Page 106 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Ihaven’t been to a match in ages,” Jared said, sliding onto the bench next to me and passing me a can of soda. I looked past him, searching the crowd of familiar faces all getting ready to take their seats before the match could start. There was no sign of Clay.

I’d met up with Layla and Viv after school, hanging with them until we needed to make our way to the field for warm up.

I wanted to see how Viv was beforehand, and she seemed fine.

She told me she’d run an extra fifteen miles in the morning, and we all took off for a short sprint between the end of the day bells and the start of warm up.

I was starting to think maybe I’d overreacted, but when I mentioned to her that if she felt at all out of control that she should fake an injury or just run off-field as fast as she could, she’d gotten her hackles up.

Her eyes had sparked to light and her jaw had twitched, making me doubt my false confidence.

She was pissed at me now, of course, but it had to be said. There needed to be a backup plan, right? Just in case. Making it through practice was one thing, making it through a competitive match would be a completely other thing.

“Where’s Clay?” I asked, still trying to spot him but having no luck.

Jared shook his head, taking a small sip of his soda. “Sam took the red-eye flight last night to get permission to leave her pack. He wanted to be there at the airport to pick her up when she got back.”

I furrowed a brow, wondering why Ryland hadn’t insisted on picking her up himself.

Jared dug his phone out of his pocket and hit the side button to illuminate the screen. “He should be here, soon.”

I sighed. Good, at least he was still coming.

I’d only seen him for five minutes since we got home the night after Ry and Sam mated two days ago.

Just in passing when I got up for a glass of water in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.

He’d been passed out on the couch, his eyes ringed in dark circles and his skin bleached of color.

Dressed in loose shorts, his bare feet muddy.

I didn’t have the heart to wake him to try to get him to bed, but I’d covered him in a blanket and set a tall glass of water and a wrapped ham sandwich on the coffee table for him, hoping he would eat it before he took off again in the morning like I knew he would.

Sure enough, when I awoke this morning, he was already gone. But his water glass was empty in the sink, and I only found half of the sandwich in the trash, so at least he’d had something to eat and drink before running off again.

“When have you been to a match?” I asked, cracking open the soda and taking a long swallow, letting the carbonated sweetness take some of the edge off my panic.

“Hmmm?”

“You said it’s been a while since you’ve been to one, but I’ve never seen you at Viv’s matches before?”

“Right. It was actually Sam’s match I went to last. I went up with Clay and his Dad to Alaska about…

” he trailed off, scratching a spot on the back of his head as he considered.

“Maybe six years ago? Before Sam was turned and before Clay’s dad passed.

Sam wasn’t very good, but she was one of those kids who had to try everything. Don’t tell her I said so.”

Jared smirked, and I tried to return it with a grin that I’m sure didn’t reach my eyes.

There was something I wanted—no, needed to ask Jared, seeing as I couldn’t ask Clay.

And he’d just given me the perfect entry to that conversation.

I needed to know if what Adam told me lined up with what actually happened.

If I asked Clay now, he would know why. It wouldn’t be hard to put two and two together.

“How did Thomas Armstrong die?” I asked, sipping my soda but not tasting it as I surveyed the field, unable to look Jared in the eye.

I could feel his curiosity at the question. He was wondering why I was asking that now. And why I was asking him and not Clay. I could feel Jared’s stare as he replied, speaking the words hesitantly, as though unsure he should be the one to speak them.

“He was shot, actually. It wasn’t pack related as far as anyone knows. Just bad luck. A wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. Maybe a case of mistaken identity.”

I wondered if he actually believed that. “Did they ever catch the guy who did it?”

Jared shook his head solemnly. “Nah. I think that’s what had Clay so messed up for so long.

There was no evidence. Not even a shell casing to try to trace the gun.

Clay must have scoured that back-parking lot a hundred times looking for it, or any trace of who might’ve done it.

We tried to track by scent, too, but there wasn’t anything foreign on Tom’s clothes.

Whoever did it, did it close range, without contact, and then somehow remembered to pick up their shell casing and any evidence before they left. ”

“Convenient,” I muttered. Jared gave me a strange look.

“Was anyone with him that night?”

Jared’s face paled, and he cocked his head at me. “What’s going on, Allie?

