Alek

Collapsing onto the couch, Flora pressed her palms to her face, shutting her mother and me out. "I don't know which one of you to be most upset with," she wailed.

The answer seemed easy enough to me. I might have my faults, but Val had been lying to both her and Verity for the entirety of their lives. It felt like quite the crapshoot determining whether we could trust what Val had to say now, but still, I had to ask.

Val tried to comfort Flora with a motherly pat on the shoulder, but her daughter was not having it. "Get away from me!"

I let a few seconds pass and then played my cards. "You know, Val, maybe Flora would feel better if you explained everything to her."

"I signed an NDA," Val said, as though that excused her deception.

"Pretty sure Norvin asked you in here so you could spill, or he would have found a way to keep you out."

She nodded, her mouth twitching like it had been waiting for her brain to give the go-ahead. All she needed was the excuse I'd given her to come clean.

"Here goes." She sat down next to her daughter, who scooted to the couch's far corner. "Flora, I want you to know that I always did what I believed was right, even if in hindsight, it no longer seems that it was."

Flora snorted but if she had a snarky reply, she kept it to herself.

"How much do you know about Verity's mother?" Val asked.

"We know she was a werewolf, if that's what you mean," Flora said. "We probably know a lot more than what you think we do."

"Well then, I assume you know she's still alive."

"What?" Flora stood up with enough force to make the back of the couch hit the wall. A framed picture of a group of people in old fashioned hunting outfits shook and then fell, landing next to Flora's mom. "How long have you known that?"

Val gave her another look of pity. "Since always. Aurum Venari hired me to come here once a month to check on Cora's health, run tests, and so on."

And so on. I could only imagine what those three little words entailed.

"They've been paying you? How much?"

"How do you think I was able to afford our home, Flora? Why did we always have a steady income even when I was supposedly unemployed?"

"I thought you got money from that settlement for the accident you were in."

"That accident wasn't much worse than a fender bender. I bought a new car with the payout and that's about as far as those dollars stretched. No, Aurum Venari has been our bread and butter." She cocked her head. "I guess I thought maybe you'd figured that out?"

"How the fuck would I have done that?" A plume of dust choked the air as Flora's fist hit the couch's plush arm. "You lied to me. You lied to Verity about her own mother! My god, who even are you?"

"I'm the one who loved you and took care of you. And Verity too. Did I ever treat her as anything less than another daughter?"

"That's a pretty messed up thing to say," I interjected. "Playing Verity's mom while keeping her real mom away from her."

"Yeah, what he said." Flora walked over towards me, an ally once more. "Also, I don't buy it. I think you kept Verity close because you felt guilty. What, besides the money, could possibly make you do this to her?"

"I didn't just do it for her, I did it for the world. Believe it or not, I care about Cora, but she's dangerous. She'll tell you that herself. Werewolves shouldn't be allowed to roam freely."

This woman sure had a twisted sense of logic. "Like how Chip and his pack get to go wherever they want?"

She frowned. "I was opposed to it. Opposed to all of this, really. But as for Chip, Norvin has him on a leash. He's a useful idiot."

"Idiots do idiotic things," I said, "and as far as I can tell, whatever leash Norvin had him on snapped a while back."

"Look, you two have figured out a lot but not everything. Chip loves being a werewolf but he's not a natural shifter. He relies on injections that only we can provide him with. If he acts too out of line, then we take away his abilities. Same goes for his pack."

"What about Verity's abilities?" Flora asked. "Did you know?"

Val shook her head. "She had no signs growing up. I was hopeful that what we'd done, as wrong as it had been, had worked. It seems I was both right and wrong, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I wanted her to be totally human—she isn't. Aurum Venari wanted her to be something extraordinary. Judging from the fact that we have a fully formed wolf locked in a room separated from Verity, yet the two seem intricately connected, I'd say we were successful beyond our wildest hopes."

Now we were getting somewhere. I had to keep her talking.

"Extraordinary, but according to Norvin, incredibly dangerous. Volatile."

She grimaced. "If you're talking about what happened with Edward, that was a special case. As for Verity, I've known her since she was a toddler. Personally, I don't believe she's capable of..." She shuddered. "Something so heinous."

"Then why did you kidnap her? Let her go!" Flora said. "And let her mother go too."

Val shook her head. "We must be certain. And as for Cora, she doesn't trust herself to be free."

"Because she killed my parents?" I studied Val for her reaction, wishing I could sense her emotions the way I could Verity's.

Val averted her eyes. "You don't want to dig any further into that subject, Alek. Trust me."

I snorted. "That doesn't sound at all suspicious."

Alek.

Her thoughts flittered in and out as though she was underwater.

Alek, can you hear me.

Yes. Are you okay?

That's a loaded question. I'm with my mom... who it turns out did not die.

Val just told us.

"Alek, what's going on? Why are you staring into space?" Flora waved a hand in front of me. "Count back from ten if my words make sense to you.

I caught her hand and pressed her away. "Verity."

"Verity what?"

You have to tell Flora that her mom has been lying to her.

Pretty sure she figured that out given how many times she's called Val a liar in the past ten minutes.

There was a pause. Val eyed me curiously.

Verity, we're going to get you out of here. You and your mom.

Okay, but Alek... I can't feel my wolf. She's not in my head. It's like... a part of me has disappeared.

They have your wolf. She's in a room near where you're being held.

Then why can't I connect? I should be able to see through those eyes as well as I see through these.

I'm guessing it's the tranquilizers. We have to assume that once the effects wear off, the connection will return.

What if it doesn't?

Then we'll figure out something else. For now? Let's stay focused on the plan we came up with back in LA.

Right. Keep Val talking. Make it seem like you're coming around to her side. Buy me some time, okay?

I will.

"Care to share?" Val broke into my thoughts. "You're an odd one, aren't you?"

"Probably," I said, eyeing a file cabinet built into the overcrowded bookshelf. "Val, you mentioned someone named Edward earlier. Am I to assume he's the Next Gen wolf who went on a killing spree a while back?"

Val turned away, her eyes filling with tears. She nodded. "I don't have many regrets, but what happened with him... We should have known better."

If this Edward guy was truly the reason Norvin believed I should feel justified in locking up Verity the rest of her life, I needed to know as much as possible.

Shoving my revulsion for what Val had done into the pit of my stomach I lowered myself into a chair and motioned for Flora to do the same. "Tell us everything. We're listening."

___

Author's Note: So... it appears that Alek is helping Verity. Does he still carry some doubt as to whether or not she might still be dangerous? What will Val tell them about Edward that might confirm this, one way or the other?

Only a few more chapters left to go!