the tangerine apart and began to separate the pieces before popping the thick, crescent shape in my mouth.

  The tangy, juicy piece popped in my mouth. My shoulders sagged with something like relaxation, but that couldn’t possibly be it because there was still anxiety buzzing around inside of me, concerned about what was going to happen to Robby, to Gwen, and especially to Jon.

  I finished the fruit and continued to linger on the couch. It was only then that I noticed something odd filled the air. I couldn’t put the sensation into words. It just felt…wrong.

  It started out as a prickle at the back of my neck, then it began to sweep down my spine until I was forced to stand. Until there was too much energy inside of me to sit still.

  I should call Robby. I should make sure they were okay. Because something inside of me was unsettled about something, and I wasn’t sure what it was. And hearing their voices, knowing they were fine, would help with that.

  At least, I hoped it would.

  I moved from the living room and to the bedroom. The second I stepped in, I saw my grandfather in the corner, reading the computer with an odd look on his face.

  My heart stopped.

  I had to blink once, twice, because the sight of him in the cabin, in this room, was difficult to wrap my head around. It didn’t make any sense. Why was he here?

  How was he here?

  He didn’t even look up even though I knew he knew I had walked in the room. He didn’t seem concerned that I would try and hurt him, even after everything he had done to me, to Jon. He continued to read as though I wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me or what, but I didn’t want to linger. Maybe he had his men with him. Maybe he had come alone. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of there as quickly as I could.

  “Don’t even think about leaving,” he said as though he could read my mind.

  “How did you get in here?” I asked. “How did you even find this place?”

  He snorted, standing up straight after pushing his weight off the desk. “You think I didn’t know about this place?” he asked. “Really?”

  I chewed my bottom lip. I wasn’t sure what to say to that. This wasn’t my cabin. It was Robby’s. And I expected Robby knew exactly how to hide such a thing from others, especially the government.

  “Robby Hart thinks he’s clever, and I’ll give it to him, he is, but he’s not as clever as I am,” he said.

  “What do you want?” I managed to get out. My voice shook, which I hated, but I couldn’t stop that even if I wanted to. “How did you get in here?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot. “The window.” He nodded over at the sliding glass door. “We’ve been keeping tabs on the cabin once we knew you stayed here. I had a feeling you were coming here to heal, to rest, and then Hawkins would be back at it, getting his revenge and whatnot. I was surprised when Hart and his little witch went with him, though it worked out perfectly for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I came here to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you know why,” my grandfather said. “I think there’s some unfinished business.”

  “I’m not going to be some experiment for you to work on,” I snarled, taking a step back. “I don’t understand you. First, you want info on Jon and what he can do, promising the cure if I get that to you. Now, you want to use an advanced serum on me?”

  “Project Moonshade,” my grandfather said.

  “Moonshade?”

  My grandfather smirked. There was something about him that completely shifted when he did so. He went from a man who one might be able to trust, someone that could be mistaken for a regular grandfather who shopped at Kmart and got burgers after church every Sunday. But when he smirked, my grandfather was the blade of a knife, sharp and dangerous. There was no mistaking him for what he really was.

  I straightened. I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what that was. Jon left to go kill him. That was how he intended to end things. What happened when Jon realized he wasn’t there? Maybe if I called Robby again. But my grandfather was clever. Wouldn’t he know?

  My phone was in my pocket. My grandfather was too busy taking care of observing the room and engaging in his pacing to really notice. Maybe if I pulled out my phone, instead of calling Robby, I could record him. I could pick up what he was saying in order to use it to pepper my article with the truth.

  I kept warring with myself back and forth. Certainly something could be done. I couldn’t just stand here and let him do whatever he wanted. This was my grandfather. I felt some sort of responsibility for what he was doing. And I needed it to stop.

  Slowly, so very slowly, I reached behind my back and pulled out my phone. I knew it as well as I knew my cross. I could log in without looking. My only issue was ensuring I was recording. I didn’t think I could do that without verifying it.