I shook my head. “Never mind. I was just curious about what happened. That’s all.”

Jared went back to looking out over the field as Layla made her way up onto the bleachers, a takeaway coffee gripped in one hand her phone to her ear with the other. She held up her hands in a two minute gesture and continued speaking to her mother in Spanish as she sat on the bench in front of me.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, trying to quell the urge to be sick and rip out of my skin at the same time. I hoped they were too distracted to notice as the players made their way out onto the field below.

I hoped they couldn’t see how my other hand curled into the metal bench beneath me, leaving fingerprints in the ribbed metal. I spotted Clay just as he rounded the edge of the stands and glanced up at me, the mate bond having alerted me to his presence with a sharp tug at my core.

Quickly, I glanced away, afraid my eyes would be a dead giveaway.

The stories matched up. Exactly what Adam told me was what happened to Clay’s father. Except Jared and Clay and most everyone else in the Forest Grove pack were missing one vital piece of information—who was to blame for his death.

Had Clay just handed his baby sister off to the man who’d killed his father?

“He manufactured his rise to power,” Adam said as I stared open mouthed and numb, pulse and mind racing with everything he’d told me. “And don’t think he won’t do whatever it takes to keep that position.”

“Hey,” Clay grunted, sitting heavily next to me on the opposite side to Jared.

I swallowed back bile and lifted my soda to my lips, sipping a bit to wet my parched throat. “Hey,” I croaked, choking on the carbonation.

“Everything good?”

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat and attempting to lengthen my spine. “How are things with Sam?”

Clay bristled, turning to train his focus on the field as the whistle blew for the first face off. I searched for Viv and found her in her usual attack position. Winced. I’d warned her to take it easy, but this game was going to be the real test.

She was stronger now. Faster. If we were being honest, she had a super unfair advantage, and it was going to be incredibly hard for her not to use it—to tamper herself down to the level of the other mortal players.

“Good I guess,” Clay grunted with a curl in his upper lip.

“She’s moved in with Ry already,” he added, his face contorting as he spoke.

I tried not to gag.

At least everything was all right, and Sam was okay…for now.

I reached over and gave the rigid hand on his thigh a squeeze, reminding him to relax.

He did, his body unfurling under my touch.

I could tell he didn’t exactly want to talk anymore about it—at least not right now, so I dropped it until a time when we could have a more open conversation.

As it was, I could tell Jared was more focused on what we were saying than the players below.

“Are you staying home tonight?”

Clay nodded gravely. “Yeah. She told me to quit babying her.”

Layla hung up her call just then and turned to face us. “I got out of babysitting later,” she announced. “Want to do shakes and fries from Gerry’s after the game?”

This time, my grin was genuine. We hadn’t been to Gerry’s Shake Shack since ninth grade. My mouth watered instantly at the mention, the phantom taste of creamy strawberry and salty grease coating my tongue. “Sounds fucking amazing.”

Layla laughed. “Thought you’d be down for that. What about you two? You both look like you could use a pick me up. No offense.”

“None taken,” Jared said with a grin. Clay growled.

“They’ll both come,” I decided for them. “No one turns down Gerry’s.”

A whistle blew below, and the four of us turned our attention back to the game in time to see Viv skid to a stop downfield. She’d been going fast. Maybe a bit too fast.

I caught her eye from the bleachers and made a turn it down motion with my hand. Her lips tightened, but she nodded before moving into position for the next face-off.

“Okay so far?” I asked Jared, since he was the one who’d seemed to be paying the most attention since the game began.

He licked his lips and readjusted himself in the seat. “For the most part,” he said in a low voice. “Though I caught a little bit of glow when that chick—number 18— checked her from behind, but she snuffed it out quick.”

“That’s good, right?”

The question was meant for Jared, but it was Clay who answered, giving me whiplash when I whirled my head back in his direction. “This is fucking stupid,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Why did no one tell her this was a dumb fucking idea?”

“I tried,” I argued.

“Well, it won’t end well,” Clay predicted. “She may get through this game, but eventually, something will happen.”

“You don’t know what for sure,” Jared came to Viv’s defense, and I loved him for it, even though a part of me worried Clay was right.

“Don’t I?” Clay snapped. “Don’t you remember senior year?”