Tomorrow Never Dies (Moonlight 3)

Chapter 24-Lost Ties

When Lauchie and I arrive at our biology class the next day, I find that Kaylee is already sitting at our table. I can't help but think she looks pretty today, there's a bright purple ribbon strung through her shoulder plait and a small fake sunflower tucked into the bottom hairband. She waves us over. We join her, and I notice that Calum comes in right behind us, he barely says hello and takes his seat without another word. He's still not talking to me it seems and I know he has every right not to. Still part of me wishes I could talk to him like nothing had happened.

"Alright Luke. I have some exciting news." Kaylee grinned turning to me, she seemed to have noticed the absence of our teacher, "I've organised for us to go ice-skating on Sunday for our date. How does that sound?"

I stared at her blankly. I knew we'd talked about the date, but it seemed out of place. Now didn't exactly seem like the best time to be talking about going on dates.

"I don't know if I'm ready for that just yet. You know things haven't quite blown over." I spoke quietly, a slight hesitation to my tone.

Kaylee sighed, her gaze was nothing but sympathetic. I saw her glance back to Calum for a moment. "Look I know what's happened, but you've been walking around looking so miserable the last two days. So, I was kind of hoping that his might cheer you up." Her cheeks had turned a little bit red as she continued. "My father owns the local rink, so I can change the day if you want, but I think you need it. We don't even have to call it a date, just please come ice-skating with me."

I was silent. I had no idea how to explain to her how I was feeling. Of course, I wanted to go with her. I wanted us to have our first date. Yet there was a niggling doubt in my stomach that there were a lot of other things I should be focusing on. Finding Mei, working out if it was possible to ever get the pack back together again. In the mood I was in I wasn't quite sure I was in a going on a date mood anyway. I didn't want to say the wrong thing like I unwittingly had the other day, I'd already broken up what was left of the pack. I didn't want to lose Kaylee either before it had even begun.

"I think you should go Luke." Lauchie nodded. "Besides it'll be only for a few hours. If you're worried about something coming up news wise, then I can keep an eye on things."

I looked hesitantly between them. Kaylee's eyes were wide with pleading. Even Lauchie looked desperate for me to go with her, he gave a small nod.

I let out a long sigh. I knew I had agreed with her that we'd go out on a date. Despite my fears I did still want to go out with her. At least it would give me something to focus on rather than just the state of our pack.

"Alright fine." I nod. "This Sunday then?"

"This Sunday." Kaylee grinned her entire face lighting up.

I couldn't stop my own smile, I was looking forward to it. There's just one problem though.

I can't ice-skate.

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Lauchie was quickly turning out to be even more useful than I first thought. For the rest of that week the two of us would meet up at lunchtime and crowd around his laptop that was connected to the hunter's main system. Even Kaylee and Georgia would sometimes help us when they weren't sitting with Calum trying to cheer him up.

So far, we hadn't looked up all that much new information, Lauchie had been showing me how to use the system and updating me on all the information that he already had. Turned out he had a couple of suspicions already as to who the packs wolves were based from the ours, the witness's descriptions and his own research. One was a guy that looked like a younger less buff version of the burly guy who attacked us at the cabin house. It said he'd gone missing about six months ago. He'd last been seen at a club about two or three hours away from here. Another was a girl about a year or so older that had gone missing around the same time, last seen at a shopping mall a few hours away, there were pleas from her family to come home as they thought she'd been upset about her final year of schools' results. They could never anticipate what the real reason might be.