DENSE || LYDIA MARTIN [1]

||3||

CHAPTER 3 || AYALA

——

"SO I DON'T suppose you did much reading yesterday," I greet my father that morning, where he, like myself, is an early riser much unlike my Mom and Ally.

He sips his black coffee, lifting an unimpressed eyebrow my way.

"I had a lot of time on the plane- very boring," i explained and he nodded, a small noise of understanding passing his lips.

I, also unlike my sister, was not a reader.

"You've heard of the Hales."

A shocked sputtering fills the room, and I watch passively as my father coughs, half heartedly swiping at the wooden table with a napkin.

"I always knew you were intuitive," he surmised after a bit. "I should have known you'd be on top of it before I was."

"So you do know them." I left no room for argument.

"The Hales were once a large pack occupying this land. That was years ago." he supplied, and began to skim the paper.

I snorted, nodding with a mock cheerful tone, "Yes, before Aunt Kate decimated them."

His eyes were sharp as they met mine, and I stared back, unflinchingly.

"Ava, never accuse your Aunt of that tragedy again." His voice was soft but stern, hardened when I scoffed. "We are hunters- not killers. You know the code."

"We hunt those who hunt us." I recited.

"Not innocents. That house," he paused, looking sick. "That house had innocents."

He folded the paper before pushing himself up. "The Argents did not cause that massacre, and you will not go around speaking that."

Shocked at his hard tone, I nodded. "I won't.."

He stopped, eyes searching my impassive expression before nodding. "Good."

My eyes fell to the headline on the newspaper my Dad placed in front of me. "'Female Body Found Mutilated In Preserve,'" I read aloud. "Mountain Lion casualties increase.."

"It's a full moon this week, Ava," is my father's response. "I expect all hands on deck."

She's listed as "Jane Doe" the papers explained, unidentifiable. Ripped clean in half, and without a family to return her to. My heart clenches in my chest.

Something ripped her in half, and it wasn't a mountain lion.

"Eat something, honey, with the time it takes your sister to get up, we won't be able to stop anywhere." Dad advises, before he grabs the paper and leaves.

I could only nod absently, Jane Doe's frightened, dying expression etched in my mind.

——

"Listen, I know you said no stopping, but the Starbucks is right there! And drive thru!"