Purity (24 page)

Long auburn hair. Perdita’s. Swallowing hard, I held the bundle tightly, struggling to stay on my feet as the world spun on its axis. I wanted to vomit. Voices were all around me, shouting, arguing. Amelia’s hand gripped my shoulder as she whispered for me to calm down, and I realised I was one of the shouting voices.

I shook my head and glanced up to see Perdita’s father roaring at me, his face purple, his eyes darkening like a werewolf’s. I couldn’t even hear what he was saying. I just kept thinking,
why
?

And then I saw the note. “It’s not in English,” I said numbly.

Opa whipped the slip of paper out of the box. Everyone was around me: my family, Ryan, the dogs, even Perdita’s dad, who must have been outside the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of his daughter.

“They want to talk,” Opa said. “They want us to meet this afternoon, outside of town. We’re all to come. All of us.” He glanced at Perdita’s dad. “She’ll be there, too.”

“What’s going on?” Mr. Rivers demanded. “Is this a ransom note? Someone tell me where this came from.”

“Didn’t you see who left it?” I asked.

“I just got here. Someone call the police, for God’s sake!”

“No,” Byron said. “The police won’t be able to deal with this.” He glanced at me. “But we can.”

Mr. Rivers’ eyes became wilder. “Where is she? Who has her? Tell me what’s happening!”

“Come inside,” Byron said. “I’ll talk you through it.”

“No!” Opa exclaimed. “What are you thinking?”

“He has a right to know,” Byron said wearily. “It might have saved us some trouble if he’d known a while ago.”

They tried to take Perdita’s hair from me, but I couldn’t unclench my fist.

“He’ll be okay in a bit,” Amelia said, leading me into the house with firm hands. “You’ll be okay, Nathan.” Her voice sounded strange, as if my hearing was muffled.

Byron made me sit in a chair in the kitchen. Amelia made coffee and served some to everyone. Perdita’s dad drank some with shaking hands, but he never stopped glaring at me.

“Mr. Rivers,” Byron said. “Has your daughter told you anything about us? Anything at all?”

“No, she won’t talk.” But he looked eager, as if he had been waiting for that particular discussion his entire life. “Where is she? You know where she is, don’t you? That’s why the note came here. This is all about you. This has always been about you people. What have you gotten Perdy involved in?”

“You’re right,” Jeremy said in a firm voice. “This is about us. But we haven’t touched your daughter.”

“There is a man,” Byron began, “who despises our family for reasons out of our control. He sent people after your daughter when he found out she and Nathan were involved. We tried to protect her as best we could, but a man died.”

Mr. Rivers recoiled. “You killed someone?”

“No,” Amelia said softly. “Perdita did. To save my grandfather.”

He shook his head, his face paling. “What are you talking about?”

“The man she killed had a daughter,” Byron continued as if Perdita’s father wasn’t freaking out. “This daughter was one of the people who came here after Perdita. She wanted revenge, so she attacked you at our house, partly to send a message to us, but mostly to punish Perdita.”

“She set her dog on me?” He looked so confused that I felt badly for him.

“No,
she
attacked you.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that Perdita’s in the hands of dangerous people. Uniquely dangerous people. My family are the only ones who can get her back.”

“What are you, terrorists or something? None of this makes any sense.”

Byron laughed. “I know. That’s why I’m going to show you something that will hopefully explain everything.” He began to open his shirt, and Perdita’s dad looked more horrified than ever.

“It’s okay,” Amelia said. “Perdita already knows all of this. Remember that. Everything she couldn’t tell you, everything you didn’t know, today is the day. But Perdita needs you to focus, to stay strong. The only way we’re getting her back is if we all keep control. Can you do that? Can you stay calm?”

He had been watching her the entire time, drinking in her words as if trying to hear something that would finally make sense.

“Look,” I said, pointing at Byron the werewolf. “There’s your answer.
This
is the real reason why you shouldn’t let your daughter near me.
This
is what you should fear.
This
is what took Perdita.”

He stared at Byron in silence for so long, I thought he might have had a stroke or something.

“I need to get out of here,” he said at last. “I think I need to go back to the hospital or something. I think I need to…” He got to his feet and stumbled, but Ryan caught him.

“You need to listen,” I said. “You need to hear what Perdita’s wanted to tell you. We’re werewolves. The people who have her are werewolves, and the only difference between them and us is that they don’t give a crap about hurting anyone. Do you understand? She had to kill one of these werewolves to save my grandfather’s life, to stop them from coming after my little sister next. Their pack stalked Perdita for months. She’s been carrying all of this on her shoulders, and now she’s in the hands of the people who murdered my parents and my grandmother. She’s in
danger
.”

“Nathan, easy,” Jeremy said. “He’s freaking out.”

And he was. Perdita’s father opened and closed his mouth like a fish, looking as if he wanted to vomit. “This isn’t real,” he said through clenched teeth.

Byron changed back and dressed hurriedly. “It’s very real,” Byron said. “We’re running out of time. They want to meet this afternoon. They’ll have your daughter with them. If we can attack, somehow get—”

“And risk her life?” her father bellowed. “This is my daughter you’re talking about. If any of this is anything less than some… some weird hallucination, then you’re not going to put my daughter in harm’s way. Do you understand me?”

