Moonless

Chapter 43

Marker; 3940 reads and 708 votes! We are slowly getting closer to that goal of 5,000 reads and the impossible 1,000 votes. And also...this story is finally ranked in werewolf at 508.... yeah buddy!

AN; LOLOL I lost my freaking sense of smell and now I am quarantined for the next 10 days. I would get covid right after getting the vaccine. But even if I have it right now, I am very lucky my symptoms are mild and I am in a position that I can miss work and still be fine. Anyways, enjoy this chapter. It is one of many that is about to roll your way during this quarantine.- Sam

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When I was little my favorite toy was a porcelain wolf named Gema, I used to be afraid of bees, As I had felt safe for eight years until my dad killed my mom right in front of me. But I couldn't think about the eight years I had gained back. Or the fact that my memories ended with my mom's death and began with Pine Ridge. And whatever happened in between was still missing...

But no, I had to think about the gun in the stranger's hands. I took a step back and leaned my weight on the black marble sink directly behind me.

Sunlight streamed in from a small dusty window behind me, and barely provide enough light for us to see.

"What are you doing here and who is he?" I asked and my eyes remained glued to the man standing beside her.

"First, are you okay, did he hurt you?" she asked.

"Yes. No," I replied and a look of relief crossed her face.

Annie was dressed in a flannel and a pair of jeans. Her outfit resembled how a lot of people dressed at Pine Ridge and I was pretty sure it was the same thing she had been wearing when the Alpha had shown me her on his laptop. The man beside her was dressed in a black sweater with a collar that completely covered his neck and a pair of camo pants.

Something was off about him. He hadn't blinked once since stepping into the room, and I knew an apex predictor when I saw one. He wasn't a wolf but I had a feeling he wasn't quite human either.

Who was he and why was Annie with him? Maybe I had been wrong about Annie being just a regular human. Maybe she was working for Pine Ridge after all. What other explanation was there for why she followed me here?

She opened her mouth and her eyes darted to the boy beside her. A look of uncertainty crossed her face, she began to twirl a blond curl around one of her fingers, that had escaped a scrunchy that was keeping her blonde coils at bay.

"This is my brother Aaron..." she trailed off then scowled. "And to why we are here, you are going to have to ask him that yourself because he won't tell me. In fact, he has barely spoken to me in the last 7 hours since he made me get into his car! Even though I haven't seen him in five years!"

Aaron? Wasn't Aaron Annie's older brother? The one that disappeared when he was in college for a year, only to call them, say he was alive, before hanging up? And then proceed to call them for the next four years every couple months to tell them that he was fine?

Aaron glanced at Annie before his icy blue eyes landed on me. "She's here because I had no choice but to take her with me. Trust me, I would rather have her home with our parents, but that can't happen unless I can say for sure that everything is okay first, I need to keep her with me. It seems that she poked her nose somewhere where it didn't belong. I'm here because I am looking for Liam Crest and I spotted him in the car that he was traveling in. What are you to him?"

I blinked taken aback by his question. How did he know Liam...?

Annie abruptly stopped twirling her curl and her eyes narrowed.

"Okay, you know what!?" Annie yelled and threw her hands up in the air and turned to her brother. "You don't get to ask any more questions until you answer some of mine!"

Aaron gave her an exasperated look.

Her head snapped over in my direction "And you better not answer anything!" she snarled at me.

I nodded my head slowly in response. It was better for me not to answer that question anyways. Not until I could at least assess the situation a little more.

"Good!"She turned back to Aaron and jabbed her finger into his chest. "Why did you just randomly show up at Pine Ridge? Huh? Mom and dad have been worried sick about you! And you don't even come to see them!? And if I recall correctly, you were the one that taught me to," she held up her hands and made air quotations, "always poke my nose where it doesn't belong. Question everything. Don't take things at surface level. You made me want to be a reporter, just like you were going to be before you dropped out of college and disappeared off the face of the earth! Do you even care about us anymore?" tears began to roll down her cheeks and onto the black and white tiles of the bathroom floor.

Aaron gently pushed away Annie's prodding finger."Exactly, and I stuck my nose into the wrong thing, Annie, just like you are doing now! Why do you think I don't go home!? Because I don't want to!? It's because I can't."

The room grew silent, then Aaron spoke again.

"I came to Pine Ridge because of you. Someone there owed...my employer a favor. And since she knew my family lived nearby, she asked them to watch out for any of their names for my sake. I got a call because your name came up. And if I hadn't used my employer's leverage, you may not have left there...so easily."

So he didn't work for Pine Ridge, but who did he work for then? Who was this employer he kept mentioning? That didn't rule him out as a threat to me, Liam, or even Annie.

Annie sniffled and used the back of her flannel to wipe her tears. "So you came back for me?" she asked.

"Of course. I originally was trying to track down Liam Crest, but I had no idea he was here.."

Annie threw her arms around Aaron, and he awkwardly patted her on the back.

"So you do care!"

"Yeah?" he replied

I watched this touching moment between the two of them without saying anything.

This was nice and all, but was the status on my long-lost brother?

"What was that gunshot?" I asked and they both looked up at me.

I shrugged."Since we are trading questions, I figured I could ask my own."

"That was Annie," Aaron replied and Annie pulled away from their embrace. "Don't worry, she missed the wolf. I'm sorry if that alarmed you."

Annie crossed her arms over her chest. "Okay, not my fault that you wouldn't get back in the car when that giant wolf kept getting closer and closer to you! And I didn't fire at it, just close enough to scare it away!"

So Liam was okay, but why had he gotten so close to them? And where was he?

"So now that we answered your question, it is time you answer ours. Who is Liam Crest to you?"

Aaron abruptly jerked around before I could answer, just as the front door creaked open.