  But, I had to try.

  I had to take a chance.

  And if my grandfather gave me one, I would take it.

  “I told you I was going to get information on Hawkins,” my grandfather said as though it was obvious. “I told you I was going to improve the project. Make the serum better. And that’s what I did.”

  I logged in. My eyes were firm on my grandfather. Currently, he had gone back over to the laptop. I was surprised it had yet to fall asleep.

  “Your article leaves out quite a few details,” he remarked. “How I want to help my country, to protect its people.”

  I was sure my fingers had made it to the home screen, but now, I had to get to the camera portion…

  How?

  How could I make sure I did that?

  I eased next to the bed and placed the phone flat on the mattress. My back covered it, and to anyone else, it looked like I was sitting. Like nothing untoward was taking place.

  His eyes still flitted back and forth as he read the screen.

  I could ease my torso around. It was only three buttons…

  I had to do it. I had to try. And if he found out…well…

  So, I did everything as fast as I could. I turned. I tapped the camera, the video, and the red button to record, and then I looked back at my grandfather. My heart raced against my chest. I was sure sweat beaded down my neck.

  But he hadn’t even looked in my direction. His eyes were still fixed on the computer screen.

  “You’re quite the talented writer,” he said. “It’s a shame that’ll go away.” Now, he did look at me. I had no idea if the phone would catch what he said, but it didn’t matter. I needed the information. I needed to get the truth out to the public. “My serum will break you down, unfortunately. We have to get you at your lowest point before we can build you back up.”

  “It’s not even your serum,” I said, remembering what Gwen said a while ago. “You took a Lycan, a real, natural Lycan, and you looked into its body chemistry.”

  “I did,” my grandfather said. He placed his hands behind his back and paced the length of the room. It was small, his presence overwhelming me. I didn’t like that he came close to me, even though he wasn’t going out of his way to touch me. It bothered me. “I think it was a genius idea on my part. Everyone looked to technology, to our advanced development. I, on the other hand, looked at nature, at what was already around us, and decided that was what we could weaponize. Why build something from the ground up when we could build something, make it better, than we already had?”

  “That man,” I said. “Alex. He’s a real Lycan , isn’t he? He’s not your experiment. He’s who you based the experiment on.”

  “Ah, yes, you met him when you were in the lab,” my grandfather said. Finally, he turned from the computer and began to walk towards me. If he saw the phone…

  “And you used Alex as your basis for what you did to Jon,” I continued, trying to choose my words carefully. “You found him in combat too. Jon shouldn’t be held accountable for the havoc on Perry. It should be you. You ordered his unit dead. You brought him back to life. You injected him with that serum and made him what he is. This is all you.”

  There was no way for me to hide it.

  I ignored the way my heart skipped a beat, ignored the way his eyes narrowed. There was no way he could know.

  “And I would do it again and again and again if it meant our nation was protected by any threats, domestic or worldwide,” my grandfather said. “Sacrificing a few is nothing. I would sacrifice more if I had to.”

  “But how can you think that if you’re trying to save the country by sacrificing its people?” I asked. I tried to scoot the phone back without being obvious, hoping I could get it under a pillow, but I didn’t think that was going to happen.

  “I think it’s time we ended this conversation and finished what we started,” he said. “If you come willingly, it would make everything so much easier, for both our sakes.”

  “And that’s what I’m supposed to do?” I asked, an edge to my voice. “Make life easier for you?”

  “I suppose not,” he said. “But I thought I’d ask. It’d save me the trouble of using unnecessary force. If you would just comply…”

  And before I realized what he was doing, he grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and threw me to the floor.

  Chapter 25

  All I could think about was the phone.

  He was going to see the phone. I knew he was. I couldn’t let that happen. But when I flipped around, he hovered over me. His periwinkle blue eyes were on me. Not the bed. Which meant he had no idea about the phone. At least, not yet.