Byron smiled, and nodded. “Of course. Do you have any questions?”

“Of course I have some damn questions!”

And so began the retelling of our entire lives and histories. At least, the quick version.

“So she’s been miserable because she hurt somebody?” Mr. Rivers finally asked. “This is what she couldn’t tell me? And yet… it sounds so familiar. Like a dream or something.”

I cleared my throat. “She kind of told you everything when you were unconscious in the hospital. Right before you woke up, actually.”

He shook his head. “Goddamn kids. My poor girl struggling with this alone, and there was I, keeping her away from everyone as if that would help her. And they still took her. She was never safe, and I had no idea.” His face turned red again. “How dare you? How dare you people put her in danger and not even warn me, not even let me know I needed to protect her? If I had known… if I had done something differently…”

“If you had been there, you’d be dead,” I said bitterly. “They wanted her for a reason, and nobody was going to stop them. They were going to keep trying until they got her. I guess we’ll find out what their reason is at the meeting.”

“I’m going with you,” he said.

“Mr. Rivers, we—” Byron began.

“Call me Stephen, for heaven’s sake. You don’t show a man your bare arse and then call him Mister.”

Amelia covered her laughter, and even Jeremy shook silently. I shook my head in disgust. As if anything was worth laughing at.

Byron’s cheeks turned pink. “Right. Stephen, then. I don’t think it would be safe for you to be there.”

“I need her to know!” He waved his hands. “I’m sorry, but I need her to know I don’t blame her, that I’m not angry with her. She needs to know that I would forgive her anything, given the chance, that she can trust me to be there for her. If these people are as bad as you say they are…” He paled, swallowing hard.

“We’ll get her back,” I said. “There’s no other option.”

“Is this… is this why I’m sick? Why nobody can figure out what’s wrong with me? Is this what she meant before when she said… is this why I’m so bloody angry all the time?”

“I believe so,” Byron said. “The blood transfusion you received altered something, stopped the natural process. It’s something to do with your blood, Perdita’s too, that you both have the
potential
to become a werewolf. The wolf in us angers easily, but we soothe that by hunting, or finding our mates, or maybe even by having a certain type of wolf nearby. You can’t do any of that. The transfusion corrupted it and made it linger in your system somehow. You have to understand there’s a lot we don’t know. We’re on our own, and we’re different. What we have came from a curse.”

“A
curse
.” He sounded sceptical, despite everything we had just told him.

I laughed. “
That’s
too much? You just saw my uncle turn into a werewolf.”

“I need to understand. I still don’t know why they took Perdy.” His eyes were desperate, and I knew the feeling.

“We don’t know for sure,” I said. “All I can tell you is that this started because of the curse. We are, we
were
, rather, cursed to search for our soul mates, to be unable to keep away from them. We would fall for them, and they would be taken away. Killed. Amelia broke the curse, and I thought… I thought Perdita was safe. But she’s still my mate. Do you understand what that means? I
have
to find her. I can’t let anything happen to her. It will destroy me if she gets hurt out there. That’s how you know I’ll take care of her. That’s how you know I’ll bring her home.”

He caught my gaze and nodded. We were definitely on the same page. “I need to call people. Tell them
something
. Her grandmother, and I think her mother’s on her way back here. I can’t deal with them all.”

“You should call
Erin
,” Amelia said. “She could help you.”

“Yeah. I really should.” He nodded. “I’ll go do what I have to do, and I’ll be back. Don’t leave without me.”

“We won’t,” I promised.

Once Stephen had driven away, Opa exploded. “Have you all lost your minds?”

“What’s the point in letting the man suffer?” Byron asked. “Don’t you remember what it was like with Louis? How not knowing was worse than… worse than knowing.”

“He has no business with us. We need to fight. We need to face Vin and rip out his throat.”

I knew Opa’s anger had nothing to do with Perdita.

“If we can, we will,” Byron said. “But there won’t be a challenge unless I say so. Does everyone understand that?” But it was me he looked at.

“Fine,” I said. “If we can’t take her safely, then we won’t take her. Yet.”

Ryan was strangely silent, and that worried me.

Perdy

Something was happening. Everyone was moving and nervous. I felt as though every bone in my body might crack with the pressure.

An unwanted thought popped into my head.
Today could be the day I die.

I heard a constant ebb and flow of voices outside, and I waited for someone to come to us. We hadn’t been fed, hadn’t seen anyone since the morning. Something was rumbling under the surface, and I itched to know what was going on. I exhausted myself by fretting over it, and eventually, I sat in the corner, closing my eyes.

Finally, the door was opened. Micah walked in, and Rachel’s day was made. They gazed at each other longingly, Rachel blushing prettily under Micah’s stare, and my heart grew cold.

“How can you stare at her like that, knowing you’re forcing her to stay here to be murdered?” I spat, and he took a couple of steps backward. “You like her, don’t you? But you’ll let them kill her. My mate would rather die than let somebody hurt me. What kind of
wolf
are you?”

His eyes grew hot, just as I wanted, and I knew he would think of my words later. His expression turned stony, all wolf and anger, and it took everything I had to keep regarding him with such scorn.

“You’re all wanted by the alpha,” he said in a low voice, beckoning for us to follow as he turned to leave.

“What are you doing?” Rachel whispered as we trailed after Micah.