Elysian House: Silver Bullet (2)

Chapter 16: The Innocent One

I'm sorry I've been so absent the past few weeks, I've been having emotionally problems lately. But thank you for your patience.

---

"They're after you," Winter said to me later on that day. She was pacing the room, back and forth, biting down on her lip. I knew she was troubled. "This is not good."

I shrug my shoulders. "They're just Bittens, Winter. We can handle them. With the amount of Guards here, I don't think we'll have any trouble keeping them out."

"It isn't the Bittens I'm worried about. I'm worried about who sent them." She confesses and sits herself on the edge of the desk, facing me. "I'm worried that Snow has found out that Rowan is back."

My chest clenches hard. I did not like the sound of that. I'd spent so much time being undercover and being safe because Snow had no clue of my existence. If she found out now, she could send a whole Italian army to the Elysian House. That did not sound pleasurable at all. "What do we do?"

She pauses and thinks. As well as I. I had no idea what step to take now. I knew I had to find this kid, since he probably knew more about the prophecy than anyone. But I didn't know where to find him. And now, if Snow knows, it won't be a walk in the park to do anything. She'll probably constantly be sending assassins after me. Or... bounty collectors? Those Bittens didn't say they wanted to kill me, I think they wanted to take me to their client, who could have been Snow.

"I know what we need to do."

I look up. 

Winter was behind her desk, throwing books all around and shoving piles of papers out onto the desk. I scratched at my neck nervously, noting the catastrophe that Winter called a desk. Seriously, you'd think she'd be a bit more organized than that. But that wasn't the case at all. 

She brought up a book and sighed in victory. She placed it down on the desk and plopped herself down in the chair. Quick as she could, she was flipping through the pages in the book, searching for something. 

"I made a note in here somewhere..." she said, but I think she was talking to herself more than to me. Finally, she stopped flipping and pointed. "Here it is, the 'Island of the Dead'."

The name alone gave me the impression it wasn't a friendly place to go to vacation with the family. 

"What is that?" I asked.

She looks up at me through her lashes. "Fifteen years ago, we got a mysterious call from a disturbance out in the Pacific. The unidentified caller said it was something supernatural and that was right up our departments alley." She turned the book over to me and I looked down at the yellowed pages.

The photo of the disturbing island distant on the sea was covered in mist, a large, jagged mountain was in the center, and there were thick trees dotting its landscape. I ran my hand down the page and saw the note Winter had written beside one of the passages.

"Possible rogue hideout?" it said.

"I sent a troop of twenty six men to check it out," Winter continued, causing my head to lift. "Fourty eight hours later, I received a call." 

"Who was it?"

"I don't know," she says, "I thought it was the first caller, but I later found out it was a sickly police officer off duty, who simply had some concerns." She sighs and rests in her chair, thinking back on the event fifteen years ago. "It may have been one of the officers. But the point isn't who it was, but what they said."

I waited patiently, glancing back down at the image of the island on the page. A chill ran down my spine. 

"The caller said, 'On the Island, nobody returns'. Our boat was later discovered by a coast guard. All twenty six men were missing. But there was no sign of a fight, a struggle, or even any intruders on board. They all just... vanished."